January 14, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of The Voices of Business, co-host Joshua Maddux welcomes Austin Boggan, Director of Operations and Close Protection Agent at J Blair Group. Austin shares his fascinating journey from event security during high school to serving in the Marine Corps, working with SpaceX, selling luxury properties, and ultimately transitioning into the private security sector. Join us as Austin discusses his career, the evolving security industry, and the critical importance of transferable skills in business and life.
What You Will Learn:
- How Austin’s early experiences shaped his career in protective services.
- Insights into working at SpaceX and handling high-level security operations.
- The importance of transferable skills across different industries.
- Current challenges and trends in the private security sector.
- How customer service plays a pivotal role in high-stakes environments.
Episode Highlights:
[00:02:00] – Austin shares how a high school coach introduced him to event security.
[00:04:58] – Transitioning from studying biology in college to joining the U.S. Marine Corps.
[00:08:13] – Working at SpaceX: A deep dive into security at a high-tech company.
[00:11:19] – Austin’s unexpected stint in real estate and luxury property auctions.
[00:18:51] – The cross-country road trip that reignited his passion for protective services.
[00:24:00] – Joining J Blair Group and stepping into the role of Director of Operations.
[00:30:28] – The importance of problem-solving and adaptability in security roles.
[00:34:47] – Overcoming mistakes through meticulous planning and customer service.
Featured Quotes:
- “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” – Austin Boggan
- “Whether it’s the U.S. military or selling mansions, at a high level, it’s the same skill set.” – Joshua Maddux
- “Experience matters more than anything. You learn the most by getting out there and making mistakes.” – Austin Boggan
Resources Mentioned:
- J Blair Group – Visit the website for more information on private security services.
Social Media Links:
The Voices Of Business:
SCV Chamber:
Corey Nathan:
Joshua Maddux:
Thank you for tuning in! See you next time on The Voices of Business!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joshua Maddux (00:06):
Awesome.
Welcome back to the Voices ofBusiness, a Santa Clarita Valley
Chamber of Commerce podcast.
It's good to be with you.
I'm your co host, Joshua Maddux.
Uh, Corey Nathan is out.
Um, we're not sure where he is.
He's still lost somewhere.
Uh, last week he was, or lastepisode he was on the phone.
Five freeway.
He might still be there.
We don't know.
(00:26):
Uh, this is where we talk aboutbusiness in the Santa Clarita Valley
and really all over the country.
Um, but today we are going to havea discussion with the director of
operations and close protection agent,Austin Boggan of the J Blair Group.
Good to have you on the show.
Austin Boggan (00:45):
Thanks for having me, man.
It's a pleasure to be here andit's great to see you again.
Joshua Maddux (00:48):
Yeah, likewise, likewise.
Um, so you went to the sameuniversity as I did as I was, as
I was, uh, diving in this way.
Yeah, we both went to, both went to ULV.
Uh, now, now were you local oncampus or were you, uh, one of their,
(01:11):
what, 35 different remote sites?
Austin Boggan (01:14):
They've got satellites everywhere apparently.
I was on site.
I was up there in the city of Laverne.
Joshua Maddux (01:19):
Okay.
I did the, uh, business extensionat the College of the Canyons career
or university center or whatever.
And so my, my first time on campuswas graduation day, which was very
confusing because people, you know,I was like, where's this building?
Um, they're like, you're graduatingfrom this school and you don't
know where buildings are.
(01:40):
Great.
Um, so it made it, madeit really interesting.
Austin Boggan (01:44):
Phenomenal place.
I, I really loved it up there.
Beautiful spot to be really mellowkind of small town, but, uh, yeah.
Interesting fact.
I didn't know that.
Joshua Maddux (01:53):
So as.
You know, looking at sort of your,uh, college, uh, career there, you
started in, uh, some event management.
Was that during, duringcollege in Laverne or?
Austin Boggan (02:12):
Yeah.
So my, what was my protective servicescareer started in high school.
Actually, I had a, a high schoolstrength and conditioning coach
for our football team program.
The floor at some fairlylarge concert venues.
And he was like, Hey, you'rea fairly large individual.
Why don't you come helpme out this summer?
And I was, you know, I was 18.
Uh, so that's actually where I started.
So that that's the event securitystuff that you'll probably see
(02:35):
floating around just in the pits, youknow, concerts, try to manage large
crowds and enjoy the show without,you know, showing it on your face.
Joshua Maddux (02:46):
Got it.
So, so you started right out of, rightout of high school or in the high school
still in sort of in the protected space.
Um, how did that sort of shape thatcareer path and that trajectory
as you headed towards college?
Austin Boggan (03:02):
Yeah, so I actually didn't think it was something that
would be a long term play for me.
I, I think, Most people that knowme would say that I've always had
kind of a protective instinct.
I was always kind of a largerkid and I had friends that, you
know, sometimes got picked on.
So I was very inclined tomake sure that they didn't.
Um, so to say, you know, it was,I grew up in a very small rural
(03:22):
town and bullying was a thing.
Still is a thing.
It's probably going tobe a thing for some time.
Um, but, you know, the onlything you can do is kind of put
a stop to it when you see it.
So, Um, yeah, that's where it started.
I, I went to college atthe university of Laverne.
I was a biology major.
Uh, I wanted to go into a medicaltrack and the, it's kind of a weird
transition, but in high school I had afootball injury where clavicle basically
(03:46):
exploded inside of my body and it wasa little bit life threatening and they,
an orthopedic surgeon at the universityof Stanford, uh, shout out and saved my
life, uh, and put me back together inone piece, at least for the most part.
And so I was like, man, that was.
It was an incredible experience.
He definitely helped me out.
I didn't think I was going tobe able to play ball again.
Didn't think I was going to beable to do very many physical
(04:08):
things again after that.
And, uh, he got me on my feet.
So I was like, I, I could do that.
So biology was actually mymajor of choice in college.
Joshua Maddux (04:16):
Got it.
Got it.
So didn't necessarily see the protectiveservices as a career path, which, you
know, there's, it, it, there's so manycareers that aren't on the standard
You know, college list necessarily.
Um, but definitely, definitely a choice.
(04:37):
Um, so left, left Laverneand headed to the military.
Um, so did some, did some protectiveservice, uh, went to school and then
a little bit more, uh, protectiveservice with, uh, A little bit
more advanced training, I'd say.
Austin Boggan (04:58):
Yeah, we, we, we stepped it up a notch for sure.
Just,
Joshua Maddux (05:01):
just a notch.
Austin Boggan (05:02):
Yeah, like I said, it was a very high school.
It was a very rural town.
I grew up in the town of PasoRobles, California on the central
coast, which is known for its winenow, but when I grew up there, it
was mostly dirt, um, and football.
That was kind of the feeler of town.
It's an agriculture, reallygreat people up there.
Um, so like I said, I didn'treally see it in the cards.
Um, it was just somethingthat I was doing to, you know,
make some money as a teenager.
(05:24):
Um, went through thebiology thing at Laverne.
Got about three and a halfyears through with that.
And, um, had some, some personal lifeinstances happen where I was like, I
need to, uh, I need to toughen up a bit.
I need to get myself under control.
I need to find some purpose.
And so, um, you know, so me and my buddiesin high school had always talked about
(05:46):
joining the military because that's one ofthe few career paths that you had at that
point, coming out of a very small town,you go to work in agriculture, you join
the military, maybe a lot of fortunate.
That's kind of how you think.
Um, and so lo and behold, I, uh, raninto a recruiter's office and said,
Hey, let's, let's do this thing.
So I embarked with the United StatesMarine Corps, uh, in June of 2016.
Joshua Maddux (06:09):
And then served, served a few years there, uh, came home and
decided that, you know, the finalfrontier was the right place to be?
Austin Boggan (06:21):
Yeah.
I mean, I enjoyed that a lot.
My time in Marine Corps was, I mean,you could go on that topic for days.
It's a double edged sword.
It's some of the most miserabletimes you'll ever have, but some
of the best times you'll ever have.
Some of the most romantic things I've everdone in my life were with a bunch of other
dudes walking into the sunset on somemountain somewhere, some ridge, um, you
(06:44):
know, so, make some be the best friendsI've ever had in my life, just suffering
together, getting better, training, doinghard things, and obviously learned quite
a bit about protective security and, youknow, You know, how to defend positions
and different kinds of things like that.
Lots of training goes in there.
So yeah, I got out and, um, thecircumstances of me leaving the military
(07:05):
were actually not, uh, on my own terms,I got medically, uh, separated for an
injury that I sustained on a deployment.
Nothing crazy, you know, I'm not, Ididn't sustain any injuries like a lot
of guys would in a combat zone, but itwas something where the Department of
the Navy wasn't willing, uh, despite allof my appeals, uh, to let me continue.
(07:25):
So just under four years, uh, I departedand I was like, well, I wasn't done,
you know, I wasn't done with that.
So I have to find, I have to find thething that's going to continue to put
some electricity in my bones and that Ienjoy doing, and that'll let me travel
and, and fulfill the Like the kindof desire that I have to help people.
And so, uh, that, that was thetransition for me and the protective
(07:48):
services on the private sector.
Joshua Maddux (07:51):
Got it.
And then when you, when you leftthe military or, you know, separated
there, um, you landed at SpaceX.
Is that?
It did.
What, what was the, whatwas the direction there?
Was that continued,continued, uh, security or?
Austin Boggan (08:13):
It was.
Yeah.
So SpaceX was at a point in 2019where they were formally contracting
security for their site, for theirheadquarters in Hawthorne, California.
And, um, yeah, as with anythingelse, you can have quality control
issues, but it was such a nuancedspace with what was going on there.
I mean, it's an Very heavily regulatedindustry and facility if you're
(08:37):
building rockets domestically,because a lot of people want that
information and that technology.
And so security is a very large pieceof a business like that, and they wanted
to bring a security team in house.
And so, I got a call from one of themanagers over there, Landon Prairie,
who's a phenomenal individual.
And he was like, Hey, I know youjust got out, um, if you want to give
(08:57):
this thing a shot, we're buildinga team here and we can really use
some help and, you know, fantastic.
You know, that allowed me to learn alot, you know, intertra international
trafficking of arms regulated facilities.
There's a lot that goes into it.
And so, different routes of security,you know, driving pressurized rocket
tubes around the country a little bit.
(09:17):
That could level a smallcity of tips, you know?
Joshua Maddux (09:22):
And you definitely had a little bit of, uh, formal training,
uh, having been in the military.
Like, I know oftentimes, uh, manufacturingor companies that are doing government
contract Like hiring guys who've hadthat experience because they're like,
you understand what it looks like.
You understand the formal training.
(09:43):
You've been in the field.
Like you have some of thesecurity clearances already.
Like you're, you're 90percent of the way there.
There might be some.
You know, little things thatthey need to do, but it gets you.
Yeah,
Austin Boggan (09:54):
definitely some refinement and some kind of what we call SOP,
some standard operating proceduresthat are specific to that industry.
You know, you gotta know what an ITARregulated piece of equipment looks like.
You can't just leave rocket pieceslaying out in public, you know?
Um, so some nuance there for sure, butthere was a lot of transferability, um,
and it gave me some stability comingright out of the military, which I was
(10:15):
super grateful for, and it allowed meto kind of reset and decide what route
I wanted to go, um, while I was there.
