Business is all about being able to look forward and come through from where you are in the present. Sean Hutchinson, CEO/Partner of SVA Value Accelerators, talks about the Company of the Future in the value accelerator. He shares the intensive work his company has been doing with pivoting owners to advance towards their goals in the future. The Company of the Future is that strategy where you will have to think of the current and future state of your business. Get down into it as you answer the question of “Where are we going and how are we going to get there?” Sean breaks down the two tools that can help you find the answers to these questions: the graphics game plan and strategic doing.

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Company Of The Future: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson

We’re going to go through and do a continuation or a deep dive from an original episode with Sean Hutchinson of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA). He’s the CEO and partner. What we’re going to be talking about is the value accelerator methodology, Company of the Future. Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Bob. It’s good to be here.

Let’s talk about the Company of the Future component.

As a reminder, a few principles from the first episode that we did. We have three classes of owners, three categories. We’ve got the explorers, we’ve got the pivoters and we’ve got the triggers. Explorers are seeking information and insights. Pivoters are working on value accelerator actively and intensively. Then the triggerers are owners who are looking in the short-term to transition ownership of their business.

Company of the Future is in the value accelerator. We’re working with the pivoting owners. Company of the Future is a strategy. Think about the current state, future state when you’re doing strategy, you’ve got two questions to answer. They’re simple questions. Where are we going and how are we going to get there? That’s all you need to answer. We created Company of the Future as a 90-day sprint and what we ask our clients to do is concentrate on those two questions.

They’re going to continue to run their business, it’s not like we’re going on a 90-day retreat. What we are focusing on in terms of value acceleration is where are we going as a company out of all the options out there? Where do we want to plant our flag? How do we want to create a direct path or at least a path that can efficiently get us there? Then what resources are we going to need both in our company and from outside of our company in order to activate that pathway?

What I’m going to describe to you are two things after using a few visuals here. I’m going to describe to you two tools. One is the graphic game plan and the other is called strategic doing, which is an agile strategy methodology. We believe in agile strategy and, I want to say as many times as I possibly can, this has a strong bias for action. The reason that we call it strategic doing is because strategic planning doesn’t encourage anybody to do anything at all except plan. Think about being in an action mindset throughout this entire process. That’s what’s going to count.

I want you to imagine that we have a picture from the Kepler Space Telescope that shows us all of the Milky Way at one time. What is that going to look like? It’s going to look busy. That’s the marketplace. When you’re looking at your universe of options, the marketplace is noisy. It has a lot of things flying at you, a lot of motion, a lot of dynamism. It’s hard to pick a spot that looks good. The first thing you’re going to have to do is chaos reduction. You’re going to have to learn what the essence of leadership is and that is k...

As the world continue to shift and improve, the spaces for women in leadership positions have greatly opened up. Cheryl Campbell, former Senior Vice President of Xcel Energy and the Independent Director of Hoffman Southwest, takes us to the boardroom as she engages her experiences as a woman functioning in board roles. Together with Jo Lynne Whiting of Board Bound, we follow Cheryl as she describes her responsibilities from working with Xcel Energy to Hoffman Southwest. She provides great insights and advices to those young men and women who would love a career path that would soon serve on boards, laying down some pointers on how you can make key decisions and add value – from compliance and progress to employee safety and acquisition. Cheryl then sheds a light for women who want to participate in nontraditional areas, encouraging them to have the confidence to pursue what they love to do.

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Entering The Boardroom with Cheryl Campbell and Jo Lynne Whiting

We’re doing a cohosted version of the show. My cohost is http://businessleaderspodcast.com/women-on-board-with-jo-lynne-whiting/ (Jo Lynne Whiting). She is a previous guest on the podcast. She is with https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/board-bound-program/ (Boardbound) by the Women’s Leadership Foundation. Our guest is Cheryl Campbell. She is the former Senior Vice President of https://www.xcelenergy.com/ (Xcel Energy), retired and she’s also the Independent Director of http://hswcorp.com/ (Hoffman Southwest). For the folks that don’t know what Hoffman Southwest is, they are the parent company of Roto-Rooter.

