EPISODE 238 WITH FRANKIE PANNELL: FROM SECRET SERVICE TO BUSINESS SECURITY EXPERT

Ready Yet?! Podcast with Frankie Pannell: From Secret Service to Business Security Expert

Transcribed with Descript

Erin Marcus: All right, welcome, welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet podcast with my guest today, Frankie Pinal, who we keep deciding what we’re going to talk about because once we get started, we don’t stop talking. Yes. I’m excited about this for a million different reasons. I want to introduce you and your view.

Erin Marcus: To my audience and your knowledge to my audience, but before we get it, all the official things I will let you tell everybody who you are and what you do so that you so that I don’t violate any, any things I’m not allowed to say. With that, please introduce yourself.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, well like, as you said, my name is Frankie.

Frankie Pannell: And I have a pretty extensive background in everything security related. I worked for the government for total for about 16 years both at state and federal level. Recently was departed from the secret service. I was special agent in the secret service for a little over 11 years and was made an offer.

Frankie Pannell: I couldn’t refuse from a big tech company to come in and kind of do the same thing I was doing for the president but doing it for the executives of, you know, big tech. So that’s what I do now. And with that I also run a security consulting firm, which is. Pretty much anything and everything security related, whether it be ad hoc security details to just telling me, telling people, Hey, this is what you need to fix before it’s too late.

Frankie Pannell: And I also do a lot of speaking engagements and that’s probably the bulk of, of what I do is speaking engagements on security matters, a lot of security consultations emerging trends in the, in the, in the field things that are going to make your business safer and things that are going to make the world a little bit safer.

Frankie Pannell: That’s me in a nutshell. I’m a single father with four beautiful children who are my entire world. And yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s me in a very accurate, small nutshell,

Erin Marcus: small nutshell. And I think my favorite thing, like your perfect example is going to make fun of your hair for a second. So everything in my world gets related to dogs, wildlife, or the gym, because that’s my experience, right?

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Rottweilers don’t bark. Cause they don’t need to. They don’t need to. Just look at them. That’s what you remind me of. You are so freaking chill about the experience. I love that. Like, Ray, like, you’re so chill about the experiences that you’ve had. And yet to the rest of us, because we talk about you in front of you and behind you, about why is he so chill about all of that.

Erin Marcus: I love that. That’s what you remind me of, right? Doesn’t, doesn’t hurt the image that you’re like, Twice my size. I

Frankie Pannell: mean, I’ve been told I’m pretty big guy.

Erin Marcus: Yeah.

Frankie Pannell: I’m like those, those great Dane puppies when they walk into, like, I, I can’t go into any type of like liquor shop or anything that, because you know, the, the dude who knocks over the display, That’s me.

Frankie Pannell: When you look over at the grocery store and there are oranges rolling down the aisle. That was you? That’s me. I don’t realize how big I am until I turn into something.

Erin Marcus: I am the opposite. I don’t realize how even tall I am. I have the opposite problem. I’m the tiniest of the tall, right? Throwing the big giant fit.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, yeah. Right. But I want to get into this security thing because I think, I don’t think it’s talked about. I think it’s worried about. Or it’s not. I don’t want to say worried about as much as it should have, but the awareness, like, as a small business owner, as an entrepreneur, we are all working virtually all over the place.

Erin Marcus: We are, there’s cyber security, there’s personal security, there, you know, we’re all traveling all over the place. And I think because also the 24 hour media telling us That the world’s on fire.

Frankie Pannell: You’re in danger. You’re in danger.

Erin Marcus: You know, and I have a, I have a degree in, in mass communications. And one of the things that we studied back in the day was how does the view of the world get molded by what you’re inundated with?

Erin Marcus: So I’d love to have a conversation with you of what are some real threats that we should be aware of as we move through this world and what are exaggerated perceived or, What I’m like tempted to call irrelevant threats. They might be real, but there’s not really anything you can do about it. So.

Frankie Pannell: Right.

Erin Marcus: Do you have to make yourself crazy on a daily basis over it?

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that’s a great one, it’s a great question, but it’s a great prompt to the conversation. You know, what should you worry about? What shouldn’t you? And there is no short answer. So I can’t say, well, the short answer is this.

Frankie Pannell: That’s why we’re

Erin Marcus: doing a podcast and not a podcast. Right. Right.