That's kind of where I got my.
Secondary piece of exposure to securityon the personal side as well, because
obviously there's the site of, youknow, SpaceX and next door, which
is a Tesla facility, um, and thenuance and technicality that goes
(10:37):
with what happens in that facility.
But there's also, you know, executives,there's, there's boards and there's
people who need to be protected as well.
And so, that, that was somesecondary exposure post, post
military to that kind of thing.
And that's kind of more where I am now.
Joshua Maddux (10:52):
Yeah.
Now you, you today, um, are sort ofdirector of operation or are director
of operations with J Blair Group andyou do a lot of like close protection,
um, you know, with, with your guys asclients, but between SpaceX and there,
you had a little bit of a, of a gapthere, uh, which you worked with an
(11:16):
auction house or an auction company.
Um, Selling mansions?
Or was that protection detail forthose who I imagine, you know, when
you're selling a hundred million dollarproperty, there's some assets that
need to be, uh, protected and covered.
Austin Boggan (11:37):
There are, but fascinating enough, that wasn't my role.
I was selling those properties.
Um, I was an auction representativethere, so basically the story
here, and I'll keep it short,um, but really great times there.
My neighbor, uh, when I was workingat SpaceX, I was a couple years deep
there, and you know, enjoying it.
It was consistent, but I was alwaysKind of curious about other industries.
(11:59):
And, you know, I had some briefexposure to sales training
when I was out of high school.
Um, and I was kind of like,well, that sounds fun.
Basically the job description that myneighbor had given me, he said, if we're
looking for some people and basically thejob is we have properties that sell all
over the world and we have to find buyersfor them because they go up at auction.
So we have to saturate these,the pipelines with buyers to
(12:22):
come bid on these properties.
We need people who you can droppretty much in the, anywhere in
the country, anywhere in the world.
And they can go figure out who theyneed to talk to, where they need
to be to find these high net worthindividuals to bid on these properties.
Similarly, kind of a little bitsimilar to the military, it's kind
of like you can get dropped anywhereand you just have to figure it out.
You gotta look at your surroundings,read the room, see who you, you
(12:46):
know, uh, make some educated guesseson who you might need to talk to,
who you might need to befriend.
Uh, instead of overthrowinggovernments, it was to sell houses.
So that's kind of the,what happened there.
And it was, it was a fun time.
It was a really fun time.
And there's some great people doing that.
Joshua Maddux (13:01):
And that, that to me right there is what's so amazing is the
fact that like the transferable skillsof being in the U S military versus.
Selling a multi million dollar mansion.
Like there are transferable skills,which like at a high level, like when
you think about it, you're like, howthe heck, but yeah, being, being ready
(13:23):
to be dropped in any environment,being able to figure out who that.
Target quote unquote is in eitherone of those environments like,
and, and move forward with that.
That's funny.
Yeah,
Austin Boggan (13:39):
no, it's wild.
You should see, I mean, some of thelooks I got, cause I take, I look
for my transferable skills and decidewhere I can apply them all the time.
Cause if you're not growing,you're not dying, you're dying.
Right.
It's kind of like you have toapply everything you have if
you're going to move forward.
And so I got a lot of funny looks, uh,in the real estate and auction world.
When, you know, I was getting assignmentsout in Pennsylvania or wherever it may
(14:03):
be, California, and I started buildingtarget packages on individuals that I
think might be a good fit to bid on thisproperty, they're like, That is weird.
You shouldn't be buildingtarget packages on civilians.
That's an interesting thing to do.
I was like, there's no action here,it's just, I want to go meet them and
this is the way that I'm going to do it.
We have a mutual friend in commonand, you know, you have to be
able to finagle that a little bit.
Joshua Maddux (14:25):
Yeah, you're finding who you're taking to dinner and
informing about the property.
Austin Boggan (14:31):
Exactly.
Just a different approach,but it's the same thing.
Joshua Maddux (14:35):
Yeah, it totally is.
There's a, there's a client of ours.
That's an architect and they approachedus and he was like, Hey, I want to
run Facebook ads to get clients.
And I was like, that's a terribleway to spend your marketing
dollars as an architect.
And I was like, better idea.
You have to eat lunch, have yourassistant contact every general
(14:56):
contractor in the area and.
Anyone who builds the type of houses thatyou would design, take them to lunch.
And so this guy, every Friday targetsone of those general, general, uh,
contractors and takes a generalcontractor to lunch every week.
(15:18):
And.
It's the same concept.
It's knowing your target, knowing who,who that is and, and acting on it.
It, it's exactly, yeah.
Whether it's to put
Austin Boggan (15:30):
it in terms, you know, to put it in terms that are
probably very relevant to you.
It's, you gotta, you just have toknow your audience and you gotta know
how to find your audience and howto get in front of your audience.
That's the, you know, I knowyou do it all the time, so I
know you understand very well.
Joshua Maddux (15:41):
Yeah.
And it doesn't matter if it's the U.
S.
military or selling mansions or, yeah.
Um,
Austin Boggan (15:50):
That's crazy.
It's the same thing, right?
Totally.
Joshua Maddux (15:52):
I mean, yeah, at a, at a 20, 000 foot level, it, it
is, um, there's some nuances there.
Um, but you know, so, okay, so you'redone selling mansions and we're,
we're moving back to private security.
Um, obviously, you know, now with, youknow, With the Jay Blair group, like,
(16:14):
um, you know, you're running day today ops and that type of stuff now.
Um, what did that transition look like?
What, what prompted that decisionto, you know, move back into
the, the personal protection?
Austin Boggan (16:26):
Yeah, great question.
So just transparently speaking,the company that I was working for,
and again, phenomenal people, nota single negative thing to say.
Great experience.
Across the board, but they, they did getpurchased by a larger company and things
got, um, just quite a bit more corporate.
We were independent contractors thatwould get a text saying, Hey, there's a
project in this state, do you want it?
And that was it.
(16:47):
And you had six weeks to go out thereand figure out how to find six to
10 people to bid on this property.
And it transformed intosomething a little bit different.
Everyone became employees.
So there's obviously differenttax implications there.
Um, in addition to a lot moreguidelines and structure behind the job.
And then eventually I think therole that I was actually operating
and got done away with altogether.
So just early on after that acquisition,I kind of saw the writing on the wall.
(17:11):
Um, and it was like, you know, I.
I enjoy just kind of awild west style of work.
You know, I don't necessarilyneed to be the boss.
I enjoy being somewhere near the topwhere I have some decision making
power or can at least make my owndecisions on how I want to approach
something because the beauty of thatjob was location, timeline, mission.
(17:32):
Like that's it.
Go find people to buy these properties.
You're up.
That's it.
And so I had the freedom to make thosedecisions and decide what my approach
was going to be and scheme and, and,uh, you know, design my plan of attack.
Um, and so when that kind of turnedin a different direction, I was like,
well, you know, where's somewhereelse that I can still do that, but
(17:53):
that's fulfilling type work for me.
Cause selling mansions is fantastic.
And at the end of the day, sure, you'reprobably making somebody's life better,
but the easier, usually Third, fourth,fifth, six properties for folks.
It's not like you're sellingsomebody their first time property
and they're, you know, crying withthe keys and that kind of thing.
It's an investment, you know, I reallyenjoy the type of work where I can
make an impact for an individual.
(18:14):
Um, like for instance, protectingpeople who actually need protecting
is probably one of the mostfulfilling types of work that I've
ever had the opportunity to work in.
And so at the same time where I wastransitioning out, I got introduced,
I got a phone call, uh, from a goodfriend of mine who I was deployed with.
in 2018, um, named Tony.
(18:34):
And he, he just had a very simplemessage, which was, Hey, we need
an extra set of capable hands.
We have to drive this high valueclient's parents across the country.
Um, cause they don't fly and we'regoing to take an RV and it's going
to take about four days and you'llmake some good money doing it.
And I was like, well, that sounds fun.
Like why not?
I'm going to transition period road trip.
(18:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was like, that sounds phenomenal.
Count me in
Joshua Maddux (19:00):
and get paid to do it.
Austin Boggan (19:02):
Right.
And this trip was a nightmare of a trip.
We, man, we, uh, you know, beingboth Marines, um, we had our hats on.
We're mission planning.
We're going to stop at these gas stations.
The fuel tank is this capacity.
So we can get this farbefore we need to refuel.
We'll take this route because there'sstorms coming in, you We're planning
the whole thing out just logistically.
(19:24):
And then lo and behold,some very gnarly storms hit.
Some very, uh, dangerous storms hit.
I mean, we ran a couple of timesinto like some like multiple
casualty car pileup situations.
There's six foot snow bumps on the road.
Um, this was like February timeframe2021, where the whole Midwest just
got devoured with snow storms.
(19:46):
So we're, you know, jumping snow banksin this 30 foot RV in Oklahoma on our
way up to the northeast of the countryand splitting lanes between traffic
that's been stopped for 18 hours withthis much room on either side of this RV.
I'm outside going like this, hey you'regood on this side, move this way.
Uh, between trucks that havejust parked there, people are
sleeping in their vehicles.
(20:07):
We're like, we're getting out of here.
We're not, you know, we can'tlet these clients just sit here.
It's cold.
The power in the RV went out.
So we're lighting burners totry to keep these folks warm.
Cause they're on the older side,just a nightmare of a trip.
And then at the end of it, youknow, we got them safely to their
destination and they were just like,guys, we can't thank you enough.
That was a crazy thing, butyou made the best of it.
And then me and my buddy poppedoff and grabbed some steaks and
(20:29):
just high fived and then went back.
And I was like, man, I can do that.
That's, that's a fun life justto have similar minded people,
similar mission, just keeping peoplesafe on their day to day lives.
Cause the world is crazy and youhave some fun while you're doing it.
And if you're, you know, um, ifyou've got the logistical, uh,
capacity to, to really plan thingsand stay cool, calm under pressure.
(20:52):
It's a fun, fun lie.
So that was kind of theweird, but wild transition.
Uh, the man who owned that company wasnamed John Blair, which is where I am now.
Joshua Maddux (21:01):
Got it.
That's crazy.
It took a road trip across the countryin like, literally, like, obviously we
can't go into, you know, a ton of detailon, on specifics there, but like, yeah,
you know, it's, it's, uh, I feel likewe're outlining a script for a movie.
Like it could have
Austin Boggan (21:21):
been, it could have been an episode.
At least it was a good time.
Joshua Maddux (21:24):
Yeah, that's crazy.
That's crazy.
So, uh, Tell us a little bit about,like, where you are now, like,
what is the type of stuff thatyou do, you know, all the details.
Who, who, who are youworking with last week?
Nice try.
Austin Boggan (21:41):
Yeah, so I've been here for about three years now.
Um, at Jay Blair Group.
And when I found the company, they were,you know, a well established company.
John Blair Group's beenin existence for 12 years.
Uh, just for some context, John, um,is a, is a fanatic, fantastic kind
of American dream story, actually.
So he grew up in Kentucky, rural.
(22:02):
Uh, Kentucky just on farms, youknow, very kind of similar to how
I did just in central California.