They do https://www.rotorooter.com/ (Roto-Rooter) and https://pro-pipe.com/ (Pro-Pipe). They do a lot of pipeline work for the utility industry.

Tell us a little bit about what you do, what you’ve done in the past. We’ll bring it forward to your service on boards and the relationship that you have with Boardbound.

I spent about 35 years in the energy industry, about twenty years with the old Coastal Corporation, Colorado Interstate Gas and the last several years was with Xcel Energy. I retired from there. I spent a lot of time doing engineering, strategic planning, operations, regulatory work and a wide variety of things. I was very fortunate to have many opportunities and do a lot of interesting work over the course of my career. I got interested in boards relatively early on. I sat on a number of nonprofit boards. I decided I wanted to serve on company boards. It’s been a great career. I’m really happy to be here and talk to you about what I’ve been up to in the Boardbound Program.

Cheryl, you were an executive in the energy business. We have a lot of energy businesses here in Colorado. For those people that may not be familiar with Xcel, could you describe the scope of your responsibility?

Xcel Energy is a combination gas and electric utility provider and they serve eight states. We had two million gas customers and about 3.4 million electric customers. It’s a good-sized company. Overall, I ran the gas business for Xcel. I was responsible for those two million gas customers, our employees and our asset base. I have spent the last several years or so building their asset management programs and their risk management programs. Working with our board to improve our risk management and our safety both for employees and the public around our system. It was a great opportunity. We made a lot of good progress while I was there and they continue to make a lot of good progress now.

For the young men and women that are out there and they’re going to go, “I’d love to have a career path where I progress and succeed and en...

Many business owners flinch when hearing the word “transition.” The reason is how, for so long, it has been associated with the death of the business. CEO and Partner of SVA Value Accelerators Sean Hutchinson says otherwise. In fact, he believes that it is the path to higher valuation, making the business more valuable. With his expertise on value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country, he shares the reasons why equipping yourself with the succession tools are very important. Sean talks about the three buckets or classifications of business owners that represent different points along the journey to transition readiness: explorers, pivoters, and triggerers. Learn which among these you belong to as Sean gives the three ways that you can increase the value of your business.

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Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson

75% to 95% of the business owners’ net worth is tied up in their business, but only 10% have a plan for monetizing that net worth and only 20% will. On the show, we have Sean Hutchinson. He’s the CEO and Partner of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Bob.

Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

Our business is about value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country. We only work with private businesses. We don’t focus on the publicly traded market and we work mostly with Baby Boomers, with some exceptions, that are middle-aged folks moving into the later stage of their business career. One reason why we work with Baby Boomers so often is there are so many of them. It’s a demographic that’s unprecedented in the United States. 50% of the Baby Boomers are saying that they’re going to transition their ownership in their business over the next five years. The other 50% say within ten. It’s hard to match that up with market cycles and other things. We focus on getting them ready so that they can take advantage of the window of opportunity when it’s open. The businesses tend to be in six different industries for us because we have specialty practices but they’re revenue-wise maybe $15 million to $250 million.

However, that ideal customer question had us perplexed because when people would ask, “What’s your ideal customer?” we’d start answering it in the way that almost everybody else answers it. It was “In this industry with minimum of $15 million in revenue. Business is healthy, not distressed, and so on” One day in a strategic planning meeting when we had a new advisor come on board, he asked the same question. We started answering in the same way and then somehow the conversation just stopped and we all looked at one another and said, “If the client is the owner, why are we describing our client with data about the business? Why is that the profile?” It seemed like the wrong answer and so we created what we call Three Buckets, three classifications, of owners that we think represent different points along the journey to transition readiness.

Bucket number one is the explorers. Explorers are owners who are trying to get insights and information before they decide to engage in advisory programs. They’re trying to get some clarity before they decide to spend the money, spend the time, devote the resources, to doing value acceleration and transition readiness.