Frankie Pannell: Right. So, I mean, one, it’s going to be different for everyone, depending on what your business is. I think something that’s ubiquitous would be cyber. Right. So cybersecurity and you know, we hear about it all the time. The reason why that’s going to be the biggest threat for a small business, for a large business, because of how much commerce is done virtually now.

Frankie Pannell: And so the standard for cybersecurity Was kind of set with, we called it the Heartland Breach which happened, I want to say 2000, I’m dating myself, 2007. I’m older than you. It’s okay. 2007, 2008, somewhere around there, there was the Heartland Breach. And basically it was a, it was one of the biggest credit card breaches of American commerce.

Frankie Pannell: in history. A lot of people got their credit cards hacked, stolen. And what happens in that situation, there’s these hackers, they’ll steal your numbers and they’ll sell them to people who produce white plastic. And white plastic is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a blank credit card that has a magnetic strip.

Frankie Pannell: And so it doesn’t have a name on it or anything, but your information gets put on that card. And the rest, as I say, is history. Because of that, the world keeps getting smaller and smaller because of, you know, in improvements in technology. You know, I like to joke that even now, so I have a Google device in almost every single room in my house.

Frankie Pannell: And my kids now, I had to learn a hard lesson to not link my credit card to my product.

Erin Marcus: When a five year old knows how to order things.

Frankie Pannell: Hey Google, order this. And you know, three days later, I have stuff showing up, Barbie gear showing up at my house. What

Erin Marcus: is going

Frankie Pannell: on? Cyber is something, even on a small scale, if you own a mom and pop shop it’s something you need to be concerned with because again, what.

Frankie Pannell: What virtual commerce will do, the big thing it does, it eliminates human error, which makes your company way more profitable. And it also expands your reach. So if you sell homemade pies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, well, you can sell them to someone living on 5th Avenue. Right. So that’s a very real industry that’s going to keep growing and growing.

Erin Marcus: And I’m curious what you see. So we just saw a merger. I forgot who bought who of Capital One and Discover card. And truthfully, what they really wanted was access to that processing platform. Right? You can’t build that anymore. That’s like

Frankie Pannell: Yes.

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Right. They bought it. They bought it. They bought it. Yep.

Erin Marcus: And so, interestingly enough, what we’re seeing at kind of all at the same time is more access for everybody, but more off putting of the responsibility. Right. Yep. Right? So now, not only Are you able to do business? But now, and I’m, you know, I’m going to make these words up because I don’t know whose rules are what, but such and such visa who used to provide insurance is now looking for a reason to not pay out when things happen.

Erin Marcus: So they’re going to come after the business who allowed the processor to work. Right. Like everyone wants to kick down the hill as to whose fault things are.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, absolutely. Because security in every industry is a line item, right? Security is not going to bring in money for you. It’s just an expense that you have to pay out to make sure your customers or your providers are all secure.

Frankie Pannell: And so where like credit cards are issued, even though they’re stamped by Visa, they’re issued by the bank, whatever bank is tied to your account, that’s who’s issuing the card. And to your point, Visa, even though they have a budget for fraud and loss. There’s a due process they have to go through to make sure, do we really have to pay this out?

Frankie Pannell: And you know, there was the one thing a lot of people don’t know that I think the Truth and Lending Act of 86 or 87, I think it was, you automatically have insurance built into your credit card,

Erin Marcus: but

Frankie Pannell: there’s another line item there that they’ll try to sell you. credit card insurance. And it’s just, to me, it’s, it’s always funny because a lot of people will take it because of what you’re explaining.

Frankie Pannell: Like, I don’t want Visa to then come after me because this happened and I don’t have insurance for it. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. They’re, they’re trying it’s a process and, and I don’t know if I want to call it due diligence but in their fraud department, that’s what they’re trained to do.

Frankie Pannell: To find out how this isn’t their

Erin Marcus: fault. It’s the same way insurance works now. Yes. You know, you see in the news, the story is about, you know, grandma suing her son for, you know, because she slipped on the stairs. Well, grandma didn’t do that. Grandma’s health insurance wanted to find somebody else’s fault.

Erin Marcus: Yes. Or not. To not cover the bills and they forced the issue.

Frankie Pannell: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s 100 percent correct. And it’s, it’s something that if you really take a hard look at why these things are happening, it’s not a popular answer. We only have ourselves to blame, right? Because if you, If you take a much more tangible issue that people don’t understand think about the smash and grab job.