And he moved out here when he was a youngman with a backpack and a dream and,
uh, started working doors at nightclubsand bars and doing security that way.
Cause he was just a, you know,a bigger guy, um, tall, lean,
great looking individual.
So he was well liked by the peoplehe worked with and worked his way up
(22:24):
and eventually started the company.
And he, he got some shots with somekind of high profile individuals
in the entertainment space.
And that's where he got his start.
Um, and then he's, he'sbeen rolling ever since.
And so, um, yeah, my pathwas pretty much that.
We, we met, we really liked each other.
We come from similar roots.
We value very similar things, which isjust doing very thorough detail oriented.
(22:48):
Ethical business, keeping peoplesafe, just, just being a good dude.
That's what we call it, right?
Just being a good dude inbusiness, treating people
right and keeping them safe.
So, you know, we hit it off and, um,he took a shot on me cause I had, you
know, a bit, quite a bit of experiencefrom military and from prior to that,
just on the close protection side.
And he, uh, he let me go out andcover a few of his clients and
(23:09):
I shadowed him for a few days.
And I was like, this is, thisis fulfilling, enjoyable work.
And I could see.
The company was in a place where eventhough they had been in existence for 12
years, they were really in their infancy.
Uh, there's a lot of room for growth.
There was just some systems andprocesses that I think we could have
improved, um, made smoother, madebetter for a better client experience.
(23:30):
And so we just went to work on that.
He liked the work that I did with that.
Plus I had some experiencewith trying to get in front of.
High net worth individuals, which isa huge part of the security industry.
I mean, that's probably going to be atopic that we'll cover at some point.
It's just, how do you get in frontof high net worth individuals?
You know, like you said, there's, there'slots of ways to do it, but they're tough.
You can't just pick up aphone and cold call a CEO.
(23:51):
Most of the times you're going to geta few numbers before you get there.
Same thing with wealthy homeowners or,you know, business owners of any kind.
It's tough.
And so I did have some experience withthat and I could kind of play that game,
um, to give people what they needed, uh,kind of before they knew they needed it.
And so he, uh, he saw the valuethere and brought me on as the
West Coast regional manager.
(24:12):
And then, um, You know, we expandedfrom there and now we're at a
point where we're, we're growingat a pretty accelerated pace.
As always, it's chaotic, you know, growthis messy, but if you can keep a level
head and see what's on the other side,you can push through it and get there.
So that's kind of where we're at.
Joshua Maddux (24:29):
Well, and I know, you know, speaking to a few points there, like one
of the You'd mentioned sort of, therewere some aspects of the company that was
a little bit in its infancy, like, butat the same point, like, because of the
type of work and the type of industry youguys are in, like it is ever changing.
It is like what you did for thatlast client last week, like.
(24:50):
is not, you can't do theexact same thing tomorrow.
Like that's not going to workbecause there's a different threat.
There's a different pattern.
There's a different whatever.
And so like, there are some of thosepieces where, yeah, you do have
to have an SOP for some stuff, butthere's other things where it's like,
we can outline some bullet pointsas a guideline, but like, that's
going to be changing every day.
(25:11):
Like, and, and so I imagine, Iimagine there's aspects of that, that
do, do change on a recurring basis.
Austin Boggan (25:20):
Absolutely.
And I know for a fact that you're veryfamiliar with a lot of them because
marketing for one client is completelydifferent than marketing for next.
Like you said that, uh, I think in ourpre conversation, an individual that
you were doing some, um, some workwith, or it was, it was during this
interview here, wanted to spend somead dollars on Facebook advertising.
And you're like, that's a terrible idea.
(25:40):
For somebody else, it may not havebeen, but for him, it wasn't a good fit.
And so we do the same thing andthrow back to the funny looks
that I got at the auction housefor building target packages.
I do the same thing here.
When we get a prospective newclient, it's like, okay, who are you?
What do you do?
What's your, what's your thing?
What's your, your like life, uh,your life like behind closed doors?
Are you?
(26:01):
How do you conduct yourself?
Who are your connections?
Do I have any mutual connectionswith other people who I might know
with you that might help me betterprotect you or better serve you?
Um, you know, you'd be surprised, youknow, it's, it's the day of the internet.
You can find pretty muchanything you want to find.
You can find somebody's waterpreference if you really wanted to
just using OSINT, you know, opensource intelligence collecting.
Oh, there's,
Joshua Maddux (26:21):
there's so much stuff you can find.
It's yeah, that's, that'sa story for another day.
Um, yeah, I'd love to We've.
Yeah, I, I have a friend of minewho, um, works in the pen testing
field, or used to, um, and has donesome, um, he, they didn't do, like,
(26:43):
asset production like you guys do.
They did a lot more of the, like, um,looking at, Uh, someone's house, like what
security measures do we need to do there?
What type of business securitymeasures do we need to do?
And they did a lot moreof that type of stuff.
And there's, there's some stuffthat, um, they've ran into that.
It's just like,
Austin Boggan (27:04):
Yeah,
Joshua Maddux (27:05):
it's insane.
Austin Boggan (27:06):
Yeah, we do a bit of that too, and that's, that's a very fun aspect
of work is, is analyzing a situationand predicting what threats may be and
then defending against preemptively.
Like that's kind of the whole riskmanagement approach, you know?
So, you know, you'd be surprised.
And at the end of the day on thesecurity field, like there's a
hundred guys, a a thousand guys whocan do a, a decent job at getting
(27:29):
somebody from point A to point B.
It doesn't take a rocketscientist to, to route plan and.
To get somebody where they need to be andmake sure they don't get bombarded or or
injured or embarrassed or put in some sortof liability situation on their route.
Um, what the difference makeris, it's really customer service.
And if you, uh, just the same as anyother business, kind of like the auction
(27:49):
house, it was all customer service.
How do you treat people?
How do you make their experienceworth their time and want more of it?
And, uh, how we do that on ourside is, is just customer service.
You know, I don't want to give awayall of John's, uh, trade secrets
here, but that's what it is.
You, if you want the job, yougot to do a better job at it.
And the more homework we do, wedo more homework than I think,
(28:11):
probably anybody else in the space.
I'm not going to say that's a solid,because I'm sure there are people who
are more thorough than we are, but.
If I'm going to go on a protectiveservices detail, I'm going to
know pretty much everything aboutyou before I step foot there.
So when I asked Josh, Hey,how's Corey doing today?
He's going to be like, howdo you know who Corey is?
Well, we did our homework and I canbetter serve you because I know what you
need based on the stuff that I've foundout about you, so that's, that's great.
(28:32):
That's a big problem.
Joshua Maddux (28:33):
And the more you know about that specific client, like, if
you're going to a venue and you knowthey like coffee and you're walking past
a coffee cart, you're like, well, nowthat's a risk because they're going to
grab a cup of coffee and we're goingto wait five minutes in line, like.
Austin Boggan (28:47):
Right.
And so.
Or she's going to stay in thecar and we're going to grab
it and I'll have her order.
Joshua Maddux (28:51):
Ta da!
Austin Boggan (28:52):
Now you get the callback for the job.
Yeah, exactly.
Great point.
Joshua Maddux (28:57):
Awesome.
Well, obviously, you know, one of thethings, sort of elements that I like
bringing up is looking at just currentbusiness, like dynamics and like industry
conditions and changes in the industry.
And I imagine that we could probably talkfor the next, you know, three hours on Oh,
Austin Boggan (29:19):
I'm a geek as well.
I'm a data guy.
Business is kind of like asecond love of mine, uh, beyond,
you know, productive services.
That's fascinating stuff.
Yeah.
Joshua Maddux (29:29):
Yeah.
But I think just industry conditionsand, and sort of challenges and
changes in the industry, you know,what are you guys seeing as, as
some of those big, you know, shifts?
Austin Boggan (29:42):
Yeah, it's a great question.
Um, there's always going to bethe, the elephant in the room
when it comes to security of justquality of service and manpower.
It's a, it's a service and it'sa service sector of the industry.
So you've got to have peopleto perform those services.
You've got to have people who arecommitted, uh, you know, who meet all of
these criteria, who can do a great job nomatter where they are, who they're with.
(30:04):
So manpower is alone and scalingScaling quality individuals
is a very tough thing to do.
You, you essentially need somebody whocan You know, it act independently and
operate independently and be droppedanyone in the world with anybody and
be able to figure out if something goeswrong, how to get out of it and how to
(30:25):
maintain some customer service in theprocess and keep that client happy.
It's a hard thing to replicate.
Uh, and so, you know, our, our, uh,uh, talent acquisition, if you will,
is very targeted these days, butthat's just, that's quite the thing.
It's just, if you can replicate the most.
Highest quality individual andmost capable of individuals.
You're going to do reallywell in the security space.
(30:46):
And that's the sameproblem everybody else has.
Joshua Maddux (30:49):
Well, and I think, yeah, for you guys, that makes sense.
Like there are aspects of thatjob that are very hard to train.
Like the ability to problem solveunder high stress in a fraction of a
second is a hard thing to train for.
Um, it is.
(31:09):
And it's something that I imagine,you know, you guys look for someone
who has that experience, not someonewho you can train for that experience.
Um, because
Austin Boggan (31:24):
It's a, the reason why it's simple, you can teach somebody
customer service, you can teach themhow to smile for the most part, you
know, um, you can teach them how to dothings like route planning and, and,
um, you know, basic get people frompoint A to point B and make them happy.
The nuances of airports andprivate, you know, FBOs and hotels
(31:47):
and how to get people in and outprivately and things like that.
You can teach, you can teach all of thatand you can do, you can teach that much
more quickly Then you can teach peoplehow to shoot, move, and communicate.
Do trauma care.
Like you said, make splitsecond decisions that could save
or not save somebody's life.
That takes years and years ofrepetition and training, which is
(32:08):
why, for the most part, our Talentacquisition is from prior military law
enforcement or both, um, type guys.
We have, I mean, our rosterlooks very different than most.
We don't typically bring on, uh,cats straight out of high school or
college and train them up in the field.
Our roster is, you know, Marines, NavySEALs, uh, contractors that do overseas
(32:31):
work that are used to high risk, highstress environments that we can say,
Hey, by the way, carry some hair ties.
Cause this might come in handyinstead of us going, by the
way, this is radio etiquette.
This is the NATO phoneticalphabet on the radio.
This is how you use a firearmthat, you know, those things
are a lot harder to teach.
So we choose.
A large prerequisites at the top ofour funnel, and then we refine the,
(32:54):
we make them gentlemen afterwards.
We want very, you know, very capable,extremely dangerous gentlemen.
That is the, the typical candidatethat we're looking for on our side.
It's a, it's a really good observation.
You have to know what, what your manpoweris going to be best used on in training.
Cause we don't have a lot of time for it.
Our operational tempo is high.
So yeah, that's a great,it's a great point.
Joshua Maddux (33:17):
Okay, so, I have to ask, um, what is one of the biggest
Losses or just total mistakes or,you know, what did that look like?
What did, what did you learn from that?
And that could be, you know,this job or, you know, something,
something else, obviously, uh,
Austin Boggan (33:41):
Oh man, I've got so many that come to mind because I've
made every mistake in the book,you know, just like anybody else
has that's been around for a while.
You learn through making the mistakes.
