QUESTION:
John, how did you start speaking on identity
theft?
ANSWER: Several years ago, my business
partner used my identity to embezzle $300,000
from our clients. One of the clients eventually
caught on, thought I’d done it and spent the
next two years trying to put me in jail. The
liabilities destroyed my business. The two-year
criminal case sucked the life right out of me
and the financial troubles just about destroyed
my marriage. All because I failed to protect my
identity.
At
some point I woke up and decided that I had a
responsibility to keep this from happening to
other people, other companies. So I wrote a
book, Stolen Lives: Identity Theft Prevention
Made Simple. As a product of the awards that
Stolen Lives won and the fact that
identity theft quickly became America’s fastest
growing crime, I was frequently asked to speak.
In no time, that responsibility became a
passion, and I’ve been a full-time identity
theft speaker ever since.
QUESTION:
Who
are your best audiences?
ANSWER:
Let
me answer that at two levels. Every person with
a Social Security number is at risk of identity
theft, which means that nearly everyone can
benefit from my presentation. One in ten
households will experience identity theft in
2008 with an average cost of recovery of $6,600
and several hundred hours. By implementing the
tools I cover in my presentation, almost all of
their personal risk can be eliminated or
drastically reduced. That is how it will affect
your audience at a personal level.
But at another level (which entails business
profitability and responsibility), organizations
hire me because they need their employees or
members to understand the value of the private
data that they handle every day. Whether it’s a
client’s credit card number, a patient’s medical
file, employee records or sensitive intellectual
capital, our economy is built on information. If
employees/executives/board members don’t believe
in the inherent value of that information (and
the resulting liabilities of collecting, storing
and handling it), then we can never expect them
to protect it.
When I motivate the audience to think twice
about company privacy, their return on
investment (by preventing a costly data breach)
can literally be hundreds of times my speaking
fee. Companies that proactively train
their employees and inform their customers about
identity theft protection not only significantly
lower the chances of a costly data breach but
are delivering a level of customer service that
differentiates them from their competitors.
Safety sells. Companies like TJX (who just had a
data breach of 45 million identities) learned
the hard way about the profitability of privacy.
My audiences understand that before it happens.
QUESTION:
How
does your audience feel when they walk out the
door?
ANSWER:
Motivated
to protect their privacy and empowered with the
tools to make it happen. I stand up in front of
the audience as a living, breathing example of
what can happen to the person on the other end
of that “data" if it is accidentally lost or
stolen. I don’t sell fear, but I do give a voice
to reality. And I don’t come at it from the
perspective of law enforcement or techno-babble,
but from having been the victim of identity
theft. When the audience walks out of that
room, there is no question left that they will
be motivated not only to protect themselves and
their families, but the sensitive data they
handle every day. In fact, their jobs depend on
it.
QUESTION:
Can
you give me a sample of some of the speeches
you’ve given recently?
ANSWER: Sure. In the past several months,
I’ve spoken at national conferences for Blue
Cross Blue Shield (medical identity theft),
Prudential Real Estate (top 50 producers), Fifth
Third Bank (best retail customers), Premier
Bankcard (employee training), The Principal
Financial Group (national safety week), Drury
Inn Hotels (executives/managers conference),
Pfizer (technology group), many small and
mid-size financial and estate planning firms,
law firms, insurance providers (client wellness
events), universities (highest risk demographic)
and national associations (member wellness). As
a service to the community, I deliver speeches
to high school students about protecting their
privacy on websites like MySpace.
QUESTION:
What
is the single most important thing each of us
could do to protect ourselves?
ANSWER:
There is a danger in recommending one tactic as
it tends to oversimplify the problem. Just as
deadbolts are not the only way to protect your
home, identity theft can’t be solved by a silver
bullet. It takes a combination of heightened
common sense (which I deliver interactively as
Identity Theft Jujitsu), a process of
re-habituation regarding privacy (which I take
the audience through comically), and a real
motivation to make a change (which I provide by
showing the destruction, personally and
professionally, to my life). That said, you
should follow my five steps to revolutionize
your privacy: freeze and monitor your identity,
opt out, go paperless and stop the flow, both at
home and at work. These are all techniques you
will learn during the presentation.
QUESTION:
One
last question… what happened to your partner?
ANSWER:
Ah,
yes. For that, you will have to come to a
speech.
More on
John Sileo
John
speaks around the country to corporations,
associations and consumers about protecting
their private information. His clients include
Blue Cross Blue Shield, The Principal Financial
Group, Pfizer, Suncorp, Drury Inns, Prudential
Real Estate, Premier Bankcard and numerous
corporations, financial institutions,
universities and associations. John has been
featured on Money Matters Today, NBC, ABC, and
Fox.
John is the president of The Sileo Group, a
43-year-old Idea-lab focused on guiding
organizations to proactively protect their
privacy. The Sileo Group trains on how to
quickly detect and deter data theft and
financial fraud on all rungs of the corporate
ladder, from the mailroom to the boardroom.
John is a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar (New
Zealand) and graduated with Honors from Harvard
University. He lives happily at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains with his amazing wife, two
highly-spirited daughters, acoustic guitar and
Cairn terrier.