Frankie Pannell: Right. Oh

Erin Marcus: my God. Right here in Chicago. It’s insane. A local

Frankie Pannell: restaurant, you know, or some utility store, something that has a really cash based. business. The parameters behind that, why the person committed it is really what the root of the problem is, right? So if you’re thinking, I would say 98 percent of the people aren’t gonna do a smash and grab job just because they’re generally good people.

Frankie Pannell: They’re just good people who want to provide for their family or whatever they have. They want to be able to go out to eat on a nice meal once in a while, and they’re genuinely happy. I would say you have probably about 1. 5 who would definitely do the smash and grab job because they don’t really care, but they don’t want to get caught.

Frankie Pannell: They don’t do it because, oh, I don’t want to go to jail or I don’t want something on my record. Then you have the 0. 5 percent who just don’t care. Just don’t care. They want to see the world burn or they’re dealing with. You know, and so when people will talk to me about stuff like this about security matters and what’s happening.

Frankie Pannell: I always ask them, if you take a look at our government nowadays, Congress, nowadays, the things that they’re concerned about. They’re concerned about, I’m trying to think of an example, like parameters on sports betting or performance enhancing drugs. We’ll have these meetings on things like that, but how many meetings have we had on why Flint, Michigan doesn’t still have clean drinking water?

Frankie Pannell: You know, they’re, they’re, why, how come the, we’re still giving these breaks to these big pharmaceutical companies who are making, Billions of pounds of profit when we have a legit fentanyl problem here in the United States. So when I tell people about when you’re talking about security in your hometown you know, I would take a look at what’s happening at a national level that’s affecting this population of people that are committing these small crimes.

Frankie Pannell: Again, there are going to be people who do it no matter what, just because they want to see the world burn.

Erin Marcus: Right. They’re angry. There’s mental illness. There is a variety of

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, absolutely. But on the other, on the other end of that is, you know, the things that Congress wants to discuss nowadays, and I don’t want to spin this off into too much of a tangent, but things they want to discuss nowadays aren’t necessarily pertinent to the everyday person.

Frankie Pannell: You know, it’s a lot of wardeering for their constituents. They’re saying, well, look at, look at my Senator. He or she is raging against the Republicans. He or she is raging against the Democrats. And that’s what I want to hear. And yet crime in their town is spiking because no one really wants to address the issue, underlying issues that’s affecting them.

Frankie Pannell: So. A bigger example of what not towards, so cyber is something that’s always going to be there. That’s something that you definitely need to concern yourself with. Your business needs to have an arm of cybersecurity, someone who you can, a lot of people will outsource it to an online resource. Someone who does, I can do this from California.

Frankie Pannell: I’ll provide infrastructure for you and your business.

Erin Marcus: And there’s a lot of easy ways. Like one of the things that I started doing a long time ago is I only use One encrypted credit card processor, and I don’t take people’s information like I never have their information. Right, so that it’s not it’s not on the contract because to me, DocuSign is easier to hack.

Erin Marcus: Then Stripe.

Frankie Pannell: Right. Absolutely.

Erin Marcus: Right. So it’s not on the contract. It’s not in my CRM. The only place somebody’s credit card is, is directly entered by them. So I don’t even have the number.

Frankie Pannell: We’ll have the number. And that’s, what’s happening a lot with these, take restaurants for example. So that’s

Erin Marcus: like a little, little tiny thing that you, like, and Stripe made it easy.

Erin Marcus: For example, it’s not a big thing for them because they’re not, you know, I don’t know one from the other, but I can make a link in a minute. and give you a special link just for your payment. Yep. And never ever touch

Frankie Pannell: it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s, that’s a, that’s a smart play with doing it. And a lot of these restaurants are doing the same thing with cash.

Frankie Pannell: They’ll tell you right when you walk in the door, we don’t, we don’t do anything in cash. If you know, it’s, it’s all card or. Well, here’s something

Erin Marcus: interesting that I was taught and we’ll see if you tell me if it’s Still accurate or not coming out of the social service security, right?

Frankie Pannell: Yep.

Erin Marcus: In the United States, it’s illegal to not accept the legal U.

Erin Marcus: S. tenders. Yes,

Frankie Pannell: it is. You

Erin Marcus: cannot tell somebody you don’t take cash because that is the legal tender of the country.

Frankie Pannell: States. So a play around that. Is we don’t process anything larger than a 50 bill or anything larger than whatever set amount that is. So

Erin Marcus: when I used to manage apartment complexes and people would want to not write a check, they’d want to give me cash.

Erin Marcus: And I’d say, that’s fine. I am five feet tall and 95 pounds. Do you want me to be the only thing between your rent and

Frankie Pannell: I’m just saying, that was, that was your disclaimer.