So man, I've got a laundry listthat could be brought up here.
Um, but surprisingly enough.
In the industry, in the sector ofthe industries that we work in, it's
very, very rare that we actuallyhave a massive failure in security
(34:04):
posture or life threatening incident.
Because we're so thorough on thefront end, we really eliminate most
possibilities for something bad to happenon the front end, just in planning, um,
just in the specific route that we takeor how we're going to get somewhere.
We, we put ourselves as faraway from risk as possible.
So you really, the biggest mistakesthat we make and the biggest losses
(34:26):
that we suffer, especially financiallosses can be from the lack of
planning or customer service.
Like if you are with a clientand you take a wrong turn.
Because you didn't know your routeahead of time and had to rely on your
navigation, which was lagging, orthere was bad internet connection.
You know, clients expect convenienceand for you to know where you're going.
And that right there can bea massive financial loss.
(34:47):
If just a little mistake like that,it's not like there was bolts flying,
but if you make a wrong turn, it mightbe the same outcome for the company.
And you may not retainthat client anymore.
Joshua Maddux (34:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's just the attention to, Imean, attention to detail aspects.
Um, that.
That I think oftentimes can getoverlooked, you know, just in
the higher volume throughput.
Um, and a lot of businesses overlook that.
Now,
Austin Boggan (35:15):
exactly.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Joshua Maddux (35:17):
No, go for it.
Austin Boggan (35:18):
I was just gonna, I'm sure it's the same on your end.
There's probably a laundry list of SOPsthat you have to go through, questions
you have to ask the client to make sureit's thorough and dollars are being spent.
Because I know that the difference Onthe marketing side is, is between getting
an outcome and not can be the differencebetween a few buttons clicked or not,
or a few creatives use that were splittested a few more times than others, you
(35:39):
know, it's, it's the same level of detail.
So I know, you know, quite well, thesame concept we're talking about.
Joshua Maddux (35:43):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And that's for us is it always bafflesme when I get someone that just,
you know, Calls me out of the blue.
And it's like, Hey, I own a company.
Can you give me a quote for this?
And I'm like, yeah, exactly.
Like go call an auto dealershipand be like, how much is a car?
Like, okay.
Are you looking for a Toyota Prius?
(36:04):
Are you looking for, you know, doyou need to haul a fifth wheel?
If you need to haul a fifth wheel fromhere to, you know, Florida and you're
buying a Toyota Prius, like that's goingto be a very interesting adventure,
um, And, and I feel like oftentimesin business, like people make those
(36:26):
split second decisions and they don'tthink through what they might need.
Um, right.
I'm curious.
Austin Boggan (36:34):
I know this is your show, man, but I'm curious
how you guys overcome that.
How do you, how do you get ahead ofthe clientele coming in with these
kind of broad stroke questions oflike, just give me a quote for this.
Do you,
Joshua Maddux (36:45):
yeah.
So, so we refer to commonly, uh, like.
November, December is what I jokinglyrefer to as quoting season, where
I'll get three, four calls sometimesa day of I'm planning my marketing
budget for next year, I'm a marketingdirector at X company, and I need a
number, like my boss needs a number.
(37:08):
And I generally can, okay, like,what'd you guys do in sales last year?
What'd you spend for marketing?
What's your conversion rate?
What's your cost of acquisition?
Like, if you know those numbers,you can start to do some quick math.
Like, okay, we want to double our sales.
You know, your cost of acquisition,like it's, it's not going
(37:28):
to go up exactly two times.
Cause it never does, but like we cando some rough math and Pretty quickly
figure out where you ballpark ishwithin 20 to 30 percent should be.
However, it's businesses that call andgo, what's your cost of acquisition?
I don't know.
What, what's the cost of acquisition?
And it's like, okay, great.
(37:49):
We've got some, we've gotsome questions to ask here.
And I'm like, you're like, we want to help
Austin Boggan (37:54):
you.
We really do.
Joshua Maddux (37:55):
Yeah.
Or it's, or it's the questionof like, what's a website cost?
A grand to two million dollars?
Like,
Austin Boggan (38:03):
yeah,
Joshua Maddux (38:04):
companies have paid both.
Like, uh, yeah.
So, you know, it, it, it's hard and it's,it's coming up with, you know, we've
been in business like 17 ish years andwe have like, Uh, uh, uh, fill in the
blank type sheet that's like walks throughplanning a site or planning content
(38:26):
or planning whatever that might be.
And it starts going throughthose nuanced questions of,
you know, what's the goal here?
What's, what's the outcome you want?
And that type of stuff and figuringout who that ideal client is, what
their action steps they should betaking, you know, how, how this,
this is going to asset that they'rebuilding for the business is going
(38:47):
to help that and, and do that.
Austin Boggan (38:51):
Right.
I find that so fascinatingbecause it's just such a, you
know, it's so much projection.
If we do this, is this the likely outcome?
Is this going to achieve the most, uh, youknow, out of what we want it to achieve?
I find those projections so fascinating.
Joshua Maddux (39:06):
And we have two clients that sit in the exact same industry.
They do the exact same thing, buttheir customer could not be further.
Like their two customersare the exact opposite.
One is single family resident.
The other, they only want to workwith apartment buildings that
have at least 200 plus units.
(39:27):
And so it's like, those arevery different customer bases.
And if.
We didn't know that those are twovery different marketing strategies.
Facebook ads will work for one Facebookads might not work for the other.
And so, you know, it's, yeah.
So it
Austin Boggan (39:43):
sounds like you kind of reverse engineer it.
You kind of look at, okay, whatreally is the ideal scenario?
What's who's the end user.
And then you kind of narrow down theavatars from there and kind of decide
what the approach is going to be.
Joshua Maddux (39:53):
Exactly.
It's the same exactthing that you guys do.
I mean, the outcome your clientwants is to get to X, Y, Z location.
Okay.
How do we get there?
You know, we can take a plane, wecan take a train, we can take a car.
Like these are the different avenues.
What's, you know, what'sgoing to be less risk.
What's going to be less time.
(40:14):
What's going to be whatever.
And you go through the options, figureit out, make a contingency plan and
see what option they want to pick.
And then when they decide the one thatyou're like, okay, let's take the detour.
We'll figure out how that's going to work.
Austin Boggan (40:32):
But so many similarities, so many similarities, different
industries, wildly different, butyou know, like you're hired, boom,
you know how to problem solve,you know, it's all the same.
Joshua Maddux (40:44):
So as we, as we sort of wrap up a little bit, like what, um, what
are some different, like either what'sa book or, or some sort of a resource
that you've found that sort of, uh, notnecessarily shaped your career path, but
something that you've found that sort of.
Really helpful.
Resource.
Austin Boggan (41:05):
Yeah, I'll let you know when we rewrite it.
Uh, kidding.
There's It What's the mostbeneficial, uh, at least in my
scenario, is just field experience.
And I can't harp on that enough,because I have guys that'll ask me
all the time that are new to theexecutive protection industry, new
to the security industry in general,where it's like, what book can I read?
What, uh, what podcast can I watch?
(41:26):
And there are a lot of great ones, butI would say The thing that's going to
help the most, that I've learned themost from, is just finding somebody
who does a good job, has a solidreputation, and watching how they work.
Watch how the decisionmaking process goes.
Say, okay, like I'm watching thisindividual, they're tailing at this kind
of rate, they made this decision becauseof this, and you just ask questions
(41:48):
and refine the process and refinethe process and refine the process.
So, getting out, making the mistakes,but coming in educated, doing the
homework first, is what will lead tothose, those lessons learned more than
any resource that I've found, at leaston, you know, on the back end of things.
Joshua Maddux (42:07):
Yeah, I will, I would definitely say like
real world experience for sure.
Like, man, we used to hire, uh, backwhen we had more of a physical office, we
used to hire interns and, or, you know,do an internship program and then hire
them from that and we'd have one who'slike, Oh yeah, I had, you know, three
semesters of this and I'm like, great.
(42:27):
Well, Can you actually do that?
Uh, no, I can't like, great.
Just that you had a class on it.
Doesn't mean like, there's a differencebetween book smart, street smart.
Um, you can be both, like both is great.
Austin Boggan (42:42):
Uh, I'm sure we could talk about that all day.
Very, very similar there as well.
Cause it, I have this,this, this on my resume.
I'm like, okay, but if you'regoing to do an advance of a place,
what does that look like for you?
And they're like, that's a advance.
That's where you go scout it out.
Right.
And we're like, yep,that's, that's what that is.
So.
Experience, you know, the gap between,um, you know, what they say is experience
(43:06):
or education is very large, whichis why we're so big on just the OJT.
Like, let's get out andshow you how to do this.
So long as we have the prerequisitesin place, obviously, you know,
probably very similar to you guys.
Joshua Maddux (43:17):
I get random, like, resumes every now and then from people who are
like, Oh, I'm a developer and I'm fluentin these 35 different coding languages.
And I'm like, really?
You're an expert in all 35 of them?
Cool.
Great.
Yeah.
No, you're not.
I'd be highly
Austin Boggan (43:35):
impressed, but
Joshua Maddux (43:36):
not,
Austin Boggan (43:36):
uh,
Joshua Maddux (43:37):
yeah.
Yeah, you wouldn't be sending meyour resume because you'd be making
seven figures at least somewhere.
Precisely.
Precisely.
Austin Boggan (43:46):
Yeah.
Joshua Maddux (43:46):
Awesome.
Well, as we wrap up, do youhave any questions for me as
we, as we close things out?
Austin Boggan (43:51):
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I just wantto say thanks again for having me.
Like this is a really cool thing.
And I know, and I hope that a lotof people in the ICB are benefiting
from it and are, you know, gettingexposed to other local businesses
in the area, um, through this.
So I want to commend youguys for taking the leap.
It's, it's awesome.
I'm really glad you're doing it.
Um, and, and I would love to justhear, yeah, kind of what, what's the,
(44:12):
the big picture with the podcast?
Um, what's the end state, what'sthe end goal with it, you know?
And, um, yeah, that's my main question.
Joshua Maddux (44:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we've, we talked a littlebit, uh, sort of before we hit
record on this, but yeah, for me,you know, it's, it's two things.
One, it's, it's having conversationslike this, um, getting to know a
little bit more of the people behind.
behind the local business community.
Um, I know one of the things that Coreytalks about is sort of having that,
(44:41):
um, sort of town center that everyonecan sort of learn who everybody is.
Um, and sadly nowadays, because somuch of us sit in a home office or
sit on Zoom or sit behind a computerfor email or whatever that might be.
Um, we've lost a little bit of that.
(45:02):
Um, and so I think, I think having, havingthis opportunity to be able to have these
sort of deeper conversations, you know,you and I ran into, into each other at
one of the chamber events and chatted fora little bit, but, um, you know, you're
not able to do that with, you know,Everybody in the chamber and everybody.
And so being able to have the opportunityto listen to someone's background and
(45:25):
hear who they are and sort of dive intothat, um, for me is sort of super cool.
And then, you know, it's also, again,it's just that networking aspect.
Um, being able to dive deeper and have adeeper conversation, um, you know, with
other chamber members and people that.
You know, are here in the community in mybackyard and, and doing, doing cool stuff.