The second group is the pivoters. These are the folks who have probably been sitting on their hands for a while. Procrastination is something that we all have to overcome. Whether it’s because of a life event or something else, they wake up and say, “I’ve got to do something about this.” It could be because of a business event. Things aren’t going too well in the business o...

Many business owners flinch when hearing the word “transition.” The reason is how, for so long, it has been associated with the death of the business. CEO and Partner of SVA Value Accelerators Sean Hutchinson says otherwise. In fact, he believes that it is the path to higher valuation, making the business more valuable. With his expertise on value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country, he shares the reasons why equipping yourself with the succession tools are very important. Sean talks about the three buckets or classifications of business owners that represent different points along the journey to transition readiness: explorers, pivoters, and triggerers. Learn which among these you belong to as Sean gives the three ways that you can increase the value of your business.

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Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson

75% to 95% of the business owners’ net worth is tied up in their business, but only 10% have a plan for monetizing that net worth and only 20% will. On the show, we have Sean Hutchinson. He’s the CEO and Partner of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Bob.

Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

Our business is about value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country. We only work with private businesses. We don’t focus on the publicly traded market and we work mostly with Baby Boomers, with some exceptions, that are middle-aged folks moving into the later stage of their business career. One reason why we work with Baby Boomers so often is there are so many of them. It’s a demographic that’s unprecedented in the United States. 50% of the Baby Boomers are saying that they’re going to transition their ownership in their business over the next five years. The other 50% say within ten. It’s hard to match that up with market cycles and other things. We focus on getting them ready so that they can take advantage of the window of opportunity when it’s open. The businesses tend to be in six different industries for us because we have specialty practices but they’re revenue-wise maybe $15 million to $250 million.

However, that ideal customer question had us perplexed because when people would ask, “What’s your ideal customer?” we’d start answering it in the way that almost everybody else answers it. It was “In this industry with minimum of $15 million in revenue. Business is healthy, not distressed, and so on” One day in a strategic planning meeting when we had a new advisor come on board, he asked the same question. We started answering in the same way and then somehow the conversation just stopped and we all looked at one another and said, “If the client is the owner, why are we describing our client with data about the business? Why is that the profile?” It seemed like the wrong answer and so we created what we call Three Buckets, three classifications, of owners that we think represent different points along the journey to transition readiness.

Bucket number one is the explorers. Explorers are owners who are trying to get insights and information before they decide to engage in advisory programs. They’re trying to get some clarity before they decide to spend the money, spend the time, devote the resources, to doing value acceleration and transition readiness.

The second group is the pivoters. These are the folks who have probably been sitting on their hands for a while. Procrastination is something that we all have to overcome. Whether it’s because of a life event or something else, they wake up and say, “I’ve got to do something about this.” It could be because of a business event. Things aren’t going too well in the business o...

We often hear the saying, “Your business is just as good as the people in it,” yet many businesses still fail at finding the right kind of people in their team. As a result, they lag behind in efficiency and productivity. Kevin Stoffel and Brent Hultman from Strong People Systems give an overview of the issues that business owners are currently facing when it comes to their employees. They offer some great advice, insights, and tools that help solve problems in turnover and employee engagement. Highlighting the importance of identifying the true human potential of an individual, they bring forth the need for more objectivity into the hiring process. This does not only help the company go forward towards success but it is also a service to individual employees to truly load up on who they are truly meant to be.

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Kevin Stoffel And Brent Hultman From Strong People Systems

We have two guests on the podcast, Kevin Stoffel and Brent Hultman of http://strongpeoplesystems.com/ (Strong People Systems) there in the office from up north in the Denver area. Thanks so much for coming in.

It’s our pleasure to be here.

Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

We are Strong People Systems and we focus on unlocking human potential. It falls into two areas, working with small and medium-sized companies. We help companies bring some objective data into the hiring process, do a better job of getting the right people on the bus, to go along with the subjective resumes and interviews, where people look great on a resume and interview like a rock star but then turn out to be somebody else when they got on the job. We bring some objective data into that process using some pre-employment screening assessments and then working with existing staff to develop the potential of those people. If we ask the question to most of us, “Are you living up to your potential?” most people say, “Not really. There’s more I could give, more I could do, more I could achieve, if I can get out of my own way.”

One of the reasons that we typically don’t work with larger enterprises and large companies even though that’s my background is that we realized everybody says, “Our people are our most valuable asset,” but then if I ask the leader to demonstrate how they do that, I’ll catch them flatfooted. Most big companies say that but then they have a hard time demonstrating that they truly do it. We’re not willing to engage with a client that’s not serious about developing people. If they want us to go fix their people and they say, “We need you, go fix my people,” that’s a non-starter. We won’t sign a contract in that case.

When it’s a “Fix my people” attitude or mentality or thought process, I always tell people to be careful when you point the finger of blame at people because there are three fingers pointing back at you. There’s a lot of truth in that.

What’s your prototypical size business? How many employees? What kind of revenue?

We usually go by employees on that question because depending on the type of business you’re in, revenues can vary greatly. Ideally, our targeted clients are between 25 to 500 employees. We work with clients smaller than that and clients bigger than that. It’s about working with individuals or teams within those organizations to unlock their potential, the talents that are already there.

For the business owner that reaches out to you to bring you on board, what typical pain points or problems are they trying to solve when they reach out to you?

It’s one or two things, it’s, “I’m stuck. I’ve either plateaued or there are outcomes we have to accomplish that aren’t happening and they should be. If I could, I’d fire everybody and start over but I can’t,

According to Seth Godin, marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell. One such powerful way of telling that story is through photos and images. Professional photographer Shelly Au talks about imagery and visual work, having a business focused on creating high-quality headshots and visual branding. Shelly helps companies communicate their story to the world in an artistic and creative way. He says it’s more than capturing your subject sitting down, taking the photo, getting up, and then leaving. Visual branding is more of how you get people to portray who they are to help businesses succeed and take the next step.

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Visual Branding: Telling Your Story Through Imagery with Shelly Au

We’re incredibly fortunate, we have Shelly Au. He’s from https://www.shellyau.com/ (Shelly Au) Photography. We’re going to be talking about imagery and visual work with him and why it’s important. Shelly, tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.

Bob, thank you for having me here. I appreciate it and the opportunity to chat with you on this. My business is focused on two areas. It’s high-end quality headshots and the second part is visual branding. It’s communicating the story of a business and what they’re doing. It’s how you artistically and creatively help them communicate that to the world and the public.

You and I met. I was at a corporate training event and you were doing all the headshots for all of the participants. For most of us rookies, we’ll do a selfie and go, “There’s my photo,” and I stick it on LinkedIn and you look at it and go, “It looks like a bad mugshot from the police department.” Let’s talk about the importance of that headshot in representing who you are.

There’s a lot that goes into it, believe it or not. The general photographer will bring in your studio and shoot you. Keep in mind when I photographed you and many others, I only had ten minutes. I do my best to try to communicate with you and to hear about what you’re doing. All of that helps me pose you the way I get your eyes to look. The way you sit up or down, leaning towards the camera, turn your face. I’m studying you. I’m studying my subject, their face but I’m also trying to bring out who they are as a person. I would pose them differently. I had Frank Shamrock come in and he was a boxer. He had awesome cheekbones and trying to get him as he speaks with his hands going. I definitely study them and try to help them come out. I feel like that separates me from the others as well along with some of the training. I’ve been very fortunate to train under some people who do head shots well. Peter Hurley in New York charges $2,000 for a headshot. I’m part of his crew and I’m crafting what’s best for that person.