Erin Marcus: Somebody says, give me that bag. The answer is here. I love

Frankie Pannell: it. Yeah, that’s, that’s so true. I think on the other end of that, your cyber will be there that I’ll call that one end of the spectrum.

Frankie Pannell: The other end, which everyone wants to talk about right now is AI. Right. And people are like, Oh, I’m fearful of AI. The robot’s going to take over. The best way I can explain it with AI is no matter how advanced the technology becomes, there’s always going to be someone who needs to be there to hit execute.

Frankie Pannell: Right? So we create the program. I say we, I can’t do it. Engineers, well, they’ll create the program. And there’ll be a lot of processes that can happen with AI after that program is written, but there’s always going to need to be someone who’s there to execute, to do audits. You know, AI is not gonna be able to audit itself.

Frankie Pannell: And those are parameters that are being built in for this specific reason. So what I try to tell people who are in industries that are very, Tech savvy or tech leaning just be at the top 5 percent of your, of your group. Oh my god,

Erin Marcus: I say the same thing. To me, it has never been easy. Like, I understand the marketplace is now noisier because there’s more volume, meaning some people are screaming, but there’s more quantity, but it’s almost never been easier to stand out.

Erin Marcus: Yes. Because every, like, I can now tell you instantly When somebody started using AI for their posts. Yes. Yeah. Because there’s a much larger variety of emojis involved.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah. Like,

Erin Marcus: I am older. I am of the group that uses emojis. The kids make fun of us, right? But there’s like four.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah.

Erin Marcus: There’s like four. I know how to use like four.

Erin Marcus: The wimpy face is mine. I do a lot of the wimpy faces. There’s the smiley face, there’s the fire one, there’s probably the dog. I don’t remember, because it’s not normal for me, it’s not how I grew up, that there’s like 800 of them I could pick from.

Frankie Pannell: Right. Right, right.

Erin Marcus: So, if you go look, there’s a couple of my posts, I’m like, oh, this is kind of fun.

Erin Marcus: But you can tell, and all, right, like. This is an opportunity for people who really are the thought leaders in their market to stay standing out because you’re not going to sound like him. Not to mention, let’s face it, 90 percent of people who use AI are not buying the premium version, which means the data they’re using is two years old.

Frankie Pannell: Right. Right. It’s the free version, the free demo version.

Erin Marcus: Yep.

Frankie Pannell: Yep. Now I am

Erin Marcus: a big fan of like Grammarly where it fixes it for me.

Frankie Pannell: Grammarly is pretty good. I mean, there’s a lot of my, you know, so me personally, like I do a lot of, I’ll write a lot of music. I play a bunch of instruments. I like to write a lot of music and there are tons of apps that are where the music, the songwriting process is still very generic.

Frankie Pannell: Where you, at least for me, you get inspired by something you see or something that you thought of. But what AI has done in that regard, it bridges the gap more efficiently. Oh, totally. I’ll have a tune in my head to where like, something like tonally, I can just hum it into my phone and then it’ll, it’ll has perfect pitch.

Frankie Pannell: The bass is a perfect pitch app. It’ll match pitch to what I am thinking and then boom, there are the chords. So I’m a huge fan of things like that. And. I think I’ve told you before, I firmly believe we all live better through technology, science, chemistry, but I think advancements in that make us.

Frankie Pannell: better, but with that, there will always be that percentage of people who find an avenue of how can I gain the system through things like this? So if you’re a small business owner and you’re not using AI, you’re already behind the curb. Well, it makes you

Erin Marcus: so much more efficient. Like we are using ways that is like even the podcast, like when we, we, this podcast has been out since October 2020.

Erin Marcus: It used to take us all, not just because we didn’t know what the heck we were doing, but once we figured it out, it used to take a lot of hours between producing the podcast, doing the images, grabbing the highlights, doing the trans, like, that used to take a ton of time. And it’s now an hour.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah. And that

Erin Marcus: is amazing.

Frankie Pannell: And that’s my point with when it comes to the human error factor of it, that it’s just going to be all but eliminated when it comes to things like AI or cyber. And I, I think if the, like the advice I would give would be like, take grocery shopping, for example, we all have the self checkout, which I always say my groceries should be about 30 percent cheaper if I go through self checkout.