(45:47):
So, um, yeah, it's, it's exciting.
Austin Boggan (45:51):
Awesome.
Yeah.
It's such a cool thing to just connectpeople, you know, like you said, all
these things are happening simultaneouslyin our own backyard, fantastic digital
marketing businesses to close protectionagencies, to all kinds of other things.
And there's all kinds of waysthat we can help each other.
So this is, you know, and I'll wrapup with that on my side, man, if
there's anything that I can do, uh,to help you guys out, let me know.
Joshua Maddux (46:13):
Awesome.
Appreciate it.
Well, as always, please follow, rate, andreview us wherever you find your podcast.
You can follow us at The Voicesof Business on social media.
You can follow me on LinkedIn, JoshuaMaddux, Corey Nathan, uh, is Corey S
Nathan on I believe Twitter and LinkedIn.
(46:33):
We'd love to have you as a guest on thepodcast and continue the conversation.
Thanks for listening and we'll see younext time on The Voices of Business.
Awesome.
Welcome back to the Voices ofBusiness, a Santa Clarita Valley
Chamber of Commerce podcast.
It's good to be with you.
I'm your co host, Joshua Maddux.
Uh, Corey Nathan is out.
Um, we're not sure where he is.
He's still lost somewhere.
Uh, last week he was, or lastepisode he was on the phone.
Five freeway.
He might still be there.
We don't know.
(00:26):
Uh, this is where we talk aboutbusiness in the Santa Clarita Valley
and really all over the country.
Um, but today we are going to havea discussion with the director of
operations and close protection agent,Austin Boggan of the J Blair Group.
Good to have you on the show.
Austin Boggan (00:45):
Thanks for having me, man.
It's a pleasure to be here andit's great to see you again.
Joshua Maddux (00:48):
Yeah, likewise, likewise.
Um, so you went to the sameuniversity as I did as I was, as
I was, uh, diving in this way.
Yeah, we both went to, both went to ULV.
Uh, now, now were you local oncampus or were you, uh, one of their,
(01:11):
what, 35 different remote sites?
Austin Boggan (01:14):
They've got satellites everywhere apparently.
I was on site.
I was up there in the city of Laverne.
Joshua Maddux (01:19):
Okay.
I did the, uh, business extensionat the College of the Canyons career
or university center or whatever.
And so my, my first time on campuswas graduation day, which was very
confusing because people, you know,I was like, where's this building?
Um, they're like, you're graduatingfrom this school and you don't
know where buildings are.
(01:40):
Great.
Um, so it made it, madeit really interesting.
Austin Boggan (01:44):
Phenomenal place.
I, I really loved it up there.
Beautiful spot to be really mellowkind of small town, but, uh, yeah.
Interesting fact.
I didn't know that.
Joshua Maddux (01:53):
So as.
You know, looking at sort of your,uh, college, uh, career there, you
started in, uh, some event management.
Was that during, duringcollege in Laverne or?
Austin Boggan (02:12):
Yeah.
So my, what was my protective servicescareer started in high school.
Actually, I had a, a high schoolstrength and conditioning coach
for our football team program.
The floor at some fairlylarge concert venues.
And he was like, Hey, you'rea fairly large individual.
Why don't you come helpme out this summer?
And I was, you know, I was 18.
Uh, so that's actually where I started.
So that that's the event securitystuff that you'll probably see
(02:35):
floating around just in the pits, youknow, concerts, try to manage large
crowds and enjoy the show without,you know, showing it on your face.
Joshua Maddux (02:46):
Got it.
So, so you started right out of, rightout of high school or in the high school
still in sort of in the protected space.
Um, how did that sort of shape thatcareer path and that trajectory
as you headed towards college?
Austin Boggan (03:02):
Yeah, so I actually didn't think it was something that
would be a long term play for me.
I, I think, Most people that knowme would say that I've always had
kind of a protective instinct.
I was always kind of a largerkid and I had friends that, you
know, sometimes got picked on.
So I was very inclined tomake sure that they didn't.
Um, so to say, you know, it was,I grew up in a very small rural
(03:22):
town and bullying was a thing.
Still is a thing.
It's probably going tobe a thing for some time.
Um, but, you know, the onlything you can do is kind of put
a stop to it when you see it.
So, Um, yeah, that's where it started.
I, I went to college atthe university of Laverne.
I was a biology major.
Uh, I wanted to go into a medicaltrack and the, it's kind of a weird
transition, but in high school I had afootball injury where clavicle basically
(03:46):
exploded inside of my body and it wasa little bit life threatening and they,
an orthopedic surgeon at the universityof Stanford, uh, shout out and saved my
life, uh, and put me back together inone piece, at least for the most part.
And so I was like, man, that was.
It was an incredible experience.
He definitely helped me out.
I didn't think I was going tobe able to play ball again.
Didn't think I was going to beable to do very many physical
(04:08):
things again after that.
And, uh, he got me on my feet.
So I was like, I, I could do that.
So biology was actually mymajor of choice in college.
Joshua Maddux (04:16):
Got it.
Got it.
So didn't necessarily see the protectiveservices as a career path, which, you
know, there's, it, it, there's so manycareers that aren't on the standard
You know, college list necessarily.
Um, but definitely, definitely a choice.
(04:37):
Um, so left, left Laverneand headed to the military.
Um, so did some, did some protectiveservice, uh, went to school and then
a little bit more, uh, protectiveservice with, uh, A little bit
more advanced training, I'd say.
Austin Boggan (04:58):
Yeah, we, we, we stepped it up a notch for sure.
Just,
Joshua Maddux (05:01):
just a notch.
Austin Boggan (05:02):
Yeah, like I said, it was a very high school.
It was a very rural town.
I grew up in the town of PasoRobles, California on the central
coast, which is known for its winenow, but when I grew up there, it
was mostly dirt, um, and football.
That was kind of the feeler of town.
It's an agriculture, reallygreat people up there.
Um, so like I said, I didn'treally see it in the cards.
Um, it was just somethingthat I was doing to, you know,
make some money as a teenager.
(05:24):
Um, went through thebiology thing at Laverne.
Got about three and a halfyears through with that.
And, um, had some, some personal lifeinstances happen where I was like, I
need to, uh, I need to toughen up a bit.
I need to get myself under control.
I need to find some purpose.
And so, um, you know, so me and my buddiesin high school had always talked about
(05:46):
joining the military because that's one ofthe few career paths that you had at that
point, coming out of a very small town,you go to work in agriculture, you join
the military, maybe a lot of fortunate.
That's kind of how you think.
Um, and so lo and behold, I, uh, raninto a recruiter's office and said,
Hey, let's, let's do this thing.
So I embarked with the United StatesMarine Corps, uh, in June of 2016.
Joshua Maddux (06:09):
And then served, served a few years there, uh, came home and
decided that, you know, the finalfrontier was the right place to be?
Austin Boggan (06:21):
Yeah.
I mean, I enjoyed that a lot.
My time in Marine Corps was, I mean,you could go on that topic for days.
It's a double edged sword.
It's some of the most miserabletimes you'll ever have, but some
of the best times you'll ever have.
Some of the most romantic things I've everdone in my life were with a bunch of other
dudes walking into the sunset on somemountain somewhere, some ridge, um, you
(06:44):
know, so, make some be the best friendsI've ever had in my life, just suffering
together, getting better, training, doinghard things, and obviously learned quite
a bit about protective security and, youknow, You know, how to defend positions
and different kinds of things like that.
Lots of training goes in there.
So yeah, I got out and, um, thecircumstances of me leaving the military
(07:05):
were actually not, uh, on my own terms,I got medically, uh, separated for an
injury that I sustained on a deployment.
Nothing crazy, you know, I'm not, Ididn't sustain any injuries like a lot
of guys would in a combat zone, but itwas something where the Department of
the Navy wasn't willing, uh, despite allof my appeals, uh, to let me continue.
(07:25):
So just under four years, uh, I departedand I was like, well, I wasn't done,
you know, I wasn't done with that.
So I have to find, I have to find thething that's going to continue to put
some electricity in my bones and that Ienjoy doing, and that'll let me travel
and, and fulfill the Like the kindof desire that I have to help people.
And so, uh, that, that was thetransition for me and the protective
(07:48):
services on the private sector.
Joshua Maddux (07:51):
Got it.
And then when you, when you leftthe military or, you know, separated
there, um, you landed at SpaceX.
Is that?
It did.
What, what was the, whatwas the direction there?
Was that continued,continued, uh, security or?
Austin Boggan (08:13):
It was.
Yeah.
So SpaceX was at a point in 2019where they were formally contracting
security for their site, for theirheadquarters in Hawthorne, California.
And, um, yeah, as with anythingelse, you can have quality control
issues, but it was such a nuancedspace with what was going on there.
I mean, it's an Very heavily regulatedindustry and facility if you're
(08:37):
building rockets domestically,because a lot of people want that
information and that technology.
And so security is a very large pieceof a business like that, and they wanted
to bring a security team in house.
And so, I got a call from one of themanagers over there, Landon Prairie,
who's a phenomenal individual.
And he was like, Hey, I know youjust got out, um, if you want to give
(08:57):
this thing a shot, we're buildinga team here and we can really use
some help and, you know, fantastic.
You know, that allowed me to learn alot, you know, intertra international
trafficking of arms regulated facilities.
There's a lot that goes into it.
And so, different routes of security,you know, driving pressurized rocket
tubes around the country a little bit.
(09:17):
That could level a smallcity of tips, you know?
Joshua Maddux (09:22):
And you definitely had a little bit of, uh, formal training,
uh, having been in the military.
Like, I know oftentimes, uh, manufacturingor companies that are doing government
contract Like hiring guys who've hadthat experience because they're like,
you understand what it looks like.
You understand the formal training.
(09:43):
You've been in the field.
Like you have some of thesecurity clearances already.
Like you're, you're 90percent of the way there.
There might be some.
You know, little things thatthey need to do, but it gets you.
Yeah,
Austin Boggan (09:54):
definitely some refinement and some kind of what we call SOP,
some standard operating proceduresthat are specific to that industry.
You know, you gotta know what an ITARregulated piece of equipment looks like.
You can't just leave rocket pieceslaying out in public, you know?
Um, so some nuance there for sure, butthere was a lot of transferability, um,
and it gave me some stability comingright out of the military, which I was
(10:15):
super grateful for, and it allowed meto kind of reset and decide what route
I wanted to go, um, while I was there.
That's kind of where I got my.
Secondary piece of exposure to securityon the personal side as well, because
obviously there's the site of, youknow, SpaceX and next door, which
is a Tesla facility, um, and thenuance and technicality that goes
(10:37):
with what happens in that facility.
But there's also, you know, executives,there's, there's boards and there's
people who need to be protected as well.
And so, that, that was somesecondary exposure post, post
military to that kind of thing.
And that's kind of more where I am now.
Joshua Maddux (10:52):
Yeah.
Now you, you today, um, are sort ofdirector of operation or are director
of operations with J Blair Group andyou do a lot of like close protection,
um, you know, with, with your guys asclients, but between SpaceX and there,
you had a little bit of a, of a gapthere, uh, which you worked with an
(11:16):
auction house or an auction company.
Um, Selling mansions?