I’m fortunate that I’ve already had my headshot done by Shelly. Part of the reason I had him on the podcast was that I thought it was important to talk about the visual conveyance. I can remember we popped out of a meeting. We went down this long hall and we go to this studio that you set up on site. It’s not as simple as your subject sitting down, you take photos and they get up and leave. There’s a whole process that you go through when you do the photo. Let’s talk a little bit about how you get your subject ready and comfortable.

There are a few things there. One is the lighting setup I chose. I have LED lights that are constantly on. Right there, there’s a sparkle in your eyes. It’s not that triggering flash that goes off and I can do that. I have done it that way. That continuous lighting allows a person to relax first of all. I always kneel and when I’m communicating. I have them sit on the chair first.

At some point, business owners are responsible for the people that they’ve engaged because their livelihoods are dependent on their ability to run and to lead that business. Kevin Kays, president of The Alternative Board Denver North, helps business owners increase revenue, improve profitability, and lead their companies more effectively. Kevin shares what he does at The Alternative Board and how they help business owners run their businesses more effectively. He also touches on transitions, working with a business coach, behavioral assessments, critical success factors, and more.

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How To Increase Revenue, Improve Profitability And Run Your Business More Effectively with Kevin Kays

We have Kevin Kays. He’s the President of https://www.thealternativeboard.com/denver-north (The Alternative Board Denver North). Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time on this episode.

Thanks for having me.

Kevin, tell us a bit about your business and who you serve.

I own The Alternative Board Denver North and I work with entrepreneurs. I target folks who own and operate and actively involved in running their businesses that do gross revenues of about $1 million up to the $50 million range and larger. What I do is work with them to run their businesses more effectively so that they can identify their personal goals and translate them into their company goals. Use that to develop their strategy and implement it to get them where they want to be both personally and with the business.

I’m going to pretend I’m a business owner. I’ve been successful. I know everything I think that there is to know about my customer. I’ve been running the business for twenty years. I’m successful by almost everybody’s measure. You walked through the door. What should I expect?

What you should expect is for me to start asking you about where you are with your business and where you are with your life. What plan do you have not only for running the business but for leaving the business and monetizing that asset that you’ve spent your life building?

For many of the business owners, they think about leaving the business, “I have zero plan to leave my business. I’m going to work here until I die.” Why would that be of interest to the guy that says, “I’m never going to leave my business?”

The guy that says he’s never going to leave his business is deluding himself because he’s either going to leave it on his own power or leave it first. If he’s got a family that’s depending on him, he’s got a responsibility to make sure that that asset serves them one way or another after he’s gone. If he doesn’t plan for his exit and doesn’t plan for that asset to be of value to the folks behind him, he’s going to leave a colossal mess for them.

I saw a statistic that said after 2008 declined crash that two-thirds of the jobs created in the country were created by small business owners. Some of the business owners that’s been successful is interested in as employees as well.

One of the things I look for the individual that runs his or her business is to help them lead more effectively. I help them deliver on the plan that they need to make so that not only is the business doing well to meet their needs but meets the needs of their employees. At some point, you are responsible for the people that you’ve engaged because their livelihoods are dependent on your ability to run and to lead that business.

For the business owner, they might say, “I’m not going to take and sell my business. I want to transition it to my kid.” For that particular person, what types of things do you see that you bring to the table that help those folks?

More than having such caring and nurturing hands, women nowadays have also demonstrated their power and strength on the business and corporate side. Jo Lynne Whiting, the Board Chair of the Women’s Leadership Foundation, believes that having more women on board is critical to the success of companies. She talks about how women can become a great leader to spearhead company success and create better economic development.

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Women On Board with Jo Lynne Whiting

We’re incredibly fortunate because I have Jo Lynne Whiting. She is the Board Chair of the https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/ (Women’s Leadership Foundation). I had the pleasure of meeting her at an event where women were talking about being on boards. Jo Lynne, thanks for taking your time. Tell us a little bit about the foundation and what your mission is.

https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/board-bound-program/ (Boardbound) by Women’s Leadership Foundation, we are working for advocacy because we believe that having more women on boards is critical to the success of their companies. Fortunately, the research bears that out. We also work on the supply. We have a Boardbound program that equips women to step into board service and we work on-demand. We think there are a lot of very talented women already out there. The more that companies, CEOs, board directors, the chair nominating governance asked for those women and look for them, the better off we’ll be and we’ll have more balance on our boards.

