“Even companies that no matter where you were in your company lifecycle, this is an opportunity to pivot, figure out how your skill sets can translate into different areas and then apply those skill sets.” -- Kevin Rowe

----------------------

ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. I'm your host and moderator, Rob Richardson.

TUNDE
I’m Tunde Ogunlana.

ROB
And we have Kevin Rowe who is an entrepreneur, has his own compliance company and we're happy to have him on. -- Kevin, how are you doing?

KEVIN
I'm doing well. Thank you, guys, for having me today.

ROB
All right. The corona is not bring you down too much?

KEVIN
No. You know, we're staying afloat.

ROB
All right. All right.

KEVIN
Yeah.

ROB
Cool. So thanks for coming on the show. I want to actually have a conversation with you about your journey into entrepreneurship and any advice you may have for entrepreneurs particularly entrepreneurs of color, really in an uncertain time. I'm hoping that we change patterns this time.

In most recession, it's usually the black and brown firms and workers that get the shaft. When things are bad, things get really bad for us, generally. So I want to talk about how to prepare because it's always been a little bit worse. We always had to figure out how to make a way out of what’s seemingly a no way.

I want to talk about your experience and how you got into entrepreneurship. I know you started off not in the path. You started off in the corporate world. Talk about how your transition happened from corporate America to owning your own firm.

KEVIN
Yeah. It's probably a story that a lot of people can relate to if they have an experience themselves. You know, there's a glass ceiling and sometimes, when you get to that glass ceiling, you start looking within yourself to figure out what to do next. I was relatively a still young person at 37 when I decided to launch the firm. I kept seeing folks getting promoted and I wasn't.

Actually, my department that I was heading at that time was being thought of being consolidated under other business units. So here I go, from having autonomy and the ability to run my unit, setting my budget, to now being discussed as being a part of someone else's cog or machine, if you will.

And that part, it was tough for me to swallow because I worked so hard at the role and performing, that it was just… It was just that time which something said inside, “Well let's take a chance and see what we can do.” So I prepared for it. I’ve saved up the bonus money. I saved up money from my 401k, for IRAs and trading accounts that I had so that way I had at least a year… a year to15 months’ worth of salary to the side and more importantly, bills, and took a chance with starting the Compliance Network.

ROB
You bring a lot of really important lessons for those who are looking to go out on their own. Number one, you have to prepare for that eventual… or not eventual but you have to prepare for that moment. You can't just say, “I want to do this.” You have this moment with the coronavirus where people who have not been prepared for things do not go as they expected are finding life a lot harder.

So it sounds like one of the important lessons is, no matter where you are, you can't guarantee that things are always going to be the way they are now. You can't guarantee that you're going to keep a six-figure salary at the same corporation just because you've been there; just because you added value.

How did you get that mindset, initially, because some people don't have that mindset. A lot of people go into it like, “As long as I work hard, I do what I'm supposed to do, show the company that I add value, I'm going to be here forever.” But that clearly is not the case for a lot of people.

So what in the back of your mind prepared you at a relatively pretty young age? I mean 37 is not super young, not old at all though. So how did you prepare yourself at that age to say, “Okay, I need to prepare for life if things don't go according to plan” because it sounds you originally were going to be a corporation guy until things went a different way.

KEVIN
Absolutely. I had envisioned not necessarily being with one firm for 20 years but I imagined working at someone's firm for 40 years.

That's a really good question. I guess it starts in kind of what makes me. Both of my grandfathers were entrepreneurs. My grandfather on my mom's side was a chef and owned a restaurant in my native Baltimore--

ROB
We have that in common.

KEVIN
Yeah. My grandfather on my dad's side, he owned a towing company. So I always saw them working but on their own terms and I believe did that that helped inside of me plant that seed. And it took time for that seed to decide to push through the soil but when it did, I was ready for it.

And just to touch on what you said earlier, something my dad used to always say is that with us, black and brown folks, we're normally the last ones hired and the first ones fired.

ROB
Yep.

KEVIN
So because of that, it really set in my mind that whether I take this risk and starting the Compliance Network or if I sit at someone's company, it can all end just as quickly as it began. And the last thing that you want to do, at least for me, was to be forced out. I wanted to go out on my own terms.

