Security Guards On Demand With Jesse Firth of Secyre

Security Guards On Demand With Jesse Firth of Secyre

In this episode…

Where can a business turn for a security response system with guard patrols? Is it possible to remotely perceive potential threats, theft, and security breaches?

Jesse Firth, CEO at Secyre, created a new paradigm for security. Through his combination of video surveillance and artificial intelligence, Jesse is changing the way you fortify your business by unlocking security at your fingertips. So, how can you install real-time security solutions to prevent crime on your property proactively?

In this episode of the Key Insights Show, Scott Johnson and Jesse Firth, CEO at Secyre, talk about an automated security system that businesses can control from anywhere. Jesse discusses how artificial intelligence adds a level of crime determent, the importance of being an advocate for minimal response time, and how to increase property value by connecting security with technology. 

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Jesse Firth describes combining guard security with AI technology to add an extra layer of protection for your business
• How can machine learning supply the right type of security?
• Why Secyre is an advocate for response time — and how they improve the outcome
• Jesse talks about how is he shaping the protection industry through technological innovation
• How to remotely and productively manage your security 

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Jesse Firth on LinkedIn  
• Secyre  
• Damon Kirchmeier on the Key Insights Show  
• Blue Eye Defense 
• All Pro Security 
• Bob Conner on LinkedIn

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Key Marketing Group.

 

At Key Marketing Group, we specialize in getting more inbound leads for B2B companies.

Our proven process works time and time again to drive more potential customers to your website — and get them to contact you.

 

More leads in as little as 3 months. Get started today.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:02  

Welcome to the Key Insights Show where we feature CEOs and how they’re thriving in today’s market. Now, let’s get started with the show.

Scott Johnson  0:13  

Scott Johnson here I’m the host of the show where I talk with CEOs of security companies about challenges they’ve overcome and how they are thriving in today’s market. This episode is brought to you by Key Marketing Group. At Key Marketing Group, we specialize in getting more inbound leads for b2b companies. Our proven process works time and time again to drive more potential customers to your website and get them to contact you more leads in as little as three months Get started today by going to keymarketinggroup.com. That’s keymarketinggroup.com. Before we get started, I want to give give a big thank you to Damon Kirchmeier over at Blue Eye Defense for introducing me to today’s guests. Jesse Firth, the CEO of Secyre. Jesse’s an innovator in the security industry. And his company is Secyre spelled S E C Y R E, and it’s an app that allows you to request security guard on demand. It’s that’s pretty awesome. So now that I’ve bumbled my way through the intro there, Jesse, how you doing, man? Thanks for being on the show!

Jesse Firth  1:13  

Yeah, I’m doing well, don’t worry, most people mess up the Y in there. And you know, honestly, it was to get a domain.

Scott Johnson  1:22  

I’m an SEO guy know how it is sometimes to get that typo to get the domain you want? Indeed, so let’s jump on in just a couple episodes. Someone was saying that, you know, video surveillance, with AI, artificial intelligence is sort of overtaking security guards, and as a security guard, you know, business innovator, kind of what’s your take on that?