How long has the foundation been around?

We were legally formed in 2002. The Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce formed an independent foundation and we were rather dormant until 2011 when we adopted a mission. The way we did that is we did research of what’s already going on here in Colorado, where are women succeeding and where are the gaps. One of the gaps that stood out was breaking that glass ceiling to get on the board. That is what we focused on. We started with research. In the very first research study, we learned that there was only 7% of the board positions in Colorado held by women.

How did that relate to the rest of the country as a comparison?

At that point in time, we didn’t have a good benchmark because you need to adjust to the size of companies. Back in 2011, you’ll hear publications say, “We’ve got 12%. We’ve got 14%.” They might have been only talking about the larger companies and here in Colorado, we do have a lot of smaller companies which tend to have fewer. Now, we know that and we know we’re about 2 percentage points behind the national average. We’re about 9 percentage points behind some of the best states whose companies that are headquartered there have done a great job of getting women on boards.

As far as percentage gains from where you were, you have made great strides.

We’re excited. It is slow, but it is a steady increase. We started at seven and I’m very proud to say that as of December 31st of 2018, we’re at 14.4%.

How does that put you in comparison to other states?

We’re still behind by about those 2 percentage points. The part that’s encouraging is if you look at 2018, we had a 2.1 percentage point gain and the previous six years it was less than one point. We’re encouraged because a lot of Coloradans have gotten behind this. Colorado was the fourth state to pass a resolution by both houses in support of having women on boards. Even before that, we had been working with some wonderful CEOs who brought their fellow CEOs and board directors together to talk about this issue. They had made a commitment and they were in support and help support that legislative resolution. People like Dave Liniger of RE/MAX,

Data theft has run amok, and the internet is fraught with vulnerabilities. Anytime you are on the internet, you’re putting yourself – and your important digital files and folders – at risk to potential attack. Users should pay close attention to suspicious email, and check frequently to prevent hackers from gaining access to home or business networks.

Malware, spyware and keylogging attacks are real, and can cause significant damage. In fact, research firms tell us that a successful attack can likely cause a small business to close its doors within 6 to 9 months of the attack.

Robert Fleming, founder and president of BlackSquare Technologies, talks about securing your digital information from potential harm through hardware encryption tools. He also shares one of their key tools called Enigma, which delivers secure, simple, real-time USB hardware encryption and decryption to protect data, no matter where that data is stored.

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Protecting Your Data And Privacy with Robert Fleming

This is an episode where we are doing a return podcast with Bob Fleming. He’s the Founder and President of https://www.blacksquaretechnologies.com/ (BlackSquare Technologies). In the http://businessleaderspodcast.com/bob-fleming-ceo-blacksquare-technology-if-its-important-encrypt-it/ (previous podcast), we were talking about the Enigma device. It looks like a thumb drive, but does not store any data. Enigma offers a female connector which allows the user to connect any type of USB storage device. The whole idea is we wanted to get an update as to where we are. If you would, Bob, recap your business and who you serve.

Thanks for having me back, Bob. We’re a small Colorado based company called BlackSquare Technologies, and we build an external hardware encryption tool that we call Enigma. Enigma allows the connection of any USB storage device. Enigma itself does not store data and acts as a firewall to protect against malware and spyware attacks.

With a simple click, Enigma allows the user to encrypt and decrypt data, no matter where that data may be stored. Enigma has been designed to support the consumer and small business, and offers value to a single user to hundreds of users.

It’s also important to mention that Enigma does not have a back door, so please record your passwords.

As we look at the device, let’s back up a little bit and talk about some of your background and how you brought your background forward into the design and bringing to market of this device.

