We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ken Underhill. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ken below.
Hi Ken, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I rubbed my eyes and read the message again. “Sir, I can’t afford the ten dollars for your computer forensic course. Can I please get it for free?”
By that point in my life, many people had come with their hand out asking to get free access. But, this guy was different. He was from Bangladesh.
You see, up to that point everyone else asking for free access had been located in the U.S. and their social media profiles showed them buying the latest phone and eating at expensive restaurants, but they claimed they could not afford a $10 course that would improve their lives.
I researched the salary in Bangladesh and found out that $10 USD was the average monthly salary at that time, so I gave this gentleman a coupon to take the course for free and told him to “make me proud”.
Six months later, I received another message from him, thanking me and letting me know the course helped him get a job working as a computer forensic investigator and that he now had the money to send his two young daughters to school for the first time in years.
This was my wake up call into how we enjoy economic empowerment here in the U.S. that others can only dream of.
It was also the start of my journey to democratize cybersecurity education. We have a huge shortage of qualified people around the world to fight the bad guys and we can’t afford to keep charging people thousands of dollars for training that should be low cost or free.
That’s why I created my company, Cyber Life LLC, where we offer the Cyber Life School. All of our courses are under the “pay what you can” model. This means if you don’t have the money to pay for the training, it’s free. Forever.
We can do this because we don’t have investors that are solely focused on profit and less focused on the human element (or Layer 8 of the OSI model as we call it).
A cybersecurity training school that everyone can attend and afford. And that helps you build the real skills the top, global employers are looking for.
Doing the right thing and helping other people doesn’t require years of research studies or a PhD.
Ken, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Ken and over 2 million people go through my training courses each year all over the world. I have years of experience in IT and cybersecurity/information security and have worked in job roles from the helpdesk to executive level roles for top companies. My education includes a graduate degree in cybersecurity and information assurance, multiple cybersecurity certifications, and numerous cybersecurity industry awards, including awards for my work to advance women’s rights in the industry and an International 40 under 40 award.
Cyber Life LLC is a company focused on democratizing cybersecurity education through our Cyber Life School. We also have the Cyber Life® syndicated television show that is available on over 100 streaming channels around the world.
Cyber Life has a partnership with Cloud Underground, which is a company offering secure cloud infrastructure and DevSecOps and cybersecurity services. You can learn more about them here (https://cloudunderground.dev/).
Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.
Most businesses I look at are not ready for a sale. By that I mean that if you take away the founder(s), the business will collapse.
When a firm is looking to purchase a business, they like predictable revenue and lower risk, so if you have exited yourself successfully from day to day operations and have predictable revenue, your business will likely fetch a higher multiple at sale than a business owner that is involved in operations.
Other things that can help if you have a brick and mortar business is to make sure your inventory storage is neat/organized, the parking lot is clean, and that your employees are happy. Always imagine that you are the business broker and you walk into your business, what do you see? Does it look like a business you would buy?
My business coach, Ed Hoffman, has helped a lot of companies sell for a higher multiple by building what he calls “an irresistible company.” You can contact Ed here (https://www.linkedin.com/in/irresistible).
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I have built a large (27K+) following on LinkedIn. Below are a 5 tips for building your brand on LinkedIn:
1) Get clarity on who you help and what you offer, then put this in your profile headline. “I help companies get more leads without paid ads” would be a headline if you offered organic marketing services.
2) Be authentic and understand people will connect/follow with your personal profile and not your business page, especially on LinkedIn.
3) Sales outreach is like dating. Too many people connect and blast my inbox with a sales pitch. You wouldn’t meet someone the first time and try to get in their pants within seconds (or maybe you would but you shouldn’t). It’s the same way in business. Build a relationship first.
4) Follow top people in your industry and add meaningful comments to their posts. This will help get you people from their following connecting with you.
5) Post valuable content, consistently, and understand it might take 90 days or more to get real traction and leads on LinkedIn, but often you get them much sooner. Be a producer and not a consumer and watch your business grow.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cyberlife.tv/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenunderhill
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CyberLifeTV
- Other: Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cyber-life
Image Credits
Ken Underhill