Frankie Pannell: Because I’m doing all the

Erin Marcus: work. I’m

Frankie Pannell: doing all the work myself. Why is it the same if I go through the 10 items or less thing? But if you’re, if you’re a clerk, just be at the top 5 percent of clerks who are at the grocery store, because when AI comes through and it’s all automated, you’ll still have, you’ll still have a job there.

Frankie Pannell: But for, for small business, those are two ends of the spectrum. I think there are caveats to that. Again, the smash and grab jobs are falling by the wayside. They’re still there. I don’t want ever, I don’t want anyone to think that they’re not smart. But they’re falling by the wayside unless it’s more like a crime of opportunity.

Frankie Pannell: You know, someone leaves a cash drawer open and walks away.

Erin Marcus: Well, and the retail in downtown, you know, downtown Chicago, those retail, that’s getting, they’re very organized, and I think that’s right.

Frankie Pannell: I think the, the biggest caveat that’s more pertinent to what I do with that would be learning institutions.

Frankie Pannell: Whether it be elementary, middle, high schools or colleges those things, because of the, the state of the world, specifically the United States those things are never going to go away. You can’t, the hardest thing to account for in law enforcement is the lone wolf. And you would think it’d be easier.

Frankie Pannell: It’s actually a lot harder. It’s easier when there are more people involved because people tend to screw up. And the more people are involved.

Erin Marcus: We’ve had this conversation and this is why social media just makes me laugh. I, you know, public schools in Chicago in the seventies and eighties, when we have our reunions, our biggest joke is how are more of us like, okay, well, you know, how are we not?

Erin Marcus: Right. And the thing we always knew was. You never said it, because that’s how you ended up in jail. In jail, yep. Don’t talk about it. The more people who know what’s going on, the more likelihood of someone finding out that something is going on.

Frankie Pannell: And that’s exactly how we find them. When I say me, I mean we.

Frankie Pannell: I mean the law enforcement industry as a whole. But the Lone Wolf the Sandy Hook shooter, you know, Uvalde, Texas, things like that. It’s you’re, you’re already reactive. And so when it comes to, not that institutions are thought of as a business, even though they are you know, you’re everything you do at that point, it’s reactive.

Frankie Pannell: And, you know, and I’ve been on units and teams who have practiced those active shooter scenarios and everything is based off of when the shooter does this, this is what we will do. Right. But then it falls on the institution to be as proactive as possible. And that, in that field, and a lot of institutions will use a courtesy officer.

Frankie Pannell: Courtesy officer was the standard until the Parkland shooting in Florida. When that happened, it was like, okay, one courtesy officer does not proactive security make. And he or she, that officer is almost at a, they’re at an automatic loss. One way or another. Right? So if they’re, yeah. I mean, and that

Erin Marcus: officer was never, like, we had that even in, like, that, that guy was there to help.

Erin Marcus: Yes.

Frankie Pannell: To show a force.

Erin Marcus: And that role was never, you know, and truthfully in our world, my world, that officer was really there from a community policing concept of making friends with the kids while they’re young enough to influence.

Frankie Pannell: Right. Yes. I mean, and that’s what, that’s what cop is, community oriented.

Frankie Pannell: That’s what they used to be. You know, community oriented policing does a lot. And you know, when I was living in Manhattan, working for the secret service, you know, the commissioner at the time was really big on cops getting out of their vehicles and walking. Right. I remember. For that specific reason, for just go, go talk to local youth, go shoot a couple of basketballs with, you know, the, the, the people who are out there on the blacktop and, With these school shootings, the oldest one I can remember, or the first one I can remember, was Columbine.

Erin Marcus: Right.

Frankie Pannell: That’s the first time I was, I’m sure there were Before that, that was the first one I remember and being like, Oh my God, that’s heartbreaking. And I think almost three weeks later, there was a prayer circle in Kentucky. These students were praying for what happened to Columbine and the same thing happened.

Frankie Pannell: And maybe it’s just because that’s the first one I remember, but I remember it striking a chord more with more people than what I feel like it happens nowadays.

Erin Marcus: Well, and I think one of the sad things about humans. Right? We were chatting before. One of the sad things about humans is how fast we normalize things in order to be able to function.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, we have to. It’s our coping mechanism.

Erin Marcus: And unfortunately, that’s now the normal we have accepted. Right. Right. It is the normal we have accepted. Otherwise, we would have done something about this. It’s been decades that this is going on. So what does My question is probably unfair to ask. I’m just interested in your opinion.