Jesse Firth  1:46  

Yeah, it’s an interesting paradigm, I think, for both sides, where technology is playing in a realm where they haven’t and, and security guards and the security industry is fighting against a force that they don’t understand. And, and I’ve been playing in both worlds long enough to understand, you know, that the real issue is kind of come down to the fundamentals, it comes down to the incentives in the industry, it comes down to the, you know, what are you doing for your job, I mean, most security situations, you know, even if you put somebody that is making good money, days, you know, for them to act upon and be passionate about or even, you know, accountable for some of these situations very difficult. So, you know, what we’ve kind of got is, is, is an industry that’s been diluted down by mandates and restrictions and addition to lopid paradigms, with technology with its, you know, sexiness, and it’s, you know, it seems like it’s ever capacity to improve, including, you know, all of these great buzzwords, which are AI and, you know, high def, you know, 10, ADP, 4k resolution, all these different things that they really don’t mean anything to a customer, when somebody’s buying a camera, most of the time, they’re like, Hey, I’m just trying to keep my place safe. Yeah, I’m sick of somebody breaking into my facility on a nightly basis. And I’d like to understand who that is most of the intention behind security when it comes to consumer buying practices, is what’s going to get rid of the issue quickest and and security guards for the most part, and have been the standard, the de facto right like you, you just get a security guard, you put them there, and they perform a function. And and I think what’s happening is where AI is saying, Hey, we this, this machine can now dictate risk or a level of risk and let somebody know before a human standing in their boots, can you know, security guards are looking at as well, how do I gain that? That market share back and maintain it? But also, what do I do with my business because it changes what we’re doing inherently. And so I think that’s where this this real cross section of where technology meets this physical security paradigm is nobody’s changing it for the betterment of the results, right? Like what is the ultimate result and somebody goes to buy security, I don’t care if it’s cameras access control, Virg alarm if it’s a blink camera, ultimately, there is a spawning reason that somebody wants to know what’s going on on their property and try to solve it. And most capacities there’s not a technology on the market that does that. It just gives you a better idea of what’s going on, you know, the ring paradigm where everybody’s just really upset that they have some dude come up to their door at 3am every day and they don’t know what to do about it. Right so now they’re just scared that they know more. And so when a security guards what we found with with with Secyre was the idea was like look, since since we are now starting to understand when somebody should be there because we know what’s going on we can ascertain some level of risk and we know what the customers want. Why not put that person They’re so that they can deter that situation from happening, or even escalating to a situation that police are needed. Because what’s, what’s the default these days? Right? Like all the police, what do you do call police?

Scott Johnson  5:14  

So is this for residential or commercial or both? Well, residential is

Jesse Firth  5:18  

a little interesting, right? Because I don’t know if people know how to use security on their own, giving somebody an app and giving them the ability to help a security guard, my fear is they’re going to go pick a fight, and then you know, call a security guard to back them up. I I don’t see the idea behind this thing, that the idea is for a business to have another layer that they’ve never had before, is for their, you know, 19 year old female that’s out there register, that has to work at 2am, worrying about vagrancy. And people coming into their store, they don’t need a phone to call police. Please don’t come unless there’s a crime. So are you putting your staff in your your assets and your your your whole paradigm and police’s hands based on a decision from a person that is going to act upon their fear. And so our idea is, look, here’s an app that you pay for, and you pay when you use it, you establish the operations in the protocol yourself. And this person shows up and proxy for the property. And that way, it’s a deterrent level before the crime escalates into something that police department be called for. Anyway, secondarily, you get a proxy for the property that now acts as security and you’re doing something, you’re not just paying $25 an hour for some dude to stand on your front door. And hopefully he does the right thing. That’s not something that a company will do in perpetuity, but they will if they can adopt an operational way to deter people from, you know, causing problems or even shrinkage losing inventory.

Scott Johnson  6:53  

Yeah. And so this app is already rolled out, right? This is live people are using it, or is it still being launched?

Jesse Firth  7:00  

Yeah, we’re launching in Albuquerque, and California. We are currently working with a really large Self Storage operator. It’s one of the many verticals that we can see that would need an app like this. The types of industries span, right, like because we, the thing about it is is security has been underutilized and underperforming for so long that that we don’t look at it as something that’s going to solve the problem, you just look at it as something that you do while you figure out how to solve your problem. So that mentality behind a business is like, well, I’ll get a security guard for two weeks until we figure it out. That’s a bad, that’s that’s not a good layer. If anybody knows anything about security, your your asset, whatever you’re trying to protect, the more layers you stack, the less likely somebody is going to be able to take that from. But the more reliance you put on single, double or triple layers, and you say no, this layer is good enough. You’re your worst enemy. Right?

