What happens when someone with investigative skills meets the investment world? You get a powerful tool for protecting individual investors from fraud. Shane, founder of Aegis RSI, brings institutional-level due diligence down to earth for everyday investors.
Shane's journey began in an unexpected place. Originally pursuing a career in law enforcement, a heart condition discovered during military service forced him to pivot. After working as a private investigator, he found himself at Fidelity Investments during the pandemic, where he discovered his true calling in the due diligence department. What he missed, however, was helping individual people directly – something he now does every day through his own venture.
The distinction between background checks and due diligence investigations becomes crystal clear as Shane walks us through his process. While background checks merely verify criminal records, Shane's investigations unravel complex business structures, verify property sales, analyze operational performance, and identify potential red flags in investment opportunities. In one eye-opening example, he discovered a business owner who had used loan money to purchase a private jet – information uncovered through Federal Aviation Administration records.
Timing matters enormously in this work. As Shane explains, investors should engage due diligence services early in their process – after initial interest but before significant time investment. This prevents the all-too-common scenario where investors have already committed substantial time to a deal before discovering fatal flaws. The reports his firm produces don't tell clients whether to invest or not (that would cross into financial advisor territory), but rather clearly outline the risks involved so investors can make truly informed decisions.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, Shane's business-building experience offers valuable lessons. His growth came through persistent social media engagement, personalized connection requests rather than sales pitches, and consistent content creation – even when it felt like "talking to an empty room." His advice: do proper market research, persist even when progress seems slow, prioritize self-care, and learn to delegate lower-value tasks.
Want to protect your investments from fraud? Connect with Shane on LinkedIn or visit HSRSI.com to learn how proper due diligence can save you from costly investment mistakes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Forget what you've heard.
Forged in Fire is where realentrepreneurs come to share the
untold truths of success thelate nights, the crushing
setbacks, the moments thatchange everything.
No fluff, just fire, ready tostep into the heat and unlock
(00:25):
what it really takes to build abusiness.
This is where legends are made.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another
exciting episode of Forged inFire.
I am your co-host, nate Farmer.
Allow me to introduce mycounterpart, cole.
Come on stage, brother.
How we doing man nate.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm good dude, I'm fired up.
This is honestly our very firsttime that I can think of that.
We've had back to back to backpodcast guests all been a hit
like the entire day, like weusually do, maybe one or two
week, but like this has beenthree people all bringing the
fire, all bringing the heat dude.
So I'm fired up, man, becauseit gives me energy and it keeps
(01:09):
me going.
But what about you?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Dude, I'm with you.
They've been great, and I'msuper excited because whenever
we have these interviews withpeople, I feel like I get so
amped up as well, and itmotivates me, it teaches me.
So it's exciting to be here and, again, I'm always excited for
the guests that we have on,today especially, so I want to
get into that.
However, one thing, as I say onevery episode, and for the
(01:32):
third time today guys, pleaseleave us a review as the one
favor for helping us grow.
This is the only thing thatreally matters to us and that's
what helps us continue to dothis.
So, if you could, please leaveus a review, comments, wherever
it is, whatever platform you'reon.
We would really, reallyappreciate it.
So, with that said, sit back,relax, enjoy the show, dude,
it's going to be so good.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Today we're going to be joined by Shane, but before
we bring him on stage, I metthis amazing man.
Must have been oh a couple ofweeks now, maybe about a month
ago or so.
Actually, if you guys rememberthe episode that we had with
Linda Holtz, from Married toReal Estate and we talked about
that, she has a meetup everyThursday and I met Shane through
the meetup that I was attending.
It's a virtual meetup, so,again, shout out to her
(02:15):
Definitely, try to dive in,Definitely try to meet us there.
It's an amazing opportunity,but Shane has been phenomenal.
Aegis RSI was founded in 2024,and he helps syndicators and
folks in that industry to beable to do background checks and
screenings.
But, honestly, it sounds likeI'm just babbling because I
don't have a lot of detail onhow it works.
(02:35):
So enough from me.
Let's go ahead and bring Shaneon.
Shane, how are we doing today,man?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I am doing absolutely great Thanks for having me on
Nate and Cole.
I am doing absolutely greatThanks for having me on Nate and
Cole.
Yeah, so I'm just going to divein a little bit to what I do so
that we can clarify it a bit.
So what I do is actually not abackground screening, it's
something a little bit moreadvanced.
It's known as a due diligenceinvestigation.
(03:03):
So basically, this isn'tsomething like fancy or new
that's never been heard frombefore.
This is just a tool that biggercompanies like institutional
investors use to vet newinvestments, potential partners
and vendors.
And I used to do that samething for institutional
investors and I just brought itdown to the level where I could
help individuals as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Dude, I love it, I love it, I love it.
So please tell us more, give usa little bit more context and
kind of what got you here?
What brought you here?
Man, take us back as far as youwould like to go into how you
got into this kind of field andline of work.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Well, it's actually a really long story and it
doesn't really have a greatbeginning where it's just like,
wow, that's such an inspiringbeginning.
So most people I meet whenthey're like oh, I want to be a
police officer, I want to be inlaw enforcement, which is what I
wanted to do.
They started very early in life.
They started when they're a kid.
I didn't realize I even had aninterest in that until I was in
(03:54):
college and I was actually goingfor a more traditional science
degree and realized that aftertaking, like a criminal, an
intro to criminal justice course, I really liked it.
That after taking, like acriminal, an intro to criminal
justice courts, I really likedit, so went that route, got
that's what I got my degree in.
I also got a certificate incriminalistics, which all that
means is if you speak forensicscience type stuff to me, I
(04:15):
won't get confused.
I know what you're talkingabout.
Had to take some really crazyclasses that were way outside of
my like intellectual wheelhousedoing it, but it was honestly a
great experience.
Was working on becoming apolice officer here in Texas and
was in the pipeline for DallasPD.
No offense against Dallas PD,absolutely love the people there
(04:38):
, but it was not my preferredfirst choice.
I wanted to go to like asmaller pd first and then kind
of build up to the bigger stuff.
Um was just trying to get inthere and I actually got.
Had a really interestingconversation with an army
recruiter and he went and saidhey, we have this new pilot
(04:59):
program.
If you have a degree and youjoin the and you enlist in the
army, you can become a criminalinvestigation division agent
right off the bat.
So for me, going from I want tobe a police officer, but
there's a lot of hiring freezesin Texas to hey, you can be a
special agent in the army.
That was a really attractivething for me.
(05:20):
So I went and started doingthat, got really sick, had no
one, had any idea what was goingon.
I would just like be standingin formation, sometimes pass out
.
We'd be doing, uh, push-ups,I'd pass out, and then drill
sergeant come over like poke mewith stick.
Couldn't figure out what washappening for a while.
Turns out I have a heartcondition that really only
activates under stress.
(05:40):
Um, no one I had never detectedat any point in my life, and
not even the military entrance.
Uh, people could detect it.
So I had to get discharged fromthat.
Immediately after that I startedworking as a pi.
Um, love that job, really toughwork, though.
Honestly, nothing but respectfor the people that do that day
(06:01):
to day, because it is a lot um,and there's so much that goes
into it that people just don'tthink about.
But during the pandemic, uh,the pi firm I work was working
for, they kind of shut down alittle bit and they were like
drastically decreasing.
They kept on staff becausethere was no demand for it.
(06:22):
Right then, um, within a weekor two, I got a call from
Fidelity Investments and I hadnever thought about going into
the finance world with my skillsat all.
It was just not something Iconsidered, because you never
hear about that type of thingStarted working with their
background department and thenmoved over to their due
diligence department, and that'swhere I really kind of found my
(06:44):
niche, where I was like, okay,yeah, I know I can use my skills
here.
I can do some great stuff.
Uh, the only thing I was reallymissing while I was working
with fidelity is helping peopleday in, day out, because, of
course, I'm helping the companyand I'm helping my co-workers
and I'm helping anyone I can,but we don't see those
individual people that you help.
You don't see the cases I getnow where I'm like, hey, I'm
(07:04):
helping this lady that she'sjust saving for retirement she's
got quite a bit of money therebut she just wants to vet a
financial advisor to make surehe's not going to screw her over
, and it's just one of thosethings.
When I started doing it bymyself, I was like this is
absolutely what I want to do.
So yeah, that's a quick versionof my story what I want to do.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So, yeah, that's a quick version of my story.
That's awesome.
I usually follow this up withwhy, and you answered that
absolutely perfectly.
So I guess my next question isjust going to be as you went
through that journey, I guessmore specifically on the journey
with your current path, not somuch the past, but what are
challenges that you ran intowith building it and bringing
that product to the consumer?
What are things that went well,maybe, but what are challenges
that you ran into with buildingit and bringing that product to
the consumer?
What are things that went well,maybe, and what are things that
(07:48):
you didn't expect that didn'tgo well?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Ooh there are a lot for both of those.
So one of the things that wentreally well that I did not
expect is people.
Once I was able to describewhat I did to people and most
people I talked to they'reindividual investors, so they
don't really know what I'mtalking about right off the bat.
They're like oh, so you're doinglike background checks and I
have to kind of explain to themno, it's not really a background
check, something completelydifferent, it's like an
(08:11):
anti-fraud tool.
You're not background checkingthem, you're do.
It's like some of the stuff Ido is absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You would never what it is exactly so if somebody's
listening, going like wait, Ihear you, but what exactly does
it entail?
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Okay.
So one of the really big thingsthat we do is, for example,
real estate syndicators.
They have a lot involved inwhat they do on the day-to-day.
They'll have multiple LLCsassociated with them through
their main business.
They'll have multiple LLCsassociated with properties.
They'll have this whole crazybusiness structure that you have
(08:48):
to unravel before you can evenbegin to try to vet them.
And if you were doing abackground check, you would
never even try that.
You'd get the name and run thatand then, oh, this guy's never
had any criminal records orcivil records.
You're good, right.
What we do is more on the riskmanagement and analysis side as
well.
So we'll go through everysingle one of those LLCs, if we
(09:09):
can identify them and lookthrough and go, hey, is there
anything against this LLC?
This guy runs a hotel propertyin this county.
How's that hotel propertyactually doing?
What are the reviews on thathotel saying?
Do they have any operationalissues?
What are the county records say?
If they sold, if they, forexample, were doing like a
five-year syndication, they said, hey, we sold it for this price
(09:31):
.
Well, did they actually sell itfor that price?
Let's go in and dive in andmake sure that they're doing
what they're saying they'redoing.
So it's just like a veryintense process that is
basically verifying everythingthese people are saying about
themselves.
Now we don't go, of course.