Or was that protection detail forthose who I imagine, you know, when
you're selling a hundred million dollarproperty, there's some assets that
need to be, uh, protected and covered.
Austin Boggan (11:37):
There are, but fascinating enough, that wasn't my role.
I was selling those properties.
Um, I was an auction representativethere, so basically the story
here, and I'll keep it short,um, but really great times there.
My neighbor, uh, when I was workingat SpaceX, I was a couple years deep
there, and you know, enjoying it.
It was consistent, but I was alwaysKind of curious about other industries.
(11:59):
And, you know, I had some briefexposure to sales training
when I was out of high school.
Um, and I was kind of like,well, that sounds fun.
Basically the job description that myneighbor had given me, he said, if we're
looking for some people and basically thejob is we have properties that sell all
over the world and we have to find buyersfor them because they go up at auction.
So we have to saturate these,the pipelines with buyers to
(12:22):
come bid on these properties.
We need people who you can droppretty much in the, anywhere in
the country, anywhere in the world.
And they can go figure out who theyneed to talk to, where they need
to be to find these high net worthindividuals to bid on these properties.
Similarly, kind of a little bitsimilar to the military, it's kind
of like you can get dropped anywhereand you just have to figure it out.
You gotta look at your surroundings,read the room, see who you, you
(12:46):
know, uh, make some educated guesseson who you might need to talk to,
who you might need to befriend.
Uh, instead of overthrowinggovernments, it was to sell houses.
So that's kind of the,what happened there.
And it was, it was a fun time.
It was a really fun time.
And there's some great people doing that.
Joshua Maddux (13:01):
And that, that to me right there is what's so amazing is the
fact that like the transferable skillsof being in the U S military versus.
Selling a multi million dollar mansion.
Like there are transferable skills,which like at a high level, like when
you think about it, you're like, howthe heck, but yeah, being, being ready
(13:23):
to be dropped in any environment,being able to figure out who that.
Target quote unquote is in eitherone of those environments like,
and, and move forward with that.
That's funny.
Yeah,
Austin Boggan (13:39):
no, it's wild.
You should see, I mean, some of thelooks I got, cause I take, I look
for my transferable skills and decidewhere I can apply them all the time.
Cause if you're not growing,you're not dying, you're dying.
Right.
It's kind of like you have toapply everything you have if
you're going to move forward.
And so I got a lot of funny looks, uh,in the real estate and auction world.
When, you know, I was getting assignmentsout in Pennsylvania or wherever it may
(14:03):
be, California, and I started buildingtarget packages on individuals that I
think might be a good fit to bid on thisproperty, they're like, That is weird.
You shouldn't be buildingtarget packages on civilians.
That's an interesting thing to do.
I was like, there's no action here,it's just, I want to go meet them and
this is the way that I'm going to do it.
We have a mutual friend in commonand, you know, you have to be
able to finagle that a little bit.
Joshua Maddux (14:25):
Yeah, you're finding who you're taking to dinner and
informing about the property.
Austin Boggan (14:31):
Exactly.
Just a different approach,but it's the same thing.
Joshua Maddux (14:35):
Yeah, it totally is.
There's a, there's a client of ours.
That's an architect and they approachedus and he was like, Hey, I want to
run Facebook ads to get clients.
And I was like, that's a terribleway to spend your marketing
dollars as an architect.
And I was like, better idea.
You have to eat lunch, have yourassistant contact every general
(14:56):
contractor in the area and.
Anyone who builds the type of houses thatyou would design, take them to lunch.
And so this guy, every Friday targetsone of those general, general, uh,
contractors and takes a generalcontractor to lunch every week.
(15:18):
And.
It's the same concept.
It's knowing your target, knowing who,who that is and, and acting on it.
It, it's exactly, yeah.
Whether it's to put
Austin Boggan (15:30):
it in terms, you know, to put it in terms that are
probably very relevant to you.
It's, you gotta, you just have toknow your audience and you gotta know
how to find your audience and howto get in front of your audience.
That's the, you know, I knowyou do it all the time, so I
know you understand very well.
Joshua Maddux (15:41):
Yeah.
And it doesn't matter if it's the U.
S.
military or selling mansions or, yeah.
Um,
Austin Boggan (15:50):
That's crazy.
It's the same thing, right?
Totally.
Joshua Maddux (15:52):
I mean, yeah, at a, at a 20, 000 foot level, it, it
is, um, there's some nuances there.
Um, but you know, so, okay, so you'redone selling mansions and we're,
we're moving back to private security.
Um, obviously, you know, now with, youknow, With the Jay Blair group, like,
(16:14):
um, you know, you're running day today ops and that type of stuff now.
Um, what did that transition look like?
What, what prompted that decisionto, you know, move back into
the, the personal protection?
Austin Boggan (16:26):
Yeah, great question.
So just transparently speaking,the company that I was working for,
and again, phenomenal people, nota single negative thing to say.
Great experience.
Across the board, but they, they did getpurchased by a larger company and things
got, um, just quite a bit more corporate.
We were independent contractors thatwould get a text saying, Hey, there's a
project in this state, do you want it?
And that was it.
(16:47):
And you had six weeks to go out thereand figure out how to find six to
10 people to bid on this property.
And it transformed intosomething a little bit different.
Everyone became employees.
So there's obviously differenttax implications there.
Um, in addition to a lot moreguidelines and structure behind the job.
And then eventually I think therole that I was actually operating
and got done away with altogether.
So just early on after that acquisition,I kind of saw the writing on the wall.
(17:11):
Um, and it was like, you know, I.
I enjoy just kind of awild west style of work.
You know, I don't necessarilyneed to be the boss.
I enjoy being somewhere near the topwhere I have some decision making
power or can at least make my owndecisions on how I want to approach
something because the beauty of thatjob was location, timeline, mission.
(17:32):
Like that's it.
Go find people to buy these properties.
You're up.
That's it.
And so I had the freedom to make thosedecisions and decide what my approach
was going to be and scheme and, and,uh, you know, design my plan of attack.
Um, and so when that kind of turnedin a different direction, I was like,
well, you know, where's somewhereelse that I can still do that, but
(17:53):
that's fulfilling type work for me.
Cause selling mansions is fantastic.
And at the end of the day, sure, you'reprobably making somebody's life better,
but the easier, usually Third, fourth,fifth, six properties for folks.
It's not like you're sellingsomebody their first time property
and they're, you know, crying withthe keys and that kind of thing.
It's an investment, you know, I reallyenjoy the type of work where I can
make an impact for an individual.
(18:14):
Um, like for instance, protectingpeople who actually need protecting
is probably one of the mostfulfilling types of work that I've
ever had the opportunity to work in.
And so at the same time where I wastransitioning out, I got introduced,
I got a phone call, uh, from a goodfriend of mine who I was deployed with.
in 2018, um, named Tony.
(18:34):
And he, he just had a very simplemessage, which was, Hey, we need
an extra set of capable hands.
We have to drive this high valueclient's parents across the country.
Um, cause they don't fly and we'regoing to take an RV and it's going
to take about four days and you'llmake some good money doing it.
And I was like, well, that sounds fun.
Like why not?
I'm going to transition period road trip.
(18:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was like, that sounds phenomenal.
Count me in
Joshua Maddux (19:00):
and get paid to do it.
Austin Boggan (19:02):
Right.
And this trip was a nightmare of a trip.
We, man, we, uh, you know, beingboth Marines, um, we had our hats on.
We're mission planning.
We're going to stop at these gas stations.
The fuel tank is this capacity.
So we can get this farbefore we need to refuel.
We'll take this route because there'sstorms coming in, you We're planning
the whole thing out just logistically.
(19:24):
And then lo and behold,some very gnarly storms hit.
Some very, uh, dangerous storms hit.
I mean, we ran a couple of timesinto like some like multiple
casualty car pileup situations.
There's six foot snow bumps on the road.
Um, this was like February timeframe2021, where the whole Midwest just
got devoured with snow storms.
(19:46):
So we're, you know, jumping snow banksin this 30 foot RV in Oklahoma on our
way up to the northeast of the countryand splitting lanes between traffic
that's been stopped for 18 hours withthis much room on either side of this RV.
I'm outside going like this, hey you'regood on this side, move this way.
Uh, between trucks that havejust parked there, people are
sleeping in their vehicles.
(20:07):
We're like, we're getting out of here.
We're not, you know, we can'tlet these clients just sit here.
It's cold.
The power in the RV went out.
So we're lighting burners totry to keep these folks warm.
Cause they're on the older side,just a nightmare of a trip.
And then at the end of it, youknow, we got them safely to their
destination and they were just like,guys, we can't thank you enough.
That was a crazy thing, butyou made the best of it.
And then me and my buddy poppedoff and grabbed some steaks and
(20:29):
just high fived and then went back.
And I was like, man, I can do that.
That's, that's a fun life justto have similar minded people,
similar mission, just keeping peoplesafe on their day to day lives.
Cause the world is crazy and youhave some fun while you're doing it.
And if you're, you know, um, ifyou've got the logistical, uh,
capacity to, to really plan thingsand stay cool, calm under pressure.
(20:52):
It's a fun, fun lie.
So that was kind of theweird, but wild transition.
Uh, the man who owned that company wasnamed John Blair, which is where I am now.
Joshua Maddux (21:01):
Got it.
That's crazy.
It took a road trip across the countryin like, literally, like, obviously we
can't go into, you know, a ton of detailon, on specifics there, but like, yeah,
you know, it's, it's, uh, I feel likewe're outlining a script for a movie.
Like it could have
Austin Boggan (21:21):
been, it could have been an episode.
At least it was a good time.
Joshua Maddux (21:24):
Yeah, that's crazy.
That's crazy.
So, uh, Tell us a little bit about,like, where you are now, like,
what is the type of stuff thatyou do, you know, all the details.
Who, who, who are youworking with last week?
Nice try.
Austin Boggan (21:41):
Yeah, so I've been here for about three years now.
Um, at Jay Blair Group.
And when I found the company, they were,you know, a well established company.
John Blair Group's beenin existence for 12 years.
Uh, just for some context, John, um,is a, is a fanatic, fantastic kind
of American dream story, actually.
So he grew up in Kentucky, rural.
(22:02):
Uh, Kentucky just on farms, youknow, very kind of similar to how
I did just in central California.
And he moved out here when he was a youngman with a backpack and a dream and,
uh, started working doors at nightclubsand bars and doing security that way.
Cause he was just a, you know,a bigger guy, um, tall, lean,
great looking individual.
So he was well liked by the peoplehe worked with and worked his way up
(22:24):
and eventually started the company.
And he, he got some shots with somekind of high profile individuals
in the entertainment space.
And that's where he got his start.
Um, and then he's, he'sbeen rolling ever since.
And so, um, yeah, my pathwas pretty much that.
We, we met, we really liked each other.
We come from similar roots.
We value very similar things, which isjust doing very thorough detail oriented.
(22:48):
Ethical business, keeping peoplesafe, just, just being a good dude.
That's what we call it, right?
Just being a good dude inbusiness, treating people
right and keeping them safe.
So, you know, we hit it off and, um,he took a shot on me cause I had, you
know, a bit, quite a bit of experiencefrom military and from prior to that,
just on the close protection side.