Scott Johnson  8:01  

Yeah, going back to how I kind of open the podcast asking about you know, AI and video surveillance taking over, you know, life security, you totally went a different direction than I thought you would, I thought you would say, Well, no, you’ll never replace people. Because you know, that’s your business. But I mean, it very much is a comprehensive solution. So right now the app it relies on, you know, someone’s seeing either in person or on a video and issue and then they hit a button to call the app. Do you ever foresee something, you know, years down the road where it’s all automated, like a video surveillance AI picks something up? And then it you know, use the app or whatever to send someone live? Really

Jesse Firth  8:36  

happy that you actually said that? And we didn’t even discuss this before? And that tells me that we’re talking the same language? Yes, 100%. Here, here’s the problem is that most people would press the button based on whatever their abstract perspective, it’s usually not by bullet points in operational data, you’re going to make those decisions by a computer does and then and, you know, somebody owning a business would rather a computer make decisions that are security based, and their staff, like, you know, having somebody drive you around and tell him to take a left turn, you get an accident, whose fault is it? Right? So you to set these properties up for success. One of one of the few few things has to happen. But first of all, there’s the buying, there’s got to be some level of operational accountability. That number one, the owner of the facility and management of a facility and a staff take this level of hate, we know our issues, we know how to solve it. What are the options out there, the layers that are out there doors, windows, locks, you know, ours on your windows, fences, gates, access control cameras, you know, it keeps it keeps getting further one layer that doesn’t seem to be one that is put in between any of those is is a security professional that has been hired licensed and insured for the purpose of providing security because people are like, Well, no, that’s what the bleep we pay taxes. Right? That’s so inaccurate. And and it’s, and this is the part of this discussion that I really like to get into, because it starts talking about this line of where police and and supplying the right type of security kind of exists. So going back on your original point, automating response is, is our goal. And through partners and platforms, and the way that they dictate risk to their customers dictate events, and how to dispose of those events. That’s what our platform will be ultimately connected for. And that idea behind machine learning, saying, hey, and making the decisions based on, you know, 123, or maybe four different, you know, priority measures, whether it be time, whether it be activity, whether it be risk in the area based on other data, or maybe it’s based on just preferences of operations. So, yes, absolutely, Scott, good question.

Scott Johnson  10:59  

Yeah. And I’m sure it varies a ton. What sort of response time are you guys shooting for, you know, maybe like your scenario, you’ve a cashier, maybe she’s a liquor store or something? Yeah.

Jesse Firth  11:08  

Yeah. Yeah, that’s, ours is five minutes. I want I want somebody on site in five minutes. But that, that takes time. Right? That that’s like, you know, being Uber or going into a demographic and saying, hey, you know, you’re gonna get a, you’re gonna get an Uber driver right at your door. As soon as you press five matches, that just doesn’t happen. We we are working with our customers. Because ultimately, what what is response time? I love this conversation, because you and I kind of understand that, but to a customer, what’s response time, they’re like, well, that’s just the time between what it takes the police to get here. Okay, now we’re talking right, so what is that there? Well, it’s 20 minutes, because they’re 20 minutes away. Now, I’m prioritization, prioritisation has now come into play, because a lot of these jurisdictions have number one, been overbuilt upon. And so they don’t have the tax revenue to support, especially private businesses that have an increase of crime because of the increase of people that no longer have homes or have to live on the street. So there’s this increase already have a threshold that that police and sheriff’s departments are going to have to deal with, and prioritize at the very lowest level of when they’re actually going to do something about it. So now there’s this big gap between Are you being murdered? Or are you being wrong, right. And so, if you’re in Chicago, if you’re in LA, if you’re in Vegas, if you’re in Phoenix, if you’re in some of these larger demographics, that’s reality, if you call the police, you could be 30 minutes, if you’re bleeding out. That’s sad. That’s terrible to hear. And that’s the world that I think we’re going into with nobody taking accountability for what they’re doing. And I think ultimately, you look at a company like what you interviewed before, which was Daymon in his company, Blue Eye, which their revolution, revolutionising a way to protect properties while you’re away, what we’re doing is making that that close in so that you’re not having to show up at your property when police don’t work. You’re not having to pay these fines when police show up, and it ends up being a tenant on your property. And you can’t, you know, make those decisions between who’s who’s gonna rob me and who’s just here, because they’re, they want it to be.

Scott Johnson  13:18  

So it’s interesting. So you have local partners that are the patrol, what is kind of your launch plan both from you know, increasing core sales and awareness to these two locations? And then, I mean, I don’t need any trade secrets. But I mean, it’s, it’s pretty ambitious, right? Is your goal, you know, nationwide? Or?