It would be absolutely crazy if, for some of these syndicators
go through every single propertythey've ever sold.
Usually we do kind of like asampling type thing.
(09:52):
We'll look for any reportedissues.
So like if the media reportedthat, hey, this portfolio area
is underperforming, like sunbeltor something, we'll actually
look at the um, their propertiesin the sunbelt area.
If they say, hey, this specificproperty is having challenges,
or during our research,something else indicates that it
might be having challenges,we'll go for that property
(10:13):
rather than one that might bedoing well.
We will try to actually includeones that are doing well, to
just let them know, hey, it'snot all bad, you don't.
It's not ever all bad.
Sometimes they just havestruggling properties and you
want to provide a balancedapproach because, at the end of
the day, that's what we'retrying to do.
We're not trying to go in andsay, hey, this guy's a bad guy,
you shouldn't do business withhim because three of his
(10:34):
properties underperforming.
We're actually trying to sitthere and make sure that you get
unbiased information that youcan use to make informed
decisions about whether or notyou want to invest with this guy
, or even, in some cases, justyou want to be their business
partner.
Or, in cases where they havemultiple business lines, maybe
even they have a service thatyou want to use and you want to
use them as a vendor in somecases.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
This is so good.
So this is like it reminds meof like literally, I was reading
a book about it like a badactor, like being able to make
sure and identify and then beingable to screen a little bit.
So can you talk a little bitmore let's sort of take it a
little bit more in depth on whatare those courses of action
look like.
So let's say somebody comes in,they decide to partner with you
or they say, hey, shane, thisis what I'm thinking of pursuing
(11:19):
from let's just take an LPperspective and say, hey, I want
to work with this operatoryou're pursuing from let's just
take an LP's perspective and say, hey, I want to work with this
operator, let me know what comesup.
And then you find things you dothe deep dive in.
And then when you go back tothem and you sit down with them,
what does that process then?
Look like you just say, hey,here's the information that you
requested.
Do you sit down with them andsay, analyze different paths
that they can take and say, hey,these might be red flags, but
(11:43):
you might just want to ask alittle bit more questions about
this for a little bit more of aclear perspective, or how does
that process then transpire?
And if you want to use anexample of maybe some of your
old cases as well, that'sawesome.
You don't have to use any names.
I understand confidentiality,but fill us in on what that
process then looks like.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, so actually it's exactly like the second one
.
I don't.
I'm not a financial advisor,first off, never one to
misidentify myself.
All I do is help people managethe risk of investing in certain
things.
So when someone looks at thispro that we go through our whole
report, we issue the report andwe say, hey, we found this and
this.
This could be an indicator offraud or something we're
(12:21):
actually going to go throughthem with them on.
Usually we call them risk reviewcalls.
They don't typically take verylong, but we don't have a time
limit on them and we'll actuallysit with them and explain what
we found and why that could bean issue.
Clients don't always requestthem, it's just because our
reports are very thorough andsometimes they just read the
reports and they're like we'regood to go, but yeah, we'll sit
(12:43):
there with you and make surethat you understand all the
risks involved before you likewe're good to go, but yeah,
we'll sit there with you andmake sure that you understand
all the risks involved beforeyou invest.
So we're not saying hey, don'tinvest with this guy because we
think it's a high risk deal.
We just explain the risksinvolved Because, of course, if
you said don't invest with them,you're actually delving into
the areas of a financial advisor.
I'm not telling you, hey, don'tinvest with this guy.
I'm telling you, hey, I'mseeing some issues here.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
That makes sense.
So would it be along the linesof let's use a fun story.
Let's say we're investing withJoe Schmo and it seemed like Joe
Schmo murdered his neighborsand buried them in the backyard
and you found things that lookedlike that?
You would assume be like hey,I'm not sure, not saying you
should do or not do this deal.
However, here's someinteresting information.
(13:23):
Is that kind of what it wouldgo like?
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yes, it's much more like that.
Usually what we find isoccasionally we do find like
smoking guns, like in one casewe were working on this I'm
trying to change the case in mymind so I don't out anyone so we
were lurking.
It was more towards lending,but it was kind of like a
(13:46):
business partnership type dealwhere this guy had gotten a
really, really big loan fromsomeone we were working with and
we looked into where the moneywas going.
Um, this happens all the time.
By the way, this is not likewhere people will just money
will kind of disappear and theycome to me and they're like hey,
(14:08):
this guy is saying he's havingtrouble making payments on this
loan, that I helped him getLooked through a whole bunch of
data and one of the really oddsources I actually found where
part of the money had gone waswith the Federal Aviation
Administration.
(14:28):
So if you didn't know, usuallyif you don't have like one of
those subscription serviceswhere you get the private jets
which is actually kind ofmessing up that line of
investigation a little bit butyou actually have to register a
private jet if it's under yourname.
So if you, for example, you canactually find a jet registered
at someone's home addressthrough there and we found
(14:50):
people using that before and itwasn't like one of the.
It wasn't like a horror storylike 2 million, but it was
enough to raise red flags and wewere like, why are you buying a
jet when you just had to takeout a business loan?
We're not sure what's happeninghere.
(15:11):
So that's one of those thingswhere we say, hey, we don't know
where all the money went, butwe definitely see him buying
this plane here and it'sregistered at his home address.
So you might want to look intoit or ask him questions about
that if you want to continuewith the relationship, because
of course, when there's a loaninvolved involved, it's a
completely different situation.
The, the person, the personthat you got the loan from, is
not going to let you just backout.
You're going to have to try tosalvage that relationship in
(15:32):
some way or the other.
You might be able to work withthe lender to kind of take some
responsibility off of you, butat the end of the day they're
going to get their money backsomehow.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
so you gotta be very careful with that that's so
interesting wait, quickfollow-up up question that I'm
not asking for specifics, butjust like, how do you track in
general, like something likewhere the money flows, like what
, what are you trying to look at?
And I'm more just curious, likeI'm just curious.
I guess I don't know if you cananswer that or not.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Um, it's very difficult.
Some people people love to saylike, hey, go follow the money.
But actually following themoney if you're trying to do a
discreet investigation, isreally, really hard.
I have a contact that doesfinancial due diligence, and how
he does it's actually reallycool he does.
He literally links the lenderor the investor's portal to his
(16:29):
website with the bank account ofthe person they're investing
with or lending to so he can seein real time if they're moving
a lot of money or what they'redoing.
But when you're doing it from adiscrete perspective and you
don't have that arrangement, oneof the things you have to do is
look for significant issues.
So you have to look for, likeliens, judgments, you have to
look for foreclosures,bankruptcy, basically any time
(16:51):
where money is being moved ornot put in the correct place.
You want to note it because youcan say, hey, this might not be
an indicator of actual of wherethe money's actually going, but
it does is an indicator offinancial stress.
So sometimes we'll see in theuh world of real estate
investors just an entire like afreaking mountain of mechanics
(17:14):
liens on a property and when wedon't see a lawsuit tied to that
mechanics lien, that's actuallya problem because, yeah,
mechanics can be filed prettyeasily and sometimes it's a
legitimate disagreement on thequality of work.
Like we had one where the itwas a flooring company and the
floor was already peeling upmonths after, like a couple
(17:36):
months after they installed it.
So of course that's an issuewith the quality of work.
But we were able to find thatactual lawsuit and type back to
the lien so that we could lowerthe risk involved in the lien.
We say, hey, if there was nolawsuit, there was no issue with
the quality of work.
It's kind of like a medium risk.
There's no issue with thequality of work.
It's kind of like a medium risksituation because like, hey,
(17:58):
there's a lien here and it's abig lien, but also we know
that's for flooring.
But if we see that civillawsuit, it's a low risk
situation because we knowthere's an actual issue with the
quality of work.
Well, I don't know for sure, butwe have a suspicion because
most people don't just kind ofsue a person just for fun.
(18:18):
There are a couple of people,but we also have a whole nother
category of risks attributed topeople like that that just seem
to sue all their businesspartners and courts do too, by
the way.
So when you just constantly suepeople, you're called a
litigious individual and you canactually get lawsuits thrown
out of court just by beingmarked that.
(18:38):
But when we see that and you'resuing all these business
partners, of course we want tomake sure that if someone's
trying to partner with them as abusiness, we know about that as
well, so that we can be like,hey, yeah, they tend to sue
their business partners, somaybe you don't want to get, you
don't want to do business withthem, because you might end up
on the other end and no onelikes to be sued like, honestly,
it's it if you ever want abetter deterrent for doing good
(19:02):
business ever want a betterdeterrent for doing good
business.
Oh, sorry about that, no, it'sall good bella, I know you're
not featured in this episode.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I guess you are now.
Can you go lay down?
Yeah, good girl.
What's the pup's?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
name Bella, bella, oh , she's adorable.
She's just upset because mywife is at home right now.
So she's like I want attentionand I just leave everything open
for them to run around thehouse, but they're just sitting
right next to me right now.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I got a two-part question and it'll go in two
different directions so you cananswer it however you'd like to
One.
So when it came to like Cole andmyself and we deal in real
estate all day long, this iswhat we do but when we wanted to
learn about it, not only did weread books and listen to
podcasts and all the fun stuff,but we also joined like
masterminds.
So my question number one iswhat was the path and trajectory
(20:02):
like to be able to learn andget into this field that you're
in right now?
So, like for us, we just welean on each other, we lean on
our coaches, we lean on theguidance and the support, but
what does that look like fromsomebody that's coming in from
your perspective?
And then part two of thatquestion is At what point and
what kind of training do youprovide for folks that maybe you
want to come in on an LP role,or maybe folks that are like,
(20:24):
hey, I'm thinking about enteringinto this partnership.
What information is out therefor folks to be able to say, hey
, it's now time for me to goahead, call Shane, because stuff
is starting to get real and Idon't want shit to go sideways.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Well, surprisingly enough, you don't need a huge
amount of training to do what Ido.
Okay, but there's also a lotthat goes into that.
So people that are reallyinterested in the work tend to
excel.
So that's why I say you don'tneed a huge amount of training.
You don't actually need adegree in a certificate in
criminal justice to be able todo what I do.
It's not a requirement.
(21:07):
I've met people actually one ofthe best people I've ever worked
with at this her degree was notin criminal justice, it was in
pharmaceuticals.
So before she used to work fora doc, she used to be like a
pharmacy rep at a doctor'soffice and that's it.
She just, she just did pills,um, and she was absolutely great
at the thing at the role,because she had really superb
analytical skills and was verydetailed.
So that really helps becauseshe basically left notes, turn
on, uh, no, stone unturned.