Erin Marcus: Most small business owners are already battling fears. You’re battling internal fears. You’re battling imposter syndrome. You’re battling all of the limiting beliefs that you have holding you back. Right. We’re already battling neuroscience. Keep yourself safe. Keep yourself safe. Don’t put yourself out there.

Erin Marcus: I guess it’s like, What is someone I have taken per well, I’ll position it this way. I have taken the position that the world is what the world is. Maybe it’s a little fatalist, but I don’t feel that I am able to influence it as an individual. So I’m just gonna do it. I, I mean, I, I’m, again, I was raised by a cop.

Erin Marcus: I’m pretty aware of what’s going on around me, right? I have good situational awareness, but I can’t let it stop me.

Frankie Pannell: Right, like, I totally get that. Yeah, I totally get that. That and I mean, you’re right, there is no, there is nothing I can say that’s going to be just do

Erin Marcus: this one thing and you’ll be fine. Exactly. Exactly.

Frankie Pannell: So I guess if you’re a small business owner. And depending on what your industry is, the, the biggest thing you have to accept is that if someone chooses you, there’s nothing you can do, right?

Frankie Pannell: I think that’s

Erin Marcus: a hard, like people don’t like, it feels very safe.

Frankie Pannell: They don’t, which is why a lot of people will tell me they don’t like to watch the news because they don’t want to know that they’re in danger of this, that, or the other. And but that’s not, that’s not something that is just exclusive to the United States or to Chicago or to Atlanta.

Frankie Pannell: I mean, that is really, it’s around the globe. If someone just decides, you know what, I don’t like that Chipotle. I want to do harm to it for whatever reason. There’s not much you can do in that regard. Now, there are steps you can take to minimize that. I think a big one is your employees making sure that they are drilled on, Hey, this happens.

Frankie Pannell: This is what we do and make sure that they know there is. There is no amount of cheeseburger or money that’s worth getting into with the customer, right? And, and again, I am ignorant to this industry. I’ve never worked. I’ve never served in the service industry.

Erin Marcus: Also, here’s the deal, Frankie, you got to be a special kind of stupid to do that to you.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah,

Erin Marcus: like you’re big, right? You stand up straight. You make eye contact.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, that’s very true. That’s very, very true. But you know, I’ll watch these videos. Sometimes the people who are get into it. with either a robber or even someone who’s just disgruntled with the level of their service and they’ll start going back forth.

Frankie Pannell: And the next thing you know, a fight breaks out. Like if it were me and I put myself in that situation, if you’re screaming at one of my employees, because you didn’t like your order, your cheeseburger was this set. Okay. Can I give you another one? Or here’s your money back. I apologize. and let it move on.

Frankie Pannell: But the whole tit for tat of going back and forth and then physically getting an altercation with them, to me, I’d want to have my employees understand, listen, it’s not worth it for, for any regard. You know, it helps to be maybe a little chummy with your local precinct, you know, your firefighters your law enforcement, you know, Bring them a meal every now and again.

Frankie Pannell: That, that does help. And again I had, I gave a talk at a school that was in, we call it HIDTA, a high intensity drug trafficking area. That’s a labelization that’s given to certain areas by the DEA where there’s just known narcotic traffic. This one was in Houston, and this private, you know, Christian based school sat right in the middle of, of Haida, and they were having issues with break ins and crimes of opportunity, you know, people getting their gym shoes stolen, you know, things like that.

Frankie Pannell: And so they refused to put up a security fence around Haida. the school. So what I suggested was, what if you had a community function, because they had an outdoor basketball blacktop that had like four or five different basketball hoops. I was like, have a, have a barbecue and just invite the local community to come hang out, shoot hoops and stuff.

Frankie Pannell: And so what’s happened in the probably year and a half since I’ve spoken there and gave them a few pointers, was. that school almost now is a protected area. Why? The people who are doing probably 80 percent of the crime in that town, because they don’t want anything to happen to their place where they can just go chill and hang out.

Frankie Pannell: Now they’re not inside the school, so to speak, but they’re definitely on school property that sits out of major intersection in that town. And so people who are who probably, I can’t say for sure that they’re doing it, but people who are probably committing some of the crime there will go, they’ll play basketball at that public court.

Frankie Pannell: And the school has now kind of been left alone because of the stance that they have with or the population. What

Erin Marcus: you’re really describing to me is one of the reasons we’re seeing an increase in all the problems is a breakdown of community. For sure. It’s an absolute, right, like, and I agree with you, like, are we better off because of the technology, or are the, there’s problems that come with it.