And he, uh, he let me go out andcover a few of his clients and
(23:09):
I shadowed him for a few days.
And I was like, this is, thisis fulfilling, enjoyable work.
And I could see.
The company was in a place where eventhough they had been in existence for 12
years, they were really in their infancy.
Uh, there's a lot of room for growth.
There was just some systems andprocesses that I think we could have
improved, um, made smoother, madebetter for a better client experience.
(23:30):
And so we just went to work on that.
He liked the work that I did with that.
Plus I had some experiencewith trying to get in front of.
High net worth individuals, which isa huge part of the security industry.
I mean, that's probably going to be atopic that we'll cover at some point.
It's just, how do you get in frontof high net worth individuals?
You know, like you said, there's, there'slots of ways to do it, but they're tough.
You can't just pick up aphone and cold call a CEO.
(23:51):
Most of the times you're going to geta few numbers before you get there.
Same thing with wealthy homeowners or,you know, business owners of any kind.
It's tough.
And so I did have some experience withthat and I could kind of play that game,
um, to give people what they needed, uh,kind of before they knew they needed it.
And so he, uh, he saw the valuethere and brought me on as the
West Coast regional manager.
(24:12):
And then, um, You know, we expandedfrom there and now we're at a
point where we're, we're growingat a pretty accelerated pace.
As always, it's chaotic, you know, growthis messy, but if you can keep a level
head and see what's on the other side,you can push through it and get there.
So that's kind of where we're at.
Joshua Maddux (24:29):
Well, and I know, you know, speaking to a few points there, like one
of the You'd mentioned sort of, therewere some aspects of the company that was
a little bit in its infancy, like, butat the same point, like, because of the
type of work and the type of industry youguys are in, like it is ever changing.
It is like what you did for thatlast client last week, like.
(24:50):
is not, you can't do theexact same thing tomorrow.
Like that's not going to workbecause there's a different threat.
There's a different pattern.
There's a different whatever.
And so like, there are some of thosepieces where, yeah, you do have
to have an SOP for some stuff, butthere's other things where it's like,
we can outline some bullet pointsas a guideline, but like, that's
going to be changing every day.
(25:11):
Like, and, and so I imagine, Iimagine there's aspects of that, that
do, do change on a recurring basis.
Austin Boggan (25:20):
Absolutely.
And I know for a fact that you're veryfamiliar with a lot of them because
marketing for one client is completelydifferent than marketing for next.
Like you said that, uh, I think in ourpre conversation, an individual that
you were doing some, um, some workwith, or it was, it was during this
interview here, wanted to spend somead dollars on Facebook advertising.
And you're like, that's a terrible idea.
(25:40):
For somebody else, it may not havebeen, but for him, it wasn't a good fit.
And so we do the same thing andthrow back to the funny looks
that I got at the auction housefor building target packages.
I do the same thing here.
When we get a prospective newclient, it's like, okay, who are you?
What do you do?
What's your, what's your thing?
What's your, your like life, uh,your life like behind closed doors?
Are you?
(26:01):
How do you conduct yourself?
Who are your connections?
Do I have any mutual connectionswith other people who I might know
with you that might help me betterprotect you or better serve you?
Um, you know, you'd be surprised, youknow, it's, it's the day of the internet.
You can find pretty muchanything you want to find.
You can find somebody's waterpreference if you really wanted to
just using OSINT, you know, opensource intelligence collecting.
Oh, there's,
Joshua Maddux (26:21):
there's so much stuff you can find.
It's yeah, that's, that'sa story for another day.
Um, yeah, I'd love to We've.
Yeah, I, I have a friend of minewho, um, works in the pen testing
field, or used to, um, and has donesome, um, he, they didn't do, like,
(26:43):
asset production like you guys do.
They did a lot more of the, like, um,looking at, Uh, someone's house, like what
security measures do we need to do there?
What type of business securitymeasures do we need to do?
And they did a lot moreof that type of stuff.
And there's, there's some stuffthat, um, they've ran into that.
It's just like,
Austin Boggan (27:04):
Yeah,
Joshua Maddux (27:05):
it's insane.
Austin Boggan (27:06):
Yeah, we do a bit of that too, and that's, that's a very fun aspect
of work is, is analyzing a situationand predicting what threats may be and
then defending against preemptively.
Like that's kind of the whole riskmanagement approach, you know?
So, you know, you'd be surprised.
And at the end of the day on thesecurity field, like there's a
hundred guys, a a thousand guys whocan do a, a decent job at getting
(27:29):
somebody from point A to point B.
It doesn't take a rocketscientist to, to route plan and.
To get somebody where they need to be andmake sure they don't get bombarded or or
injured or embarrassed or put in some sortof liability situation on their route.
Um, what the difference makeris, it's really customer service.
And if you, uh, just the same as anyother business, kind of like the auction
(27:49):
house, it was all customer service.
How do you treat people?
How do you make their experienceworth their time and want more of it?
And, uh, how we do that on ourside is, is just customer service.
You know, I don't want to give awayall of John's, uh, trade secrets
here, but that's what it is.
You, if you want the job, yougot to do a better job at it.
And the more homework we do, wedo more homework than I think,
(28:11):
probably anybody else in the space.
I'm not going to say that's a solid,because I'm sure there are people who
are more thorough than we are, but.
If I'm going to go on a protectiveservices detail, I'm going to
know pretty much everything aboutyou before I step foot there.
So when I asked Josh, Hey,how's Corey doing today?
He's going to be like, howdo you know who Corey is?
Well, we did our homework and I canbetter serve you because I know what you
need based on the stuff that I've foundout about you, so that's, that's great.
(28:32):
That's a big problem.
Joshua Maddux (28:33):
And the more you know about that specific client, like, if
you're going to a venue and you knowthey like coffee and you're walking past
a coffee cart, you're like, well, nowthat's a risk because they're going to
grab a cup of coffee and we're goingto wait five minutes in line, like.
Austin Boggan (28:47):
Right.
And so.
Or she's going to stay in thecar and we're going to grab
it and I'll have her order.
Joshua Maddux (28:51):
Ta da!
Austin Boggan (28:52):
Now you get the callback for the job.
Yeah, exactly.
Great point.
Joshua Maddux (28:57):
Awesome.
Well, obviously, you know, one of thethings, sort of elements that I like
bringing up is looking at just currentbusiness, like dynamics and like industry
conditions and changes in the industry.
And I imagine that we could probably talkfor the next, you know, three hours on Oh,
Austin Boggan (29:19):
I'm a geek as well.
I'm a data guy.
Business is kind of like asecond love of mine, uh, beyond,
you know, productive services.
That's fascinating stuff.
Yeah.
Joshua Maddux (29:29):
Yeah.
But I think just industry conditionsand, and sort of challenges and
changes in the industry, you know,what are you guys seeing as, as
some of those big, you know, shifts?
Austin Boggan (29:42):
Yeah, it's a great question.
Um, there's always going to bethe, the elephant in the room
when it comes to security of justquality of service and manpower.
It's a, it's a service and it'sa service sector of the industry.
So you've got to have peopleto perform those services.
You've got to have people who arecommitted, uh, you know, who meet all of
these criteria, who can do a great job nomatter where they are, who they're with.
(30:04):
So manpower is alone and scalingScaling quality individuals
is a very tough thing to do.
You, you essentially need somebody whocan You know, it act independently and
operate independently and be droppedanyone in the world with anybody and
be able to figure out if something goeswrong, how to get out of it and how to
(30:25):
maintain some customer service in theprocess and keep that client happy.
It's a hard thing to replicate.
Uh, and so, you know, our, our, uh,uh, talent acquisition, if you will,
is very targeted these days, butthat's just, that's quite the thing.
It's just, if you can replicate the most.
Highest quality individual andmost capable of individuals.
You're going to do reallywell in the security space.
(30:46):
And that's the sameproblem everybody else has.
Joshua Maddux (30:49):
Well, and I think, yeah, for you guys, that makes sense.
Like there are aspects of thatjob that are very hard to train.
Like the ability to problem solveunder high stress in a fraction of a
second is a hard thing to train for.
Um, it is.
(31:09):
And it's something that I imagine,you know, you guys look for someone
who has that experience, not someonewho you can train for that experience.
Um, because
Austin Boggan (31:24):
It's a, the reason why it's simple, you can teach somebody
customer service, you can teach themhow to smile for the most part, you
know, um, you can teach them how to dothings like route planning and, and,
um, you know, basic get people frompoint A to point B and make them happy.
The nuances of airports andprivate, you know, FBOs and hotels
(31:47):
and how to get people in and outprivately and things like that.
You can teach, you can teach all of thatand you can do, you can teach that much
more quickly Then you can teach peoplehow to shoot, move, and communicate.
Do trauma care.
Like you said, make splitsecond decisions that could save
or not save somebody's life.
That takes years and years ofrepetition and training, which is
(32:08):
why, for the most part, our Talentacquisition is from prior military law
enforcement or both, um, type guys.
We have, I mean, our rosterlooks very different than most.
We don't typically bring on, uh,cats straight out of high school or
college and train them up in the field.
Our roster is, you know, Marines, NavySEALs, uh, contractors that do overseas
(32:31):
work that are used to high risk, highstress environments that we can say,
Hey, by the way, carry some hair ties.
Cause this might come in handyinstead of us going, by the
way, this is radio etiquette.
This is the NATO phoneticalphabet on the radio.
This is how you use a firearmthat, you know, those things
are a lot harder to teach.
So we choose.
A large prerequisites at the top ofour funnel, and then we refine the,
(32:54):
we make them gentlemen afterwards.
We want very, you know, very capable,extremely dangerous gentlemen.
That is the, the typical candidatethat we're looking for on our side.
It's a, it's a really good observation.
You have to know what, what your manpoweris going to be best used on in training.
Cause we don't have a lot of time for it.
Our operational tempo is high.
So yeah, that's a great,it's a great point.
Joshua Maddux (33:17):
Okay, so, I have to ask, um, what is one of the biggest
Losses or just total mistakes or,you know, what did that look like?
What did, what did you learn from that?
And that could be, you know,this job or, you know, something,
something else, obviously, uh,
Austin Boggan (33:41):
Oh man, I've got so many that come to mind because I've
made every mistake in the book,you know, just like anybody else
has that's been around for a while.
You learn through making the mistakes.
So man, I've got a laundry listthat could be brought up here.
Um, but surprisingly enough.
In the industry, in the sector ofthe industries that we work in, it's
very, very rare that we actuallyhave a massive failure in security
(34:04):
posture or life threatening incident.
Because we're so thorough on thefront end, we really eliminate most
possibilities for something bad to happenon the front end, just in planning, um,
just in the specific route that we takeor how we're going to get somewhere.
We, we put ourselves as faraway from risk as possible.
So you really, the biggest mistakesthat we make and the biggest losses
(34:26):
that we suffer, especially financiallosses can be from the lack of
planning or customer service.
Like if you are with a clientand you take a wrong turn.
Because you didn't know your routeahead of time and had to rely on your
navigation, which was lagging, orthere was bad internet connection.
You know, clients expect convenienceand for you to know where you're going.
And that right there can bea massive financial loss.
(34:47):
If just a little mistake like that,it's not like there was bolts flying,
but if you make a wrong turn, it mightbe the same outcome for the company.