(21:29):
And that's really the thingthat comes into it, because
that's the investigative part ofit, where you're looking in and
making sure, hey, there's awhole bunch of stuff here.
I need to make sure I'm hittingthis point, this point, that
point, um, and honestly, the theamount of training it takes for
someone to be useful at.
What I do is about six monthsbefore you can start handling
kind of more complex cases.
(21:50):
There's a lot of differenttypes of things we work on, so
sometimes we'll be working onreally kind of advanced cases
like multifamily syndications orhigh risk lending situations
like multifamily syndications orhigh risk lending situations,
and then we have less intenseones like vendor risk, which
usually they're not going to behuge giant cases with a bunch of
problem.
Usually just it's more.
(22:11):
It's more on the marketresearch side.
Occasionally we get someonethat's actually absolutely crazy
and you look into their likelike a home builder and their
quality of work is justabsolutely out there and you
have no idea how a home buildergets sued this many times.
But that helps you build theskills for those cases where
that happens in a multi-familysyndication or happens in a
lending case.
So, yeah, there's not actuallya lot of pre-training that you
(22:33):
need for it, it's just once youget into the job you have to
learn so much and you have tolearn it on the spot, because I
can't teach you every singlething you need to know.
There's no, there's nolegitimate way for me to do that
.
I can try, and I definitely dotry, but there's no.
There's no like secret sauce orsomething where I can just be
like, hey, read this manual andsuddenly you'll be able to do
(22:56):
this.
It's a very skillset based thing, and it's something you have to
develop and work really hard atand it's something you have to
be interested in, because if youdon't care, you're not going to
be good at this job.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I know your experience is big with this too.
Right, like you've had a lot ofexperience doing this, so I'm
sure you'll see certain thingsto an average person that would
not stick out and you're like,oh wait, wait, wait.
I know this is a red flagbecause of X, y, z or like.
I know I need to dive in deeperand I'm sure your experience
and, like like you said, yourpassion for it, drives that home
.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yes, that is definitely a big part of it.
And if you don't have thatpassion, actually I have a
really funny story.
I, when I used to work forFidelity Investments, I used to
do their job shadows for the duediligence department.
It was kind of funny becauseone time I had a guy that I
actually put to sleep on a jobshadow through zoom, because I
(23:48):
was just going through my workand that's what you're supposed
to do on the job shadow.
You're supposed to do like alittle presentation showing what
you're doing.
I was going through it, the guyfell asleep and I was just like
, okay, obviously he's not to,because a lot of the times they
do job shadows because theywanted a job in the department.
But I'm like, obviously thisguy's not interested enough to
do this because the interest ofpeople they'd be chatting my ear
(24:10):
off while I was working.
They'd be like, hey, why areyou doing that?
What's this?
How do you do this?
Well, if you did find that,what would you do next?
So it's a completely differentapproach.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I hope you smacked him in the head.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So I know you got a question.
Go ahead.
No, no, no.
So that was all part one.
Then part two to that exactsame question that we have from
before is at what point do folksfeel like it's or what would
you recommend for somebody,let's just say, from an LP role
or from one of the roles ofsomebody thinking about entering
into a partnership?
When does your expertise comeinto play?
Like, is it after we've alreadystarted talking about
(24:49):
formulating the LLC?
Is it after I've already donemy personal due diligence on
analyzing a market, coming upwith trends, making sure that I
found operators that I feel like, I know, like and trust, and
I'm about ready to sign thesubscription agreement?
Ppm looks good.
Let me call shane and make sureit's all good.
Or do I do that beforehand?
Like, how does that look?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
um, it depends.
So ideally I like to get on asearly as possible.
Why?
Because I don't want you tospend countless hours looking at
a deal and then me findsomething that just kills it
right off the bat.
That would be.
That would be absolutely awful,because your money is timed and
you can't get back all thattime you used looking at that
(25:29):
thing.
What I usually tell people is,once it passes your initial due
diligence checks and we'retalking like the very early
stage of your due diligence, notlike where you're sitting there
and you've been working on thisfor weeks and then suddenly
you're like I think I might likethis.
Let's send it over to Shane Onceit passes your initial phase of
due diligence.
Like you do some quick market,you do your quick underwriting
(25:51):
and you go, hey, this issomething I could be interested
in.
Then you would send it over tome because, ideally, by the time
you get to the point whereyou're like, hey, I might want
to get into this, by the timeyou get to the point where
you're like, hey, I might wantto get into this, I'll have a
report back to you and you cansay, hey, okay, so we've got a
risk analysis of this wholething now.
So now I know exactly what I'mgetting into.
Of course, that's like my kindof fantasy way of doing it.
(26:15):
Normally what happens is LP willget almost all the way through
a deal, be almost to the pointwhere they're supposed to
transfer money, and then they'llask me and I will say, um, that
would have been nice to know.
First of all because now wehave to rush this case out the
door.
(26:35):
I hate doing that absolutely.
It's always a pain to rush acase.
Uh, we don't usually missthings when we rush cases, but
it does make it a little bitstressful, because I'm the kind
of person that if I need to dosomething, I can sit at my
computer for 10 hours and get itdone or in some cases, three
days and get it done.
(26:55):
But it's one of those thingswhere it's just like it's not a
good, great way to do it, and ifI have that extra time I start
thinking of things that I wouldhave never thought about before.
So I'll be like, oh, you know,what I realized, that I've
actually saw something aboutthis company on LinkedIn.
Let me go look back up that upreal quick and make sure that
it's not going to be an issue.
Those kind of thoughts don'tpop in your head when you're
(27:19):
rushing through something.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
That's such a great point and I mean I'm sure that's
a big factor.
It almost reminds me of, likethe conversational argument
thing, like never say somethingwhen you're angry because you
need time to like let it settle.
And I feel like the samephilosophy on this of just I'm
sure you look at so much dataand then randomly, like a day
later or however much timeyou're like wait a minute,
something just clicks and itjust happens.
(27:42):
So that's very cool Questionfor you, kind of thinking,
tactical side, and this isspecific for people that are
just building businesses.
Listening to your story going,that's interesting.
If I want to start my own thing, how do I do it?
So, just in your world, if,like, how did you acquire
clients and how did you marketwhat worked for you?
(28:04):
And again, just as if somebodyis an entrepreneur looking to
take the next step in whateverindustry they're in, what worked
for you?
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Gotcha.
Well, I'm going to put a bigwarning sign on this, because
what happened with me I know100%.
This is not going to happenwith everyone.
I took a service I knew wasgoing to be used in the space
and that was not currently beingused, because people had
actually asked me about doing itwhile I was working for
Fidelity.
I'm like that's a huge conflictof interest.
I couldn't do that.
(28:35):
So I knew there was a market forit out here in the private
equity space to go and do thiskind of work.
So I started my business withthat in mind and I already had a
client by the time I started mybusiness.
So it was one of those thingswhere I literally started it to
work with them.
So what really worked for mewas getting on social media
Before it was really outside mywheelhouse.
(28:56):
It took a while for me to getany traction on it, but I
actually started sending DMswith connection requests and not
really salesy type stuff, justlike hey, this is what I do,
introduction type stuff, andthen leave the door open for
them.
And I kept doing it, I keptposting, I kept doing all the
(29:18):
stuff I was supposed to do, evenwhen it felt like I was talking
to an empty room.
I would just keep doing it, andthat's really what worked for
me, because not only could thesepeople see me talking to them
directly through my directmessages and realizing it's a
service they could use.
They also saw me postingconsistently, not just about
business stuff, but about thingsthat were just going on with my
(29:40):
life or things that I was evenwhen it was business stuff how
that related to me personally.
So like if we did somethingreally cool, like I always make
a big deal out of it whenever wedo something like we did.
We created some new reporttemplates recently and I posted
it all over everywhere, sent itoff to all my clients and I'm
like, hey, this is this is whatwe're doing, and you kind of
(30:01):
have to work like that way.
Yeah, because if, especiallywhen you're a new entrepreneur
and you're sitting there andtrying your best, if you're just
doing it in the dark, no one'sgoing to realize what you're
doing.
So you kind of have to be alittle bit loud and you have to
be a little bit proud about andbe like, hey, this is what I did
, this, this is awesome, let'sgo, let's talk about it, let's
(30:21):
bring this out to everyone.
And it's really difficult toget to that point sometimes,
especially if you're moreintroverted, like I am.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So good, so many gems just dropped, two that I want
to hone in on One practice likeyou perform, even if it feels
like nobody else is watching,you still showed up every single
day.
You're still making content,you're still being engaged,
you're still reaching out, andthen, before you know it, you've
got traction, you've got afollowing and you've got a grasp
on a whole different clienteleor different base that you can
(30:54):
be able to move forward and workwith.
Hats off to you on that one.
And so I, just before we getinto point number two, I got to
ask now talk to me a little bitabout what it looks like for the
future outlook, for yourself,for your business.
Where do you see it going?
And then we can dive back intothat in a little bit.
But I just kind of want to knowjust give me a full picture,
(31:15):
but put some, put some bunnyears on it, put a nice bow on it
.
Let me know exactly what itlooks like now with the clients
that you've got.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Cause we heard from where you started at you came on
with one client, now you grew.
What's what's happening next?
Oh, so, right now I have abouta lift of around and it's
actually bigger than that nowCause I haven't updated really
bad at updating my client listconsistently.
I've got my email list, but Idon't always put my client list.
But we support around 60individual investors and around
(31:48):
two or three institutionalclients, so what that looks like
and 60 sounds like a really bignumber, right, but really
that's not the case in thissituation.
These can be investors thatmake one deal a year and that's
all I help them with.
And that's actually what Iwanna be there for.
I wanna go, I wanna be able tohelp those investors that only
make one deal a year sometimesbecause they don't have access
(32:10):
to what I do on a regular basis,and no one can help them.
So right now that's what itlooks like, and actually this
the way I'm doing it right nowhas been pretty successful.
I know there's other stuff Ican do, there's all kinds of
future paths I can take, butreally what I'm thinking about
right now is making basicallymore people like me, and what
(32:44):
that would look like on my endis, rather than I hire people on
, they do cases for me.
I want them to function morelike an insurance agent where
they would go out and get theirown clients.
Of course, I'll give them someclients to start with, like ones
that don't require that mucheffort right off the bat so that
they don't get overwhelmed.
But I want them to go out andform their own relationships and
really be there for theirclients so that they actually
take ownership of them and knowthat, hey, this is not just a
(33:05):
person I'm doing a report for.
They're a faceless person I'venever met.
These are people they know andthat they want to help, and I
always tell people hey, don'tcall something low risk if
you're not going to have afamily member invest in it, and
that's really what I want tobring to the table.