I bring over eighteen years of data security expertise and consultancy experience to BlackSquare. Prior to founding BlackSquare, my colleagues and I worked for a very large storage manufacturing company here in Colorado, where we designed and marketed full disk encrypting and self encrypting hard drives.

In the early 2000’s, I realized myself that data was suspect. If important data fell into the wrong hands, it could be leveraged or monetized against that company, it’s leadership, its board, its investors, vendors and contacts.

My team and I decided that we could design and build a product which will allow us to protect our important data from everybody. That’s how it came about.

I have an Enigma device here in my business. We were backing it up and I have a relatively large backup drive, which has a USB plug on it. It plugs right into Enigma. It’s a very simple process to drag and drop a file and encrypt it. You drag and drop it to the same place. You choose to encrypt or decrypt as you see fit. Some of the things that we talk about here, for folks who are going, “I’m migrating from storing information on my local hard drive to Dropbox or any various cloud providers.” Let’s dig into that process and your thoughts on protecting the data...

Intellectual property is the most valuable asset of a company that is why it should always be protected. Otherwise, employees come in and learn all your systems and processes, and then they leave. The next thing you realize, there’s a competitor down the road that is being run by that former employee. However, many companies don’t do a good job of securing their intellectual property because they don’t understand that. Art Nutter, the founder, chairman, and CEO of PatentBooks and a company called TAEUS, delves deep into the subject of intellectual property, bringing to light the significance of patents. He also shares how PatentBooks and TAEUS were created and what they are all about.

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How To Protect Your Intellectual Property with Art Nutter

We have Art Nutter. He’s the Founder, Chairman and CEO of https://patentbooksinc.com/ (PatentBooks) and a company called https://taeus.com/ (TAEUS). People will go, “PatentBooks, I got. What is TAEUS?”

People think it’s some Greek god of knowledge. I was going to invent that, but it’s an acronym for Take Apart Everything Under the Sun. That company was one that I started back in 1992 when the United States and big companies were thinking that foreign competition was copying their intellectual property. I approached ATandT one day and said, “You acquired NCR. Do you know what patents you acquired in that acquisition?” They said, “No.” I said, “I can tell you.” We proceeded to do that and turned to ATandT and then subsequently IBM into patent licensing powerhouses. IBM went from $100 million licensing income to $2 billion in licensing income over the space of ten years.”

I think about that and say, “You started TAEUS.”

Yes, I did. Out of the garage with frequent flyer miles, a laptop computer, a laser printer and that was it.

Did you have experience in patent or anything or taking things apart?

Yes, I’ve always taken things apart. We grew up on a farm. If something broke, we had to figure out how to fix it. I’ve had an inherent interest and curiosity in doing those things. However, the last job I had as an employee before I started TAEUS, I tended to get fired in most companies because I was usually the guy making too much money. That was my crime. I doubled the sales of this particular company in a space of nine months. This company was reverse engineering semiconductor memory chips. I discovered that there was a marketplace that was very interested in this reverse engineering data. That was this intellectual property marketplace because like I said in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, US companies were thinking, “We’re getting killed by foreign competition. They must be copying our stuff, our ideas and our inventions.” In fact, they were and this was an easy way for them to document the other companies copying of their circuits. They literally would reverse engineer the circuits and then duplicate them exactly. It was government-funded in Japan and Korea and Taiwan and so forth. They wanted to establish semiconductor industries for themselves, which as from history, our semiconductor industry is pretty few and far between. You have the Intels, AMDs and in-house semiconductor capabilities but nowhere near likely the volume of semiconductor companies that did exist in here in the 1980s. Those businesses are now done overseas in Asia.

I’m thinking about you started out with your laptop in your garage and you get called to ATandT. Walk us through the thought process of, “I’m going to start small. I’m going to start with ATandT.”

It was very straightforward. I only have so many hours in the day. I figured that if I’m going to spend my time working with one guy who has one patent or ten patents or something like that,