And you may not retainthat client anymore.
Joshua Maddux (34:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's just the attention to, Imean, attention to detail aspects.
Um, that.
That I think oftentimes can getoverlooked, you know, just in
the higher volume throughput.
Um, and a lot of businesses overlook that.
Now,
Austin Boggan (35:15):
exactly.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Joshua Maddux (35:17):
No, go for it.
Austin Boggan (35:18):
I was just gonna, I'm sure it's the same on your end.
There's probably a laundry list of SOPsthat you have to go through, questions
you have to ask the client to make sureit's thorough and dollars are being spent.
Because I know that the difference Onthe marketing side is, is between getting
an outcome and not can be the differencebetween a few buttons clicked or not,
or a few creatives use that were splittested a few more times than others, you
(35:39):
know, it's, it's the same level of detail.
So I know, you know, quite well, thesame concept we're talking about.
Joshua Maddux (35:43):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And that's for us is it always bafflesme when I get someone that just,
you know, Calls me out of the blue.
And it's like, Hey, I own a company.
Can you give me a quote for this?
And I'm like, yeah, exactly.
Like go call an auto dealershipand be like, how much is a car?
Like, okay.
Are you looking for a Toyota Prius?
(36:04):
Are you looking for, you know, doyou need to haul a fifth wheel?
If you need to haul a fifth wheel fromhere to, you know, Florida and you're
buying a Toyota Prius, like that's goingto be a very interesting adventure,
um, And, and I feel like oftentimesin business, like people make those
(36:26):
split second decisions and they don'tthink through what they might need.
Um, right.
I'm curious.
Austin Boggan (36:34):
I know this is your show, man, but I'm curious
how you guys overcome that.
How do you, how do you get ahead ofthe clientele coming in with these
kind of broad stroke questions oflike, just give me a quote for this.
Do you,
Joshua Maddux (36:45):
yeah.
So, so we refer to commonly, uh, like.
November, December is what I jokinglyrefer to as quoting season, where
I'll get three, four calls sometimesa day of I'm planning my marketing
budget for next year, I'm a marketingdirector at X company, and I need a
number, like my boss needs a number.
(37:08):
And I generally can, okay, like,what'd you guys do in sales last year?
What'd you spend for marketing?
What's your conversion rate?
What's your cost of acquisition?
Like, if you know those numbers,you can start to do some quick math.
Like, okay, we want to double our sales.
You know, your cost of acquisition,like it's, it's not going
(37:28):
to go up exactly two times.
Cause it never does, but like we cando some rough math and Pretty quickly
figure out where you ballpark ishwithin 20 to 30 percent should be.
However, it's businesses that call andgo, what's your cost of acquisition?
I don't know.
What, what's the cost of acquisition?
And it's like, okay, great.
(37:49):
We've got some, we've gotsome questions to ask here.
And I'm like, you're like, we want to help
Austin Boggan (37:54):
you.
We really do.
Joshua Maddux (37:55):
Yeah.
Or it's, or it's the questionof like, what's a website cost?
A grand to two million dollars?
Like,
Austin Boggan (38:03):
yeah,
Joshua Maddux (38:04):
companies have paid both.
Like, uh, yeah.
So, you know, it, it, it's hard and it's,it's coming up with, you know, we've
been in business like 17 ish years andwe have like, Uh, uh, uh, fill in the
blank type sheet that's like walks throughplanning a site or planning content
(38:26):
or planning whatever that might be.
And it starts going throughthose nuanced questions of,
you know, what's the goal here?
What's, what's the outcome you want?
And that type of stuff and figuringout who that ideal client is, what
their action steps they should betaking, you know, how, how this,
this is going to asset that they'rebuilding for the business is going
(38:47):
to help that and, and do that.
Austin Boggan (38:51):
Right.
I find that so fascinatingbecause it's just such a, you
know, it's so much projection.
If we do this, is this the likely outcome?
Is this going to achieve the most, uh, youknow, out of what we want it to achieve?
I find those projections so fascinating.
Joshua Maddux (39:06):
And we have two clients that sit in the exact same industry.
They do the exact same thing, buttheir customer could not be further.
Like their two customersare the exact opposite.
One is single family resident.
The other, they only want to workwith apartment buildings that
have at least 200 plus units.
(39:27):
And so it's like, those arevery different customer bases.
And if.
We didn't know that those are twovery different marketing strategies.
Facebook ads will work for one Facebookads might not work for the other.
And so, you know, it's, yeah.
So it
Austin Boggan (39:43):
sounds like you kind of reverse engineer it.
You kind of look at, okay, whatreally is the ideal scenario?
What's who's the end user.
And then you kind of narrow down theavatars from there and kind of decide
what the approach is going to be.
Joshua Maddux (39:53):
Exactly.
It's the same exactthing that you guys do.
I mean, the outcome your clientwants is to get to X, Y, Z location.
Okay.
How do we get there?
You know, we can take a plane, wecan take a train, we can take a car.
Like these are the different avenues.
What's, you know, what'sgoing to be less risk.
What's going to be less time.
(40:14):
What's going to be whatever.
And you go through the options, figureit out, make a contingency plan and
see what option they want to pick.
And then when they decide the one thatyou're like, okay, let's take the detour.
We'll figure out how that's going to work.
Austin Boggan (40:32):
But so many similarities, so many similarities, different
industries, wildly different, butyou know, like you're hired, boom,
you know how to problem solve,you know, it's all the same.
Joshua Maddux (40:44):
So as we, as we sort of wrap up a little bit, like what, um, what
are some different, like either what'sa book or, or some sort of a resource
that you've found that sort of, uh, notnecessarily shaped your career path, but
something that you've found that sort of.
Really helpful.
Resource.
Austin Boggan (41:05):
Yeah, I'll let you know when we rewrite it.
Uh, kidding.
There's It What's the mostbeneficial, uh, at least in my
scenario, is just field experience.
And I can't harp on that enough,because I have guys that'll ask me
all the time that are new to theexecutive protection industry, new
to the security industry in general,where it's like, what book can I read?
What, uh, what podcast can I watch?
(41:26):
And there are a lot of great ones, butI would say The thing that's going to
help the most, that I've learned themost from, is just finding somebody
who does a good job, has a solidreputation, and watching how they work.
Watch how the decisionmaking process goes.
Say, okay, like I'm watching thisindividual, they're tailing at this kind
of rate, they made this decision becauseof this, and you just ask questions
(41:48):
and refine the process and refinethe process and refine the process.
So, getting out, making the mistakes,but coming in educated, doing the
homework first, is what will lead tothose, those lessons learned more than
any resource that I've found, at leaston, you know, on the back end of things.
Joshua Maddux (42:07):
Yeah, I will, I would definitely say like
real world experience for sure.
Like, man, we used to hire, uh, backwhen we had more of a physical office, we
used to hire interns and, or, you know,do an internship program and then hire
them from that and we'd have one who'slike, Oh yeah, I had, you know, three
semesters of this and I'm like, great.
(42:27):
Well, Can you actually do that?
Uh, no, I can't like, great.
Just that you had a class on it.
Doesn't mean like, there's a differencebetween book smart, street smart.
Um, you can be both, like both is great.
Austin Boggan (42:42):
Uh, I'm sure we could talk about that all day.
Very, very similar there as well.
Cause it, I have this,this, this on my resume.
I'm like, okay, but if you'regoing to do an advance of a place,
what does that look like for you?
And they're like, that's a advance.
That's where you go scout it out.
Right.
And we're like, yep,that's, that's what that is.
So.
Experience, you know, the gap between,um, you know, what they say is experience
(43:06):
or education is very large, whichis why we're so big on just the OJT.
Like, let's get out andshow you how to do this.
So long as we have the prerequisitesin place, obviously, you know,
probably very similar to you guys.
Joshua Maddux (43:17):
I get random, like, resumes every now and then from people who are
like, Oh, I'm a developer and I'm fluentin these 35 different coding languages.
And I'm like, really?
You're an expert in all 35 of them?
Cool.
Great.
Yeah.
No, you're not.
I'd be highly
Austin Boggan (43:35):
impressed, but
Joshua Maddux (43:36):
not,
Austin Boggan (43:36):
uh,
Joshua Maddux (43:37):
yeah.
Yeah, you wouldn't be sending meyour resume because you'd be making
seven figures at least somewhere.
Precisely.
Precisely.
Austin Boggan (43:46):
Yeah.
Joshua Maddux (43:46):
Awesome.
Well, as we wrap up, do youhave any questions for me as
we, as we close things out?
Austin Boggan (43:51):
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I just wantto say thanks again for having me.
Like this is a really cool thing.
And I know, and I hope that a lotof people in the ICB are benefiting
from it and are, you know, gettingexposed to other local businesses
in the area, um, through this.
So I want to commend youguys for taking the leap.
It's, it's awesome.
I'm really glad you're doing it.
Um, and, and I would love to justhear, yeah, kind of what, what's the,
(44:12):
the big picture with the podcast?
Um, what's the end state, what'sthe end goal with it, you know?
And, um, yeah, that's my main question.
Joshua Maddux (44:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we've, we talked a littlebit, uh, sort of before we hit
record on this, but yeah, for me,you know, it's, it's two things.
One, it's, it's having conversationslike this, um, getting to know a
little bit more of the people behind.
behind the local business community.
Um, I know one of the things that Coreytalks about is sort of having that,
(44:41):
um, sort of town center that everyonecan sort of learn who everybody is.
Um, and sadly nowadays, because somuch of us sit in a home office or
sit on Zoom or sit behind a computerfor email or whatever that might be.
Um, we've lost a little bit of that.
(45:02):
Um, and so I think, I think having, havingthis opportunity to be able to have these
sort of deeper conversations, you know,you and I ran into, into each other at
one of the chamber events and chatted fora little bit, but, um, you know, you're
not able to do that with, you know,Everybody in the chamber and everybody.
And so being able to have the opportunityto listen to someone's background and
(45:25):
hear who they are and sort of dive intothat, um, for me is sort of super cool.
And then, you know, it's also, again,it's just that networking aspect.
Um, being able to dive deeper and have adeeper conversation, um, you know, with
other chamber members and people that.
You know, are here in the community in mybackyard and, and doing, doing cool stuff.
(45:47):
So, um, yeah, it's, it's exciting.
Austin Boggan (45:51):
Awesome.
Yeah.
It's such a cool thing to just connectpeople, you know, like you said, all
these things are happening simultaneouslyin our own backyard, fantastic digital
marketing businesses to close protectionagencies, to all kinds of other things.
And there's all kinds of waysthat we can help each other.
So this is, you know, and I'll wrapup with that on my side, man, if
there's anything that I can do, uh,to help you guys out, let me know.
Joshua Maddux (46:13):
Awesome.
Appreciate it.
Well, as always, please follow, rate, andreview us wherever you find your podcast.
You can follow us at The Voicesof Business on social media.
You can follow me on LinkedIn, JoshuaMaddux, Corey Nathan, uh, is Corey S
Nathan on I believe Twitter and LinkedIn.
(46:33):
We'd love to have you as a guest on thepodcast and continue the conversation.
Thanks for listening and we'll see younext time on The Voices of Business.
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