I don't want people to sitthere and just have this
(33:28):
faceless person that I hired andthen suddenly they can never
talk to them about reports.
They can't get anything out ofthem.
I want them to take ownershipof their work and make sure that
every time they do a report,it's the best effort they can
put forward.
It's awesome.
It's awesome oh.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I love it.
I'm wondering if it's awesome.
I love it.
I'm wondering if it's time.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I think it's time.
I was just going to suggest itmyself.
All right, shane, here's thedeal.
We're headed into what we callthe super six, which is the same
questions we ask every singleguest, and we're going to see
how you do so here we go.
What separates top performingentrepreneurs from the rest of
the crowd?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I'm going to say persistency because it doesn't
really have anything to do withmotivation.
A lot of people are supermotivated but at some point they
just give up on things.
I feel like people that havereally and you're probably going
to laugh at this, but I feellike people that have really
niche hobbies sometimes are someof the most persistent people
(34:26):
you know, so like if they cantake that and point it in the
direction of business, they'llbe super successful and that's
kind of what happened to me.
I have one of the other supernerdy things about me.
I actually play like tabletopRPD Dungeons and Dragons all
that super nerdy things about me.
I actually play like tabletoprpd dungeons, dragons, all that
and I have literally I literallyam and I'm still currently
making it but I've literallymade over a thousand pages of my
(34:49):
own rpg work wow, and this wasbefore I ever started my own
business.
So I'm like you know, if youcan do that, if you can sit
there and be that persistent,what is stopping you from going
out that and that reallysquashed a lot of my like early
oh, who are you to do this?
How can you do this?
It's like you literally satthere and wrote a thousand pages
(35:12):
and the only person that's everread this so far is your
friends.
So maybe you can go and do this, Maybe you can be a little bit
persistent and keep going,because you've done this
consistently for two years.
What's stopping you from doingthat in a business?
And the answer was nothing.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Dude.
I love that, and I'm a D&D fanmyself.
I love homebrew.
But moving forward, nextquestion what is a daily habit
that's contributed to yoursuccess?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
This one's funny too.
Make sure you eat.
I have to put it on my calendar.
But you will immediately noticea drop in performance if you
are not taking care of yourself.
And eating is one of the bigthings for me, because usually I
like to eat with my wife andshe wakes up like I wake up at
like six, seven in the morning.
She doesn't usually wake up tolike eight or nine, so there's
(36:01):
that little.
There's a little couple hoursin there where I should be
eating and I don't, because Iwant to eat with her.
That's a bad mistake.
I can eat something small inthe mornings and wait for it,
and then you notice thedifference in performance in
those couple of hours and thenat lunchtime we eat together.
So it's great.
But yeah, you want to make sureyou take care of yourself,
because you will notice a dropin performance when you start,
(36:23):
when you stop doing it.
A lot of people will say justlike grind and grind and grind
and grind.
And it's like, yeah, when youneed to, you need to be grinding
.
But more than that, when youcan take a break, take a break
and take care of yourself.
Make sure you eat, make sureyou don't stare at your computer
screen for eight hours at atime.
Look up on a wall, go for awalk, I don't care what it is,
(36:44):
just make sure you're takingcare of yourself, because that
mental exhaustion will hit youreal quick.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And then suddenly you're not doing anything you
want to do.
So good, I can personallyattest that eating I'm
notoriously bad at eating.
Nate can attest to me gettinghangry.
It's just a problem.
It's an overall problem.
I just don't eat, so I am, yeah, agreed.
What is a piece of advice thatyou'd give to your younger self
if you were starting again?
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Ooh, I actually get a lot of really angry people when
I give this answer, but I wouldjust tell my younger self to
keep going Because, like, at theend of the day, the stuff that
my younger stuff did, even if itwas dumb, even if it was kind
of silly, even if it wasn'talways the best path, that's
(37:32):
what led me where I am today.
I literally and I told my wifethis on our last anniversary too
I've literally had dreams whereI got to live my life over
again.
Last anniversary too, I'veliterally had dreams where I got
to live my life over again, andI actually spent the entire
time trying not to change thingsbecause, one, I wanted to beat
my wife again and two, because Iwanted to keep going on my path
(37:52):
.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
That's awesome, so good.
I love it.
What is your favorite businessbook?
Speaker 4 (38:01):
That one's hard because.
I actually have a lot ofcontacts that wrote business
books, so I don't think I cangive an unbiased opinion there.
So I have a ton of clients thatI've read their books because
they're always just like I wantto be supportive, and that's a
tough one, that is really tough.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Fair, all right.
What is your favorite part ofowning your business?
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Honestly, the freedom and just the peace of mind that
comes with it, because youalways think of like a W-2 job
as stable and as someone thatkind of worked in like a
department where it was kind ofwell-known what we did but it
wasn't well-known enough thateverything was super secure all
the time.
(38:50):
And, being the kind ofinquisitive person I am and
investigative and looking andtalking to people and looking at
all the data and seeing howoften people just get laid off
or just have horrible thingshappen in their jobs and be not
able to do anything about it,that is one of my favorite parts
, because now when I'm thinkingabout how I'm structuring my
(39:14):
future business, I'm is this aplace where you would want to
work?
Is this something you wouldwant to do long term?
If you did this for the next 80years, would you be happy?
And those are the kind ofquestions I get to answer and
actually implement the changesif I want to, and I don't have
to wait for anyone's approval.
(39:35):
That was one of the big thingswith me.
I was always one of the peoplethat was kind of a busy body,
always trying to find betterways to do things, and when
you're working under someoneelse.
You have to wait for theapproval, even if you know it's
going to work and you know it'sgoing to be better long-term.
And sometimes it's aboutconvincing people, and I think
that's one of the big benefitsof it actually is.
(39:56):
Sometimes it's about convincingpeople that your idea is good,
and that can be really difficult.
But if it's a situation whereyou're working in the world of
anti-fraud and you're like, hey,we need to be doing this
because otherwise we openourselves up to this, and then
it has to go through threelayers of approval before you
start making those changes, well, we just had 30 cases that go
off the line without that changeand now we are open to issues
(40:19):
because we didn't detect thembeforehand.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Final question here what is something new that
you've implemented that's helpeddrive your success in your
business?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
This one is going to be really I'm not going to say
controversial, because a lot ofpeople know this one, but I've
stopped trying to do everythingmyself.
It's one of those things whereI had a meeting with someone and
he was like you're basicallyright now with your new business
, you're basically a hundreddollar an hour person constantly
going off the rails to do $7 anhour tasks, and I was like, oh,
(40:57):
that makes sense.
I like that.
I like that thought process alot more, because it and it was
really true I would try to doeverything, and there's just no
reason to do everything foryourself when there's so many
ways to optimize something orjust make it simpler so you
don't have to do it so much.
And that's one of the thingsI've really changed, because I
(41:19):
used to be one of those guyswhere it's like, hey, carry
everything on your own back andjust never ask for help because
you can carry it, you're fine.
And then changing that to hey,I need to start thinking about
what it is I'm actuallyprioritizing here.
Um, and I definitely seen thatin my linkedin activity, because
I used to be on linkedin anawful lot.
I wanted to answer every singlequestion I got as soon as I got
(41:42):
it, whether it was throughmessages or comment or something
like that and now I'm like okay, I need to prioritize this.
First I can set aside time forlinkedin and then, if it goes
over that time, I'll do it onthe next time.
Or if I'm answering emails andit's not a high priority email,
it's just someone going hey,this is a new offering I have.
(42:04):
What do you think of it?
That's not a high priorityemail right off the bat, because
a lot of these guys they'realready clients.
They're just asking for myopinion on the risks of
something and they're not likeordering a report.
I'm not helping them avoid abad relationship, they're just
asking a question.
I'm like, okay, so I'm going toanswer this question, but I'm
(42:27):
going to answer it tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Right and I think that's great.
I think those are really goodtactical points, especially for
starting and kind of buildingand hitting that like growth
stage.
So I think that's fantastic.
This has been awesome.
I mean, it was cool to hearyour story going from initial
thought of police officer headedtowards the special agent,
unfortunately hitting thosehealth issues.
But you decided to pivot anddecided to make everything work
(42:52):
and so going down to PI, privateinvestigator, right, yep, all
right, so make sure.
Then heading into finance andeventually starting your own
thing.
And I loved how you describedkind of what you do, how you go
through the structures, how youkind of vet honesty in a way,
and I just think it's soimportant for what we do and for
so many people so they don'tget burned.
(43:14):
So it's awesome.
Appreciate it.
Two final questions for you One, any final advice?
And two, where can people findyou?
Speaker 4 (43:25):
Final advice?
That's a good one.
Honestly, if you're a newentrepreneur, do not skimp on
that market research when you'reinitially getting out there.
Um, my wife kind of has thesame thought process as me when
it comes to like entrepreneurs.
I think she thinks of a lot ofgreat ideas, but what I always
(43:46):
tell her is, before you startimplementing that and putting a
whole bunch of effort into it,go and see if someone's already
doing it or do it and can youcompete with them, because there
are actually people that dowhat I do but they don't compete
with me simply because theirprice tags are way too high to
compete with me.
I work with individual investorsand people that need to do this
(44:06):
so frequently that the pricetag of a 10K report or whatever
they're charging now is justoutside of their wheelhouse.
There's no way they're going tobe able to afford that.
Uh, where I come in is,honestly, I can, like, do the
same amount of work for a lotless, and the only real
difference is they probably havea lot more resources that they
(44:28):
can pull on than I do, and Ijust have my investigative
skills and my knowledge of theUS court system.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I love it.
And then, where can people findyou?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
The best way is probably LinkedIn.
I check that more often thananything else.
You can also get me through ourwebsite, so it's just really
easy.
It's literally just our nameHSRSIcom Got really lucked out
there.
You'd be surprised how oftenyou don't luck out with websites
, but I got that one, so it'sgood.
(45:03):
You can book time through there.
You can connect directly to myLinkedIn.
There's also links to I thinkwe have links to our X and
Facebook profiles.
Now, too, there's also links toI think we have links to our x
and.
Facebook profiles now, too.
Just got on there.
Not a lot of traction yet, butI had a bunch of clients that
were on Facebook so I jumped onthere even though I was really
resistant to it at first, andthen I there was actually a
(45:24):
securities attorney that I amsort of acquainted with.
that was like hey, x is reallygreat, I get a lot of clients
from there.
So I I jumped on there as well.
But yeah, no, you can connectwith me definitely through
LinkedIn, and if you don't doLinkedIn, go to my website.