Erin Marcus: Right. The amazing thing is that you and I met virtually, we did get a chance to meet in person, we’ve talked, like, this would have never happened before.

Frankie Pannell: So

Erin Marcus: there’s, right, I have clients in New Zealand, and a team member in Spain, and like, unbelievable, amazing, amazing things. Yep. And yeah. With it has brought the anonymity of the internet so that there’s people who And you just right it’s like this is the world we live in be as safe as you can be Don’t let it stop you from doing the things That you want to do but at the same time be smart about it.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, absolutely. Keep your head on the swivel. I think You know, the second we stop taking care of each other is when the system breaks down, right? I mean, every well, I just shouldn’t say every month I try to do it every month, but my neighbors all want me because I have like this little, I should have brought it, I had this little, it’s in the garage, this little sign that says, You know two minute conversation for that’s the cost of a hot dog, a five minute conversation, discuss cheeseburger, and I’ll pull my grill out front and I’ll put the sign up.

Frankie Pannell: And it’s just a great way for the neighbors to come around as they’re driving and walk with their kids to engage. And they love it. They get a big kick out of it. And. I really think, and that’s honestly why I went into the field. I grew up knowing, knowing I was going to be a secret service agent. I didn’t know how to do that, but I remember being four years old and being like, that’s what I want to do.

Frankie Pannell: I want to be a special agent with secret service to the point where I’m almost envious of people who are like in high school or college, like, what do you want to do? And everyone’s like, Oh, maybe this, maybe that I don’t really know. I never had that dynamic ever. I always had the same answer to the question of.

Frankie Pannell: I want to be a Secret Service agent. I learned at a very young age, the one thing that sets me off more than anything else is a bully. I cannot, to the point where it’s almost unhealthy, how quickly I see red. And so I’ve always had a calling to want to take care of Protect other people, which has kind of led to my downfall.

Frankie Pannell: My personal life, choosing people who

Erin Marcus: need to be taken care of.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah,

Erin Marcus: there’s a, right. That’s like the fireman with the savior complex. Yeah. Thanks for some poor choices. I mean, yes,

Frankie Pannell: I’ve had to learn hard lessons in the past from that. But I, I firmly believe if you have the ability to take care of someone else, you have the duty to do so now, not to your own detriment, right?

Frankie Pannell: You don’t have to light

Erin Marcus: yourself on fire to keep other people.

Frankie Pannell: Exactly. But I think that dynamic to to your point of the breakdown of society that we have, we’re so blessed to live where we are. And I think one of the best things about this country might be also one of the worst things it’s all the freedoms we have.

Frankie Pannell: But, you know, that type of community atmosphere taking care of one another will go a long way for this and I think. Small business owners are in a unique opportunity, and I’ve always been, to be a small business owner, to have that connection with community, to where they’re being patronized by the locals, because They’re the anti capitalistic endeavor that we have going on.

Frankie Pannell: Even if your

Erin Marcus: business is, and even if your business is virtual, you still have a community around you.

Frankie Pannell: Absolutely, you do. Absolutely. I would even argue that that’s where most small businesses are coming about nowadays. Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I graduated high school in, you know, 2000, I,

Erin Marcus: hey, and you’re starting with a two, so.

Erin Marcus: Mine doesn’t Start with a two. My college graduation doesn’t start with a two.

Frankie Pannell: I love it. You know, there was no you know, I’ll make a living off of being an influencer. You know, my son who is, is, is fairly gifted, he, you know, he wants to be. a YouTuber. And now I can’t tell him, well, you know, maybe you should look, focus on one of the hard sciences.

Frankie Pannell: Are we, there are people who make, you know, really good livings off of this virtual world that we live in. And, but there, you’re absolutely right. There is a community. And I would argue even a bigger community can be reached through, you know, I, You know, I’ve met Mr. Beast a few times just because of the work that I do.

Frankie Pannell: He and I have crossed paths quite often and to where he is like, oh, that’s so cool what you do. I’m like, dude, honestly, when I go to bed at night, there are probably count on one hand that are people who care about what I do. Whereas what you do in your community is very, very, because again, he’s touching so many people who are then touching people and so on and so forth.

Frankie Pannell: I think it’s a again, I personally in all the, the training and knowledge that I have in the field that I’m in, I think the world. Is a much better place with technology. Chemistry. I

Erin Marcus: think that’s important to hear because I think there’s a million people out there screaming the opposite and they have no first hand knowledge.

