Trust, But Verify by Danny Boice
Hello Everyone — I’m back. For those of you who are new, I am Danny Boice, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Trustify.
Let’s return to the first question of the book: are you going to lose your business? Will all these problems we have discussed catch up to you?
On one hand, my answer is yes. If the potential problems we’ve discussed go unchecked and you do nothing to change after reading this book, the escalating frequency and impact of fraud, theft, and dishonesty very well may catch up to you.
The good news is that because of technology, innovations, and lessons learned by many businesses already, you have more options. It’s more affordable, more accessible, safer, easier, and faster to trust and verify, even to engage professional help to ensure none of these things happen to you.
I don’t believe any business owner should fear to lose his or her business. That said, if you put your head in the sand and assume you’ll be okay, as the world continues to become less safe and less trustworthy, you will continue to lose money, if not your business.
One final note to mention is that there is a huge amount of underreporting going on. Some businesses are too embarrassed to admit something went wrong. If that’s you, you have a bigger problem on your hands that you need to deal with on a personal level. Retail companies have been dealing with these issues for a long time; there is no shame around them. However, most businesses do still have shame around these issues. The problem is that not reporting can cause major problems for you and others. Yahoo! is a good example. They had a massive data breach, one of the biggest ever, but it went unreported for years. As with any other crime, there will always be some victims who are too embarrassed, too traumatized, or too scared to report. If that’s you, we hope this book has revealed to you why transparency and addressing issues head-on is so important. You will never solve or minimize your losses unless you take a proactive step against these issues.
When you are proactive in protecting yourself and reporting issues to law enforcement when necessary, you might be stopping the same thing from happening to somebody else. A whole ecosystem exists among businesses because businesses are made of people. What you do, or do not do, will impact other businesses. Just look at the recent real estate bust. It produced a domino effect that got out of control.
Today, many businesses feel a greater threat around loss because of everything happening in the news. Cyber warfare seems to be increasing, and more and more low-tech copycats are getting back at their employers. Sometimes, it feels like an enormous crash is on the horizon. The final message I want to leave with you is that it doesn’t do you any good to be paranoid. Yes, you need to be clear-eyed and realistic. You also need to realize that you have the power to manage your risk — starting today.