There's a contact email at thevery bottom and a phone number,
so really easy to get in touchwith.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I love it, shay.
This has been amazing dude.
I'm so glad that we were ableto have the conversation a
couple weeks ago that led us tohere.
Our house is your house, so asyou continue to grow, you
continue to scale, you're morethan welcome back on Forged in
Fire For those that arelistening, get home safely.
Thank you so much for tuning into Forged in Fire Again.
We look forward to having youon the next episodes moving
(46:08):
forward For those that arelistening.
Again, thank you everybody.
Take care, we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Forged in
Fire.
If you enjoyed today's raw,unfiltered stories, don't forget
to like, subscribe and leave usa review.
Your feedback helps us bringmore real-world insights to
entrepreneurs like you.
Be sure to join us next timefor even more lessons, struggles
(46:37):
and breakthroughs on the roadto success.
Keep forging ahead.
Forget what you've heard.
Forged in Fire is where realentrepreneurs come to share the
untold truths of success thelate nights, the crushing
setbacks, the moments thatchange everything.
No fluff, just fire, ready tostep into the heat and unlock
(00:25):
what it really takes to build abusiness.
This is where legends are made.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another
exciting episode of Forged inFire.
I am your co-host, nate Farmer.
Allow me to introduce mycounterpart, cole.
Come on stage, brother.
How we doing man nate.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I'm good dude, I'm fired up.
This is honestly our very firsttime that I can think of that.
We've had back to back to backpodcast guests all been a hit
like the entire day, like weusually do, maybe one or two
week, but like this has beenthree people all bringing the
fire, all bringing the heat dude.
So I'm fired up, man, becauseit gives me energy and it keeps
(01:09):
me going.
But what about you?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Dude, I'm with you.
They've been great, and I'msuper excited because whenever
we have these interviews withpeople, I feel like I get so
amped up as well, and itmotivates me, it teaches me.
So it's exciting to be here and, again, I'm always excited for
the guests that we have on,today especially, so I want to
get into that.
However, one thing, as I say onevery episode, and for the
(01:32):
third time today guys, pleaseleave us a review as the one
favor for helping us grow.
This is the only thing thatreally matters to us and that's
what helps us continue to dothis.
So, if you could, please leaveus a review, comments, wherever
it is, whatever platform you'reon.
We would really, reallyappreciate it.
So, with that said, sit back,relax, enjoy the show, dude,
it's going to be so good.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Today we're going to be joined by Shane, but before
we bring him on stage, I metthis amazing man.
Must have been oh a couple ofweeks now, maybe about a month
ago or so.
Actually, if you guys rememberthe episode that we had with
Linda Holtz, from Married toReal Estate and we talked about
that, she has a meetup everyThursday and I met Shane through
the meetup that I was attending.
It's a virtual meetup, so,again, shout out to her
(02:15):
Definitely, try to dive in,Definitely try to meet us there.
It's an amazing opportunity,but Shane has been phenomenal.
Aegis RSI was founded in 2024,and he helps syndicators and
folks in that industry to beable to do background checks and
screenings.
But, honestly, it sounds likeI'm just babbling because I
don't have a lot of detail onhow it works.
(02:35):
So enough from me.
Let's go ahead and bring Shaneon.
Shane, how are we doing today,man?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
I am doing absolutely great Thanks for having me on
Nate and Cole.
I am doing absolutely greatThanks for having me on Nate and
Cole.
Yeah, so I'm just going to divein a little bit to what I do so
that we can clarify it a bit.
So what I do is actually not abackground screening, it's
something a little bit moreadvanced.
It's known as a due diligenceinvestigation.
(03:03):
So basically, this isn'tsomething like fancy or new
that's never been heard frombefore.
This is just a tool that biggercompanies like institutional
investors use to vet newinvestments, potential partners
and vendors.
And I used to do that samething for institutional
investors and I just brought itdown to the level where I could
help individuals as well.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Dude, I love it, I love it, I love it.
So please tell us more, give usa little bit more context and
kind of what got you here?
What brought you here?
Man, take us back as far as youwould like to go into how you
got into this kind of field andline of work.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Well, it's actually a really long story and it
doesn't really have a greatbeginning where it's just like,
wow, that's such an inspiringbeginning.
So most people I meet whenthey're like oh, I want to be a
police officer, I want to be inlaw enforcement, which is what I
wanted to do.
They started very early in life.
They started when they're a kid.
I didn't realize I even had aninterest in that until I was in
(03:54):
college and I was actually goingfor a more traditional science
degree and realized that aftertaking, like a criminal, an
intro to criminal justice course, I really liked it.
That after taking, like acriminal, an intro to criminal
justice courts, I really likedit, so went that route, got
that's what I got my degree in.
I also got a certificate incriminalistics, which all that
means is if you speak forensicscience type stuff to me, I
(04:15):
won't get confused.
I know what you're talkingabout.
Had to take some really crazyclasses that were way outside of
my like intellectual wheelhousedoing it, but it was honestly a
great experience.
Was working on becoming apolice officer here in Texas and
was in the pipeline for DallasPD.
No offense against Dallas PD,absolutely love the people there
(04:38):
, but it was not my preferredfirst choice.
I wanted to go to like asmaller pd first and then kind
of build up to the bigger stuff.
Um was just trying to get inthere and I actually got.
Had a really interestingconversation with an army
recruiter and he went and saidhey, we have this new pilot
(04:59):
program.
If you have a degree and youjoin the and you enlist in the
army, you can become a criminalinvestigation division agent
right off the bat.
So for me, going from I want tobe a police officer, but
there's a lot of hiring freezesin Texas to hey, you can be a
special agent in the army.
That was a really attractivething for me.
(05:20):
So I went and started doingthat, got really sick, had no
one, had any idea what was goingon.
I would just like be standingin formation, sometimes pass out
.
We'd be doing, uh, push-ups,I'd pass out, and then drill
sergeant come over like poke mewith stick.
Couldn't figure out what washappening for a while.
Turns out I have a heartcondition that really only
activates under stress.
(05:40):
Um, no one I had never detectedat any point in my life, and
not even the military entrance.
Uh, people could detect it.
So I had to get discharged fromthat.
Immediately after that I startedworking as a pi.
Um, love that job, really toughwork, though.
Honestly, nothing but respectfor the people that do that day
(06:01):
to day, because it is a lot um,and there's so much that goes
into it that people just don'tthink about.
But during the pandemic, uh,the pi firm I work was working
for, they kind of shut down alittle bit and they were like
drastically decreasing.
They kept on staff becausethere was no demand for it.
(06:22):
Right then, um, within a weekor two, I got a call from
Fidelity Investments and I hadnever thought about going into
the finance world with my skillsat all.
It was just not something Iconsidered, because you never
hear about that type of thingStarted working with their
background department and thenmoved over to their due
diligence department, and that'swhere I really kind of found my
(06:44):
niche, where I was like, okay,yeah, I know I can use my skills
here.
I can do some great stuff.
Uh, the only thing I was reallymissing while I was working
with fidelity is helping peopleday in, day out, because, of
course, I'm helping the companyand I'm helping my co-workers
and I'm helping anyone I can,but we don't see those
individual people that you help.
You don't see the cases I getnow where I'm like, hey, I'm
(07:04):
helping this lady that she'sjust saving for retirement she's
got quite a bit of money therebut she just wants to vet a
financial advisor to make surehe's not going to screw her over
, and it's just one of thosethings.
When I started doing it bymyself, I was like this is
absolutely what I want to do.
So yeah, that's a quick versionof my story what I want to do.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
So, yeah, that's a quick version of my story.
That's awesome.
I usually follow this up withwhy, and you answered that
absolutely perfectly.
So I guess my next question isjust going to be as you went
through that journey, I guessmore specifically on the journey
with your current path, not somuch the past, but what are
challenges that you ran intowith building it and bringing
that product to the consumer?
What are things that went well,maybe, but what are challenges
that you ran into with buildingit and bringing that product to
the consumer?
What are things that went well,maybe, and what are things that
(07:48):
you didn't expect that didn'tgo well?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Ooh there are a lot for both of those.
So one of the things that wentreally well that I did not
expect is people.
Once I was able to describewhat I did to people and most
people I talked to they'reindividual investors, so they
don't really know what I'mtalking about right off the bat.
They're like oh, so you're doinglike background checks and I
have to kind of explain to themno, it's not really a background
check, something completelydifferent, it's like an
(08:11):
anti-fraud tool.
You're not background checkingthem, you're do.
It's like some of the stuff Ido is absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You would never what it is exactly so if somebody's
listening, going like wait, Ihear you, but what exactly does
it entail?
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Okay.
So one of the really big thingsthat we do is, for example,
real estate syndicators.
They have a lot involved inwhat they do on the day-to-day.
They'll have multiple LLCsassociated with them through
their main business.
They'll have multiple LLCsassociated with properties.
They'll have this whole crazybusiness structure that you have
(08:48):
to unravel before you can evenbegin to try to vet them.
And if you were doing abackground check, you would
never even try that.
You'd get the name and run thatand then, oh, this guy's never
had any criminal records orcivil records.
You're good, right.
What we do is more on the riskmanagement and analysis side as
well.
So we'll go through everysingle one of those LLCs, if we
(09:09):
can identify them and lookthrough and go, hey, is there
anything against this LLC?
This guy runs a hotel propertyin this county.
How's that hotel propertyactually doing?
What are the reviews on thathotel saying?
Do they have any operationalissues?
What are the county records say?
If they sold, if they, forexample, were doing like a
five-year syndication, they said, hey, we sold it for this price
(09:31):
.
Well, did they actually sell itfor that price?
Let's go in and dive in andmake sure that they're doing
what they're saying they'redoing.
So it's just like a veryintense process that is
basically verifying everythingthese people are saying about
themselves.
Now we don't go, of course.
It would be absolutely crazy if, for some of these syndicators
go through every single propertythey've ever sold.
Usually we do kind of like asampling type thing.
(09:52):
We'll look for any reportedissues.
So like if the media reportedthat, hey, this portfolio area
is underperforming, like sunbeltor something, we'll actually
look at the um, their propertiesin the sunbelt area.
If they say, hey, this specificproperty is having challenges,
or during our research,something else indicates that it
might be having challenges,we'll go for that property
(10:13):
rather than one that might bedoing well.
We will try to actually includeones that are doing well, to
just let them know, hey, it'snot all bad, you don't.
It's not ever all bad.
Sometimes they just havestruggling properties and you
want to provide a balancedapproach because, at the end of
the day, that's what we'retrying to do.
We're not trying to go in andsay, hey, this guy's a bad guy,
you shouldn't do business withhim because three of his
(10:34):
properties underperforming.