Jesse Firth  13:35  

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. nationwide? Um, yes, very ambitious, and way over my head, which is usually in the waters that I that I’m most comfortable with, you know, we we did the same thing. I think back, you know, a part of blue eye as well, we started at like, $10,000 a month, you know, we’re not, you’re not doing a whole lot, you know, and we thought, hey, we could take this country wide, when we did. And, and here’s the thing is, is, it’s not, it’s not the fact that you’re going to take this big, that’s hard. It’s that you’re doing this, that’s hard. And it’s what’s what’s become very interesting to me is that we get many advocates, and we get a lot of people that are fighting against it, which is strange to me, because what we’re out to do is not only improved security guards lives, but it’s to improve customers outputs and outcomes. And so, you know, our goal is, number one, companies are going to pay for their security, they’re going to pay high, they’re going to pay a lot more than they normally would on these per response issues, you know that those can go up to $100 per response, but if you can defect, one, deflect one crime, just one people will pay a lot of money and $100 is nothing if you’ve if you’ve helped life if you’ve you know, retained their asset and if he if their business can Groody is is an unblemished So,

Scott Johnson  14:59  

yeah, and you kind of The haters. I mean, anytime there’s innovation, there’s going to be people that push back. And I mean, you don’t hear a lot of innovation in the security guard business. I mean, it’s essentially been the same for 1000s of years, you know, except, you know, rather than, you know, standing outside of cave with a club, you know, graduated batons and guns, but, I mean, why do you think there’s essentially been almost no innovation in this industry?

Jesse Firth  15:21  

Oh, yeah, that I like that question, too. And, you know, sitting in this industry, I’m not, I’ve never been a security guard, I have my qualifying agent, you know, licensed here in Utah. I’ve got them in Texas and California. I know the rules and regulations. And I understand that, really, the rules and regulations are to protect the person working in security, so they don’t get screwed by their employer. That’s the culture. Right? So how does it get better. And then here, here’s the thing. There’s a lot of great employers out there. I could name five here locally, for guard companies that are incredible. I’ll throw one out right now all pro security, a guy named Bob Conner, who was a sheriff of or for Orem, down in, in Utah. And he, he was like, you know, what, I want to protect the people beyond what I’m doing here. And he has one goal is his, his guys, their happiness, making sure that, that they’re safe, and making sure that his customers are getting the service that they they wanted, right? That’s the ultimate goal. And that’s what really customers want. And at the end of the day, it gets completely blown out of the water, when something happens on the property, and properties use security guards and scapegoats. They just blame it on him, and then they fire and they find somebody else. And you know, it could have been the guy’s problem, maybe fell asleep, you know, he’s get paid 1214 bucks an hour who could blame it. But it also could just be a problem operationally, because a property doesn’t know how to handle their own crime. And so when that’s what’s so crazy about this app, when you give it to a customer, and they go, Well, wait a minute. So now we have to press the button when we want something done. Like, yeah, it doesn’t that make sense? I mean, don’t you guys want to control? Don’t you want to be able to have, you know, the ability to say when somebody can do something on your property when they can’t, and have somebody that is licensed, insured, to make sure and take care of the problem or report it? So then you can escalate to the right PT and bring or the right Police Department bring them back when it’s appropriate. So it’s not ruining everybody else’s lives if you’re in an accident. And you know, and a cop can’t show up.

Scott Johnson  17:32  

Yeah, I mean, on demand is the future. I mean, it’s just, like I told you earlier, I can’t believe this didn’t already exist. It’s just such a great idea. And, you know, with all your experience with blue eye and things like that, I mean, when Uber first came out, people were I’ve never getting in the back of you know, some everyone’s like, I would never call a cab again.