Erin Marcus: They have zero training and I mean that’s a great place to leave us off because you know you and I can talk for days we have.

Frankie Pannell: Can and have.

Erin Marcus: I think that’s a really important note. The, if you’re going to take it, like if you’re going to take medical advice, you want it from someone who’s been trained. If you’re going to take mechanical advice about your car, you want it from someone who knows what you’re doing. So if the person who is trained to your level, the experience to your level is telling you, yeah, you got to be careful, but you’re better off because of this than not.

Erin Marcus: Absolutely. Like, start there.

Frankie Pannell: Yeah, I mean, definitely, because if you look at it in smaller terms, if you look at it, the horse and buggy versus the automobile, right, are you safer in a horse and buggy? Yeah. Because you’re only going to go maybe 15, 20 miles an hour. There aren’t all these wrecks where people are being ejected from vehicles and stuff, but you know, you’re not going to get down the road and be more efficient than you would be in an automobile.

Frankie Pannell: So technology, one, as we all know, it’s not going anywhere and it’s going to keep improving. The hope is that the safety measures with technology will also improve understand that there’s always going to be an arm of people, individuals who just want to see the world burn, who are going to, who are going to try

Erin Marcus: to live your life based on it.

Frankie Pannell: You can’t. And really, and that’s back to our points of, you know, the community atmosphere, that’s where we take care of each other is, you know, and I don’t really care if you’re, what political, you know, base you adhere to, religion, so much of day to day society is just Don’t be a jerk. I don’t know if we’re keeping cuss on this, on this podcast, but it’s basically it’s just, it’s just, don’t

Erin Marcus: be a jerk

Frankie Pannell: person.

Erin Marcus: Don’t be a jerk. This is not hard. This is not hard. Don’t be a jerk. It’s, it’s free to be nice.

Frankie Pannell: It’s free to be nice. It’s nice to be nice. Yeah. I would, if there were any takeaways from the talk that I would give would just be what, what you’re saying. Be aware. It is a good thing technology, especially if you’re a small business owner.

Frankie Pannell: Definitely if you haven’t already, definitely invest in some cyber security and then just prepare your employees for random acts of violence that, that, that could happen. That will be the biggest takeaways I could offer.

Erin Marcus: So if people want to stalk you until all of your non disclosure agreements are up and you can spill some of your secrets, we’re all going to wait.

Erin Marcus: It’s not a short wave. We’re all going to wait. What is, where do they find you? What’s the best way to find you?

Frankie Pannell: Yeah. So there are three good ways to get ahold of me right now for business related stuff. One is in my LinkedIn account, which is r. frankpanel, P A N N E L L. You’ll see my extra update. But something like that and that is relat fairly. I said it’s only been up for maybe six months. That’s still something that’s relatively new for me.

Erin Marcus: I remember when I met you, I thought that someone was scamming me. ’cause I’m like, this man doesn’t exist. .

Frankie Pannell: Yeah. Yeah. You won’t find much friends. You won’t find, you won’t find much of me out there by ways of the internet.

Frankie Pannell: But it’s growing. As the business grows, it’ll grow. That’s a good way. Also, you know, the two emails that will come directly to me. are panelfrankie at gmail. And then frank at frankpanel. com. So just my name, super, super original, nothing, nothing too creative there. But I did, and I know we talked about it.

Frankie Pannell: So actually this will be the only, the second time I’ve ever plugged this just start a podcast with a close friend of mine who was he has guided me through a lot of, you know, personal stuff. And we found, you know, a lot of men need to have that sounding board just to have talks that men can’t.

Frankie Pannell: All right. It’s just, they can’t don’t tradition.

Erin Marcus: They weren’t right. They don’t. Talk to each other the way that no,

Frankie Pannell: no, we don’t. So we it’s called Fridays with Frankie. And it’s basically what you and I just did. It’s just a conversation of some random topic. But those are the best ways to get ahold of me the business growing, which we’re excited about.

Frankie Pannell: Maybe excited isn’t the right word. It’s the world we live in. And because the world we live in, it’s keeping me employed.

Erin Marcus: Good point.

Frankie Pannell: Providing, you know, food for my babies.

Erin Marcus: Well, awesome. Well, thank you for spending time with me. This is interesting. We’ll make sure all the links are in the show notes.

Frankie Pannell: And can’t wait

Erin Marcus: to

Frankie Pannell: share this

Erin Marcus: with the world.

Frankie Pannell: And as always, great talking with you and I’ll look forward to next time.