We're actually trying to sitthere and make sure that you get
unbiased information that youcan use to make informed
decisions about whether or notyou want to invest with this guy
, or even, in some cases, justyou want to be their business
partner.
Or, in cases where they havemultiple business lines, maybe
even they have a service thatyou want to use and you want to
use them as a vendor in somecases.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
This is so good.
So this is like it reminds meof like literally, I was reading
a book about it like a badactor, like being able to make
sure and identify and then beingable to screen a little bit.
So can you talk a little bitmore let's sort of take it a
little bit more in depth on whatare those courses of action
look like.
So let's say somebody comes in,they decide to partner with you
or they say, hey, shane, thisis what I'm thinking of pursuing
(11:19):
from let's just take an LPperspective and say, hey, I want
to work with this operatoryou're pursuing from let's just
take an LP's perspective and say, hey, I want to work with this
operator, let me know what comesup.
And then you find things you dothe deep dive in.
And then when you go back tothem and you sit down with them,
what does that process then?
Look like you just say, hey,here's the information that you
requested.
Do you sit down with them andsay, analyze different paths
that they can take and say, hey,these might be red flags, but
(11:43):
you might just want to ask alittle bit more questions about
this for a little bit more of aclear perspective, or how does
that process then transpire?
And if you want to use anexample of maybe some of your
old cases as well, that'sawesome.
You don't have to use any names.
I understand confidentiality,but fill us in on what that
process then looks like.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, so actually it's exactly like the second one
.
I don't.
I'm not a financial advisor,first off, never one to
misidentify myself.
All I do is help people managethe risk of investing in certain
things.
So when someone looks at thispro that we go through our whole
report, we issue the report andwe say, hey, we found this and
this.
This could be an indicator offraud or something we're
(12:21):
actually going to go throughthem with them on.
Usually we call them risk reviewcalls.
They don't typically take verylong, but we don't have a time
limit on them and we'll actuallysit with them and explain what
we found and why that could bean issue.
Clients don't always requestthem, it's just because our
reports are very thorough andsometimes they just read the
reports and they're like we'regood to go, but yeah, we'll sit
(12:43):
there with you and make surethat you understand all the
risks involved before you likewe're good to go, but yeah,
we'll sit there with you andmake sure that you understand
all the risks involved beforeyou invest.
So we're not saying hey, don'tinvest with this guy because we
think it's a high risk deal.
We just explain the risksinvolved Because, of course, if
you said don't invest with them,you're actually delving into
the areas of a financial advisor.
I'm not telling you, hey, don'tinvest with this guy.
I'm telling you, hey, I'mseeing some issues here.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
That makes sense.
So would it be along the linesof let's use a fun story.
Let's say we're investing withJoe Schmo and it seemed like Joe
Schmo murdered his neighborsand buried them in the backyard
and you found things that lookedlike that?
You would assume be like hey,I'm not sure, not saying you
should do or not do this deal.
However, here's someinteresting information.
(13:23):
Is that kind of what it wouldgo like?
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yes, it's much more like that.
Usually what we find isoccasionally we do find like
smoking guns, like in one casewe were working on this I'm
trying to change the case in mymind so I don't out anyone so we
were lurking.
It was more towards lending,but it was kind of like a
(13:46):
business partnership type dealwhere this guy had gotten a
really, really big loan fromsomeone we were working with and
we looked into where the moneywas going.
Um, this happens all the time.
By the way, this is not likewhere people will just money
will kind of disappear and theycome to me and they're like hey,
(14:08):
this guy is saying he's havingtrouble making payments on this
loan, that I helped him getLooked through a whole bunch of
data and one of the really oddsources I actually found where
part of the money had gone waswith the Federal Aviation
Administration.
(14:28):
So if you didn't know, usuallyif you don't have like one of
those subscription serviceswhere you get the private jets
which is actually kind ofmessing up that line of
investigation a little bit butyou actually have to register a
private jet if it's under yourname.
So if you, for example, you canactually find a jet registered
at someone's home addressthrough there and we found
(14:50):
people using that before and itwasn't like one of the.
It wasn't like a horror storylike 2 million, but it was
enough to raise red flags and wewere like, why are you buying a
jet when you just had to takeout a business loan?
We're not sure what's happeninghere.
(15:11):
So that's one of those thingswhere we say, hey, we don't know
where all the money went, butwe definitely see him buying
this plane here and it'sregistered at his home address.
So you might want to look intoit or ask him questions about
that if you want to continuewith the relationship, because
of course, when there's a loaninvolved involved, it's a
completely different situation.
The, the person, the personthat you got the loan from, is
not going to let you just backout.
You're going to have to try tosalvage that relationship in
(15:32):
some way or the other.
You might be able to work withthe lender to kind of take some
responsibility off of you, butat the end of the day they're
going to get their money backsomehow.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
so you gotta be very careful with that that's so
interesting wait, quickfollow-up up question that I'm
not asking for specifics, butjust like, how do you track in
general, like something likewhere the money flows, like what
, what are you trying to look at?
And I'm more just curious, likeI'm just curious.
I guess I don't know if you cananswer that or not.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Um, it's very difficult.
Some people people love to saylike, hey, go follow the money.
But actually following themoney if you're trying to do a
discreet investigation, isreally, really hard.
I have a contact that doesfinancial due diligence, and how
he does it's actually reallycool he does.
He literally links the lenderor the investor's portal to his
(16:29):
website with the bank account ofthe person they're investing
with or lending to so he can seein real time if they're moving
a lot of money or what they'redoing.
But when you're doing it from adiscrete perspective and you
don't have that arrangement, oneof the things you have to do is
look for significant issues.
So you have to look for, likeliens, judgments, you have to
look for foreclosures,bankruptcy, basically any time
(16:51):
where money is being moved ornot put in the correct place.
You want to note it because youcan say, hey, this might not be
an indicator of actual of wherethe money's actually going, but
it does is an indicator offinancial stress.
So sometimes we'll see in theuh world of real estate
investors just an entire like afreaking mountain of mechanics
(17:14):
liens on a property and when wedon't see a lawsuit tied to that
mechanics lien, that's actuallya problem because, yeah,
mechanics can be filed prettyeasily and sometimes it's a
legitimate disagreement on thequality of work.
Like we had one where the itwas a flooring company and the
floor was already peeling upmonths after, like a couple
(17:36):
months after they installed it.
So of course that's an issuewith the quality of work.
But we were able to find thatactual lawsuit and type back to
the lien so that we could lowerthe risk involved in the lien.
We say, hey, if there was nolawsuit, there was no issue with
the quality of work.
It's kind of like a medium risk.
There's no issue with thequality of work.
It's kind of like a medium risksituation because like, hey,
(17:58):
there's a lien here and it's abig lien, but also we know
that's for flooring.
But if we see that civillawsuit, it's a low risk
situation because we knowthere's an actual issue with the
quality of work.
Well, I don't know for sure, butwe have a suspicion because
most people don't just kind ofsue a person just for fun.
(18:18):
There are a couple of people,but we also have a whole nother
category of risks attributed topeople like that that just seem
to sue all their businesspartners and courts do too, by
the way.
So when you just constantly suepeople, you're called a
litigious individual and you canactually get lawsuits thrown
out of court just by beingmarked that.
(18:38):
But when we see that and you'resuing all these business
partners, of course we want tomake sure that if someone's
trying to partner with them as abusiness, we know about that as
well, so that we can be like,hey, yeah, they tend to sue
their business partners, somaybe you don't want to get, you
don't want to do business withthem, because you might end up
on the other end and no onelikes to be sued like, honestly,
it's it if you ever want abetter deterrent for doing good
(19:02):
business ever want a betterdeterrent for doing good
business.
Oh, sorry about that, no, it'sall good bella, I know you're
not featured in this episode.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I guess you are now.
Can you go lay down?
Yeah, good girl.
What's the pup's?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
name Bella, bella, oh , she's adorable.
She's just upset because mywife is at home right now.
So she's like I want attentionand I just leave everything open
for them to run around thehouse, but they're just sitting
right next to me right now.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I got a two-part question and it'll go in two
different directions so you cananswer it however you'd like to
One.
So when it came to like Cole andmyself and we deal in real
estate all day long, this iswhat we do but when we wanted to
learn about it, not only did weread books and listen to
podcasts and all the fun stuff,but we also joined like
masterminds.
So my question number one iswhat was the path and trajectory
(20:02):
like to be able to learn andget into this field that you're
in right now?
So, like for us, we just welean on each other, we lean on
our coaches, we lean on theguidance and the support, but
what does that look like fromsomebody that's coming in from
your perspective?
And then part two of thatquestion is At what point and
what kind of training do youprovide for folks that maybe you
want to come in on an LP role,or maybe folks that are like,
(20:24):
hey, I'm thinking about enteringinto this partnership.
What information is out therefor folks to be able to say, hey
, it's now time for me to goahead, call Shane, because stuff
is starting to get real and Idon't want shit to go sideways.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Well, surprisingly enough, you don't need a huge
amount of training to do what Ido.
Okay, but there's also a lotthat goes into that.
So people that are reallyinterested in the work tend to
excel.
So that's why I say you don'tneed a huge amount of training.
You don't actually need adegree in a certificate in
criminal justice to be able todo what I do.
It's not a requirement.
(21:07):
I've met people actually one ofthe best people I've ever worked
with at this her degree was notin criminal justice, it was in
pharmaceuticals.
So before she used to work fora doc, she used to be like a
pharmacy rep at a doctor'soffice and that's it.
She just, she just did pills,um, and she was absolutely great
at the thing at the role,because she had really superb
analytical skills and was verydetailed.
So that really helps becauseshe basically left notes, turn
on, uh, no, stone unturned.
(21:29):
And that's really the thingthat comes into it, because
that's the investigative part ofit, where you're looking in and
making sure, hey, there's awhole bunch of stuff here.
I need to make sure I'm hittingthis point, this point, that
point, um, and honestly, the theamount of training it takes for
someone to be useful at.
What I do is about six monthsbefore you can start handling
kind of more complex cases.
(21:50):
There's a lot of differenttypes of things we work on, so
sometimes we'll be working onreally kind of advanced cases
like multifamily syndications orhigh risk lending situations
like multifamily syndications orhigh risk lending situations,
and then we have less intenseones like vendor risk, which
usually they're not going to behuge giant cases with a bunch of
problem.
Usually just it's more.
(22:11):
It's more on the marketresearch side.
Occasionally we get someonethat's actually absolutely crazy
and you look into their likelike a home builder and their
quality of work is justabsolutely out there and you
have no idea how a home buildergets sued this many times.