Jesse Firth  17:55  

Right? No, you hit it on the head. And you ask the question on why hasn’t a whole lot of innovation come into security companies, right? Because security guard companies you look at you there’s like the really big ones are publicly traded, they’re worldwide. And the reasons why they’re like that is because they’re a giant staffing company. I mean, they have 400,000 employees, they are a people company, that is all it they always will be, and they will never be able to deviate no matter how much money they have. And that’s, that’s where you you have the big boys that try to innovate. And ultimately, they go and buy an A, they assume, you know, tech companies and they add that to their offering. But they’re never going to move that ship there. There’s their shareholders and their their vision for that company, it’s never going to change and then you move down to the mid market guys, then how hard is it for a mid market guard company that you know might squeak by if they’re really good, 10% gross margin, it’s about all they’re getting. And if they’re low bid, if they’re doing standing guard, if they’re doing if they’re being competed within their market. It’s even lower than that. And so what is how do you innovate? You know, what are the innovation is gone? Is it Well, here’s the software that your customer pays a little bit more for, but now they know that your guard actually did exactly what you wanted them to do. They scan QR codes, they do all these different things. And here’s the report says, But all that does is just tell you why you paid for the person and what they did while they were there. It doesn’t necessarily have an output of making your property better making your you know, the environment around your property better. And that’s the one disadvantage is that nobody from the outside is looked at this and gone. Well, let’s just hire money when they’re ready when we’re ready. Right. Well, how do you do that? And it’s been hard, he saved ambitious. I’ve fought with a lot of guard companies over this concept and how to do it right. And ultimately, over the last five years, those fights have really pounded it down and to this concept that does work and it doesn’t plus any of the you know, state mandates that are in place we can operate in California without you know touching any of their their laws or any other regulations in getting on radar. So that’s, that’s what’s great about how we’ve kind of put it together. But, you know, I agree with you, there’s probably little innovation that will keep coming into this industry until we understand what that connection is between technology and the real delivery of physical security.

Scott Johnson  20:20  

Yeah. And you mentioned the operations part of the rollout, but there’s the sales element as well, because people, you know, they don’t know what they don’t know. Right. So what I would try to do is, you know, wherever your local market will say, Albuquerque, you want if someone searches for security guard company, or security card near me, that’s where you want Secyre to come up, right. That’s what I do. So they find you people that don’t know you exist and are like, Oh, that’s a thing. Yeah. So, yeah, really cool.

Jesse Firth  20:46  

We have some cool other features that are coming out that give better kind of like, a baseline to that service, where it’ll allow, you know, the biggest thing is like, remember it remember neighborhood in the Watch neighborhood watch, when it was cool, they actually function when, when people would report bad things happening and to a person and you there would actually be an operational organization like to do something about it, you know? So most of the time, you know, these, these properties are operating more and more with less staff. You look at self storage. For one, it’s there a REIT, right there a real nice real real estate investment. And what they’re looking at, is it at its bottom line, how do you do that we remove the person? Well, if you remove the person, people that are putting their stuff in cell storage, you’re going to be upset, because who’s protecting my stuff? Well, here’s a great way to add back in the person at the right time, the right place for the right function. Most of these sites are now managed remotely. And you’re seeing that even in apartments these days. Now, what happens to these properties when nobody’s there, and maybe a tenant is there and snap, is there a passer by and see something that’s wrong? Our app now gives the ability for people to report up to management, whoever owns our app, where the user is what’s going on on their site, and then they can there, they can push the button there or automate based on those recordings. So that’s the big next big feature we’re actually coming out with, it’ll be really hot and heavy for our complexes, retail shops for like in where, hey, here’s, here’s a accumulation of a bunch of reports, that we’ll be able to scrub down for you and give you an idea of what’s going on and the ability to act upon it. Exactly when you need.

Scott Johnson  22:32  

Nice. You heard it here first, folks. So we’re just about a time here that we’ve been talking to Jesse Firth of Secyre. Where can people go to learn more about either you or this app?

Jesse Firth  22:45  

www.secyre.com secyre.com You know, we’re still now you can find me on LinkedIn. I’ve got a few other partners in this company as well. Like I said, we’re, we’re starting out a little bit slow. You caught us right in the beginning. So we’re right in the beginning of watching in Albuquerque in California, and you know, those, that’s how you get me but we’re on our way.

Scott Johnson  23:10  

All right, Jesse, thanks so much.

Outro  23:12  

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