But that helps you build theskills for those cases where
that happens in a multi-familysyndication or happens in a
lending case.
So, yeah, there's not actuallya lot of pre-training that you
(22:33):
need for it, it's just once youget into the job you have to
learn so much and you have tolearn it on the spot, because I
can't teach you every singlething you need to know.
There's no, there's nolegitimate way for me to do that
.
I can try, and I definitely dotry, but there's no.
There's no like secret sauce orsomething where I can just be
like, hey, read this manual andsuddenly you'll be able to do
(22:56):
this.
It's a very skillset based thing, and it's something you have to
develop and work really hard atand it's something you have to
be interested in, because if youdon't care, you're not going to
be good at this job.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I know your experience is big with this too.
Right, like you've had a lot ofexperience doing this, so I'm
sure you'll see certain thingsto an average person that would
not stick out and you're like,oh wait, wait, wait.
I know this is a red flagbecause of X, y, z or like.
I know I need to dive in deeperand I'm sure your experience
and, like like you said, yourpassion for it, drives that home
.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Yes, that is definitely a big part of it.
And if you don't have thatpassion, actually I have a
really funny story.
I, when I used to work forFidelity Investments, I used to
do their job shadows for the duediligence department.
It was kind of funny becauseone time I had a guy that I
actually put to sleep on a jobshadow through zoom, because I
(23:48):
was just going through my workand that's what you're supposed
to do on the job shadow.
You're supposed to do like alittle presentation showing what
you're doing.
I was going through it, the guyfell asleep and I was just like
, okay, obviously he's not to,because a lot of the times they
do job shadows because theywanted a job in the department.
But I'm like, obviously thisguy's not interested enough to
do this because the interest ofpeople they'd be chatting my ear
(24:10):
off while I was working.
They'd be like, hey, why areyou doing that?
What's this?
How do you do this?
Well, if you did find that,what would you do next?
So it's a completely differentapproach.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I hope you smacked him in the head.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So I know you got a question.
Go ahead.
No, no, no.
So that was all part one.
Then part two to that exactsame question that we have from
before is at what point do folksfeel like it's or what would
you recommend for somebody,let's just say, from an LP role
or from one of the roles ofsomebody thinking about entering
into a partnership?
When does your expertise comeinto play?
Like, is it after we've alreadystarted talking about
(24:49):
formulating the LLC?
Is it after I've already donemy personal due diligence on
analyzing a market, coming upwith trends, making sure that I
found operators that I feel like, I know, like and trust, and
I'm about ready to sign thesubscription agreement?
Ppm looks good.
Let me call shane and make sureit's all good.
Or do I do that beforehand?
Like, how does that look?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
um, it depends.
So ideally I like to get on asearly as possible.
Why?
Because I don't want you tospend countless hours looking at
a deal and then me findsomething that just kills it
right off the bat.
That would be.
That would be absolutely awful,because your money is timed and
you can't get back all thattime you used looking at that
(25:29):
thing.
What I usually tell people is,once it passes your initial due
diligence checks and we'retalking like the very early
stage of your due diligence, notlike where you're sitting there
and you've been working on thisfor weeks and then suddenly
you're like I think I might likethis.
Let's send it over to Shane Onceit passes your initial phase of
due diligence.
Like you do some quick market,you do your quick underwriting
(25:51):
and you go, hey, this issomething I could be interested
in.
Then you would send it over tome because, ideally, by the time
you get to the point whereyou're like, hey, I might want
to get into this, by the timeyou get to the point where
you're like, hey, I might wantto get into this, I'll have a
report back to you and you cansay, hey, okay, so we've got a
risk analysis of this wholething now.
So now I know exactly what I'mgetting into.
Of course, that's like my kindof fantasy way of doing it.
(26:15):
Normally what happens is LP willget almost all the way through
a deal, be almost to the pointwhere they're supposed to
transfer money, and then they'llask me and I will say, um, that
would have been nice to know.
First of all because now wehave to rush this case out the
door.
(26:35):
I hate doing that absolutely.
It's always a pain to rush acase.
Uh, we don't usually missthings when we rush cases, but
it does make it a little bitstressful, because I'm the kind
of person that if I need to dosomething, I can sit at my
computer for 10 hours and get itdone or in some cases, three
days and get it done.
(26:55):
But it's one of those thingswhere it's just like it's not a
good, great way to do it, and ifI have that extra time I start
thinking of things that I wouldhave never thought about before.
So I'll be like, oh, you know,what I realized, that I've
actually saw something aboutthis company on LinkedIn.
Let me go look back up that upreal quick and make sure that
it's not going to be an issue.
Those kind of thoughts don'tpop in your head when you're
(27:19):
rushing through something.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
That's such a great point and I mean I'm sure that's
a big factor.
It almost reminds me of, likethe conversational argument
thing, like never say somethingwhen you're angry because you
need time to like let it settle.
And I feel like the samephilosophy on this of just I'm
sure you look at so much dataand then randomly, like a day
later or however much timeyou're like wait a minute,
something just clicks and itjust happens.
(27:42):
So that's very cool Questionfor you, kind of thinking,
tactical side, and this isspecific for people that are
just building businesses.
Listening to your story going,that's interesting.
If I want to start my own thing, how do I do it?
So, just in your world, if,like, how did you acquire
clients and how did you marketwhat worked for you?
(28:04):
And again, just as if somebodyis an entrepreneur looking to
take the next step in whateverindustry they're in, what worked
for you?
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Gotcha.
Well, I'm going to put a bigwarning sign on this, because
what happened with me I know100%.
This is not going to happenwith everyone.
I took a service I knew wasgoing to be used in the space
and that was not currently beingused, because people had
actually asked me about doing itwhile I was working for
Fidelity.
I'm like that's a huge conflictof interest.
I couldn't do that.
(28:35):
So I knew there was a market forit out here in the private
equity space to go and do thiskind of work.
So I started my business withthat in mind and I already had a
client by the time I started mybusiness.
So it was one of those thingswhere I literally started it to
work with them.
So what really worked for mewas getting on social media
Before it was really outside mywheelhouse.
(28:56):
It took a while for me to getany traction on it, but I
actually started sending DMswith connection requests and not
really salesy type stuff, justlike hey, this is what I do,
introduction type stuff, andthen leave the door open for
them.
And I kept doing it, I keptposting, I kept doing all the
(29:18):
stuff I was supposed to do, evenwhen it felt like I was talking
to an empty room.
I would just keep doing it, andthat's really what worked for
me, because not only could thesepeople see me talking to them
directly through my directmessages and realizing it's a
service they could use.
They also saw me postingconsistently, not just about
business stuff, but about thingsthat were just going on with my
(29:40):
life or things that I was evenwhen it was business stuff how
that related to me personally.
So like if we did somethingreally cool, like I always make
a big deal out of it whenever wedo something like we did.
We created some new reporttemplates recently and I posted
it all over everywhere, sent itoff to all my clients and I'm
like, hey, this is this is whatwe're doing, and you kind of
(30:01):
have to work like that way.
Yeah, because if, especiallywhen you're a new entrepreneur
and you're sitting there andtrying your best, if you're just
doing it in the dark, no one'sgoing to realize what you're
doing.
So you kind of have to be alittle bit loud and you have to
be a little bit proud about andbe like, hey, this is what I did
, this, this is awesome, let'sgo, let's talk about it, let's
(30:21):
bring this out to everyone.
And it's really difficult toget to that point sometimes,
especially if you're moreintroverted, like I am.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So good, so many gems just dropped, two that I want
to hone in on One practice likeyou perform, even if it feels
like nobody else is watching,you still showed up every single
day.
You're still making content,you're still being engaged,
you're still reaching out, andthen, before you know it, you've
got traction, you've got afollowing and you've got a grasp
on a whole different clienteleor different base that you can
(30:54):
be able to move forward and workwith.
Hats off to you on that one.
And so I, just before we getinto point number two, I got to
ask now talk to me a little bitabout what it looks like for the
future outlook, for yourself,for your business.
Where do you see it going?
And then we can dive back intothat in a little bit.
But I just kind of want to knowjust give me a full picture,
(31:15):
but put some, put some bunnyears on it, put a nice bow on it
.
Let me know exactly what itlooks like now with the clients
that you've got.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
Cause we heard from where you started at you came on
with one client, now you grew.
What's what's happening next?
Oh, so, right now I have abouta lift of around and it's
actually bigger than that nowCause I haven't updated really
bad at updating my client listconsistently.
I've got my email list, but Idon't always put my client list.
But we support around 60individual investors and around
(31:48):
two or three institutionalclients, so what that looks like
and 60 sounds like a really bignumber, right, but really
that's not the case in thissituation.
These can be investors thatmake one deal a year and that's
all I help them with.
And that's actually what Iwanna be there for.
I wanna go, I wanna be able tohelp those investors that only
make one deal a year sometimesbecause they don't have access
(32:10):
to what I do on a regular basis,and no one can help them.
So right now that's what itlooks like, and actually this
the way I'm doing it right nowhas been pretty successful.
I know there's other stuff Ican do, there's all kinds of
future paths I can take, butreally what I'm thinking about
right now is making basicallymore people like me, and what
(32:44):
that would look like on my endis, rather than I hire people on
, they do cases for me.
I want them to function morelike an insurance agent where
they would go out and get theirown clients.
Of course, I'll give them someclients to start with, like ones
that don't require that mucheffort right off the bat so that
they don't get overwhelmed.
But I want them to go out andform their own relationships and
really be there for theirclients so that they actually
take ownership of them and knowthat, hey, this is not just a
(33:05):
person I'm doing a report for.
They're a faceless person I'venever met.
These are people they know andthat they want to help, and I
always tell people hey, don'tcall something low risk if
you're not going to have afamily member invest in it, and
that's really what I want tobring to the table.
I don't want people to sitthere and just have this
(33:28):
faceless person that I hired andthen suddenly they can never
talk to them about reports.
They can't get anything out ofthem.
I want them to take ownershipof their work and make sure that
every time they do a report,it's the best effort they can
put forward.
It's awesome.
It's awesome oh.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I love it.
I'm wondering if it's awesome.
I love it.
I'm wondering if it's time.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I think it's time.
I was just going to suggest itmyself.
All right, shane, here's thedeal.
We're headed into what we callthe super six, which is the same
questions we ask every singleguest, and we're going to see
how you do so here we go.
What separates top performingentrepreneurs from the rest of
the crowd?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I'm going to say persistency because it doesn't
really have anything to do withmotivation.
A lot of people are supermotivated but at some point they
just give up on things.
I feel like people that havereally and you're probably going
to laugh at this, but I feellike people that have really
niche hobbies sometimes are someof the most persistent people
(34:26):
you know, so like if they cantake that and point it in the
direction of business, they'llbe super successful and that's
kind of what happened to me.
I have one of the other supernerdy things about me.
I actually play like tabletopRPD Dungeons and Dragons all
that super nerdy things about me.
I actually play like tabletoprpd dungeons, dragons, all that
and I have literally I literallyam and I'm still currently
making it but I've literallymade over a thousand pages of my
(34:49):
own rpg work wow, and this wasbefore I ever started my own
business.
So I'm like you know, if youcan do that, if you can sit
there and be that persistent,what is stopping you from going
out that and that reallysquashed a lot of my like early
oh, who are you to do this?
How can you do this?
It's like you literally satthere and wrote a thousand pages
(35:12):
and the only person that's everread this so far is your
friends.
So maybe you can go and do this, Maybe you can be a little bit
persistent and keep going,because you've done this
consistently for two years.
What's stopping you from doingthat in a business?
And the answer was nothing.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Dude.
I love that, and I'm a D&D fanmyself.
I love homebrew.
But moving forward, nextquestion what is a daily habit
that's contributed to yoursuccess?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
This one's funny too.
Make sure you eat.
I have to put it on my calendar.
But you will immediately noticea drop in performance if you
are not taking care of yourself.
And eating is one of the bigthings for me, because usually I
like to eat with my wife andshe wakes up like I wake up at
like six, seven in the morning.
She doesn't usually wake up tolike eight or nine, so there's
(36:01):
that little.
There's a little couple hoursin there where I should be
eating and I don't, because Iwant to eat with her.
That's a bad mistake.
I can eat something small inthe mornings and wait for it,
and then you notice thedifference in performance in
those couple of hours and thenat lunchtime we eat together.
So it's great.
But yeah, you want to make sureyou take care of yourself,
because you will notice a dropin performance when you start,
(36:23):
when you stop doing it.
A lot of people will say justlike grind and grind and grind
and grind.
And it's like, yeah, when youneed to, you need to be grinding
.
But more than that, when youcan take a break, take a break
and take care of yourself.
Make sure you eat, make sureyou don't stare at your computer
screen for eight hours at atime.
Look up on a wall, go for awalk, I don't care what it is,
(36:44):
just make sure you're takingcare of yourself, because that
mental exhaustion will hit youreal quick.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And then suddenly you're not doing anything you
want to do.
So good, I can personallyattest that eating I'm
notoriously bad at eating.
Nate can attest to me gettinghangry.
It's just a problem.
It's an overall problem.
I just don't eat, so I am, yeah, agreed.
What is a piece of advice thatyou'd give to your younger self
if you were starting again?
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Ooh, I actually get a lot of really angry people when
I give this answer, but I wouldjust tell my younger self to
keep going Because, like, at theend of the day, the stuff that
my younger stuff did, even if itwas dumb, even if it was kind
of silly, even if it wasn'talways the best path, that's
(37:32):
what led me where I am today.
I literally and I told my wifethis on our last anniversary too
I've literally had dreams whereI got to live my life over
again.
Last anniversary too, I'veliterally had dreams where I got
to live my life over again, andI actually spent the entire
time trying not to change thingsbecause, one, I wanted to beat
my wife again and two, because Iwanted to keep going on my path
(37:52):
.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
That's awesome, so good.
I love it.
What is your favorite businessbook?
Speaker 4 (38:01):
That one's hard because.
I actually have a lot ofcontacts that wrote business
books, so I don't think I cangive an unbiased opinion there.
So I have a ton of clients thatI've read their books because
they're always just like I wantto be supportive, and that's a
tough one, that is really tough.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Fair, all right.
What is your favorite part ofowning your business?
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Honestly, the freedom and just the peace of mind that
comes with it, because youalways think of like a W-2 job
as stable and as someone thatkind of worked in like a
department where it was kind ofwell-known what we did but it
wasn't well-known enough thateverything was super secure all
the time.
(38:50):
And, being the kind ofinquisitive person I am and
investigative and looking andtalking to people and looking at
all the data and seeing howoften people just get laid off
or just have horrible thingshappen in their jobs and be not
able to do anything about it,that is one of my favorite parts
, because now when I'm thinkingabout how I'm structuring my
(39:14):
future business, I'm is this aplace where you would want to
work?
Is this something you wouldwant to do long term?
If you did this for the next 80years, would you be happy?
And those are the kind ofquestions I get to answer and
actually implement the changesif I want to, and I don't have
to wait for anyone's approval.
(39:35):
That was one of the big thingswith me.
I was always one of the peoplethat was kind of a busy body,
always trying to find betterways to do things, and when
you're working under someoneelse.
You have to wait for theapproval, even if you know it's
going to work and you know it'sgoing to be better long-term.
And sometimes it's aboutconvincing people, and I think
that's one of the big benefitsof it actually is.
(39:56):
Sometimes it's about convincingpeople that your idea is good,
and that can be really difficult.
But if it's a situation whereyou're working in the world of
anti-fraud and you're like, hey,we need to be doing this
because otherwise we openourselves up to this, and then
it has to go through threelayers of approval before you
start making those changes, well, we just had 30 cases that go
off the line without that changeand now we are open to issues
(40:19):
because we didn't detect thembeforehand.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Final question here what is something new that
you've implemented that's helpeddrive your success in your
business?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
This one is going to be really I'm not going to say
controversial, because a lot ofpeople know this one, but I've
stopped trying to do everythingmyself.
It's one of those things whereI had a meeting with someone and
he was like you're basicallyright now with your new business
, you're basically a hundreddollar an hour person constantly
going off the rails to do $7 anhour tasks, and I was like, oh,
(40:57):
that makes sense.
I like that.
I like that thought process alot more, because it and it was
really true I would try to doeverything, and there's just no
reason to do everything foryourself when there's so many
ways to optimize something orjust make it simpler so you
don't have to do it so much.
And that's one of the thingsI've really changed, because I
(41:19):
used to be one of those guyswhere it's like, hey, carry
everything on your own back andjust never ask for help because
you can carry it, you're fine.
And then changing that to hey,I need to start thinking about
what it is I'm actuallyprioritizing here.
Um, and I definitely seen thatin my linkedin activity, because
I used to be on linkedin anawful lot.
I wanted to answer every singlequestion I got as soon as I got
(41:42):
it, whether it was throughmessages or comment or something
like that and now I'm like okay, I need to prioritize this.
First I can set aside time forlinkedin and then, if it goes
over that time, I'll do it onthe next time.
Or if I'm answering emails andit's not a high priority email,
it's just someone going hey,this is a new offering I have.
(42:04):
What do you think of it?
That's not a high priorityemail right off the bat, because
a lot of these guys they'realready clients.
They're just asking for myopinion on the risks of
something and they're not likeordering a report.
I'm not helping them avoid abad relationship, they're just
asking a question.
I'm like, okay, so I'm going toanswer this question, but I'm
(42:27):
going to answer it tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
Right and I think that's great.
I think those are really goodtactical points, especially for
starting and kind of buildingand hitting that like growth
stage.
So I think that's fantastic.
This has been awesome.
I mean, it was cool to hearyour story going from initial
thought of police officer headedtowards the special agent,
unfortunately hitting thosehealth issues.
But you decided to pivot anddecided to make everything work
(42:52):
and so going down to PI, privateinvestigator, right, yep, all
right, so make sure.
Then heading into finance andeventually starting your own
thing.
And I loved how you describedkind of what you do, how you go
through the structures, how youkind of vet honesty in a way,
and I just think it's soimportant for what we do and for
so many people so they don'tget burned.
(43:14):
So it's awesome.
Appreciate it.
Two final questions for you One, any final advice?
And two, where can people findyou?
Speaker 4 (43:25):
Final advice?
That's a good one.
Honestly, if you're a newentrepreneur, do not skimp on
that market research when you'reinitially getting out there.
Um, my wife kind of has thesame thought process as me when
it comes to like entrepreneurs.
I think she thinks of a lot ofgreat ideas, but what I always
(43:46):
tell her is, before you startimplementing that and putting a
whole bunch of effort into it,go and see if someone's already
doing it or do it and can youcompete with them, because there
are actually people that dowhat I do but they don't compete
with me simply because theirprice tags are way too high to
compete with me.
I work with individual investorsand people that need to do this
(44:06):
so frequently that the pricetag of a 10K report or whatever
they're charging now is justoutside of their wheelhouse.
There's no way they're going tobe able to afford that.
Uh, where I come in is,honestly, I can, like, do the
same amount of work for a lotless, and the only real
difference is they probably havea lot more resources that they
(44:28):
can pull on than I do, and Ijust have my investigative
skills and my knowledge of theUS court system.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I love it.
And then, where can people findyou?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
The best way is probably LinkedIn.
I check that more often thananything else.
You can also get me through ourwebsite, so it's just really
easy.
It's literally just our nameHSRSIcom Got really lucked out
there.
You'd be surprised how oftenyou don't luck out with websites
, but I got that one, so it'sgood.
(45:03):
You can book time through there.
You can connect directly to myLinkedIn.
There's also links to I thinkwe have links to our X and
Facebook profiles.
Now, too, there's also links toI think we have links to our x
and.
Facebook profiles now, too.
Just got on there.
Not a lot of traction yet, butI had a bunch of clients that
were on Facebook so I jumped onthere even though I was really
resistant to it at first, andthen I there was actually a
(45:24):
securities attorney that I amsort of acquainted with.
that was like hey, x is reallygreat, I get a lot of clients
from there.
So I I jumped on there as well.
But yeah, no, you can connectwith me definitely through
LinkedIn, and if you don't doLinkedIn, go to my website.
There's a contact email at thevery bottom and a phone number,
so really easy to get in touchwith.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I love it, shay.
This has been amazing dude.
I'm so glad that we were ableto have the conversation a
couple weeks ago that led us tohere.
Our house is your house, so asyou continue to grow, you
continue to scale, you're morethan welcome back on Forged in
Fire For those that arelistening, get home safely.
Thank you so much for tuning into Forged in Fire Again.
We look forward to having youon the next episodes moving
(46:08):
forward For those that arelistening.
Again, thank you everybody.
Take care, we'll see you soon.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Forged in
Fire.
If you enjoyed today's raw,unfiltered stories, don't forget
to like, subscribe and leave usa review.
Your feedback helps us bringmore real-world insights to
entrepreneurs like you.
Be sure to join us next timefor even more lessons, struggles
(46:37):
and breakthroughs on the roadto success.
Keep forging ahead.
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