I remember my last meeting there, the chief operating officer of the parent company at that time asked me what I was going to do for the summer. And I didn't have it completely figured out and the last thing I was going to do was share what I had figured out so I simply just said, “Hey, I'm going to spend it with my kids” and so that's what I did. And fortunately, as the summer progressed, as calls, the networking -- I can't stress that enough -- good mentors and--

ROB
Let's actually talk about your networking and how one should go about networking. But before you go there, I want to make this quick point. I have many mentors -- some white, some black. One of my white mentors, he has a large position at Google and he told me this… He said, “Rob, you always got to be productively paranoid.” And I told that to a black mentor of mine. He said, “Yeah. Listen, you're black” and he quoted some comedian. He said, “If you're not paranoid and you're black then you're stupid.”

He said, “So part of what you got to do is be productively paranoid. You don't see everybody as out to get you. You don't see everybody as racist. You do recognize the world we live in and you do recognize the status of how they play out. It doesn't mean that you look at everybody crazy but you just prepare yourself and understand that racism is real. It doesn’t mean it has to limit you. And you have to know how people perceive you and how you have to operate in a world that is the way it is.” Right? I mean that's what my men… So two different contrasts from mentors that kind of offer the same thing. I think that's really, really important what you said.

Talk about how to network because some people think networking is, “Oh Kevin, hey, can you do something for me?” They think that's what networking is. Talk about how you go about networking and actually develop the relationship and how that may help people right now in this corona craziness that we’re going through.

KEVIN
A lot of times, I’ve found more value and more information obtained from mentors by offering to do something for them rather than what they can do for me. A lot of times, you position yourself in where you're going to go by who you associate with and who you're around. The easiest way to be around someone is if you're providing a value to them.

Another way that I went about doing it was shadowing. I was fortunate enough to shadow a business guru and I learned from her the ability… how to pivot in a day. You know, the minds got to be able to move in different places but still staying on task for your overall goals.

So those are some of the valuable things that I’ve learned along the way. Like you mentioned, I have mentors. I have clients. A lot of that was built in me in terms of cultural diversity. I'm a kid of a retired United States ambassador. I’ve been blessed enough to live in West Africa and South America. So being in those environments for school activities… Yeah, everyone's encountered racism along the way. It's about what we take from it and how we're able to know that doesn't have anything to do with us; that has something to do with the deficiency in someone else.

ROB
Amen.

KEVIN
So as long as you're able to look at things and keep your mind clear on why you're here then that'll go a long way in helping you get to where you want to go in terms of your entrepreneurial or your business overall, even careers.

ROB
So how do you do that? Talking in practical term, it's… The good point you made… You made lots of good points there. The one that's sticking out to me is keeping your mind cool when things happen when you know it's… It has nothing to do with you. Highlight your situation when you worked at the corporate firm and just that they didn't want to promote you for whatever the reason was. Who care if it's not race? You know you’re qualified. They didn't want to promote you for whatever reason -- because they like the person bet… whatever. It doesn't even matter. What matters is what happened.

What strategies have you built up to not let yourself get emotional for the short term and not let that affect the long term because it's easy to get emotional. And I think lots of people fall down that trap particularly us for lots of reasons.

KEVIN
Yeah. My business coach, he has the best term for this and it's, “Take the emotion out of it and have self-awareness.”

In any situation, I played some role in that situation whether it was… I think I did the best job possible for them in terms of the corporate role but it may have been that they needed something else that I couldn't provide. So rather taking that as a strike against me, I looked at it as an opportunity to use that to fuel where I wanted to go.

It's so important to take the emotion out of it. But if you get the emotion, think through the emotion, understand why you're experiencing that emotion, come to terms with that emotion and then attack that emotion by saying, “Well I'm going to do this to help me go to where I believe I should have already have been,” and that's been my biggest tool in my toolbox in terms of keeping myself level.

If you're going to have great success, you're going to have setbacks. Viewing the setback is more of a setup to something else come. I’ve been in situations, especially in the first year of the business, where it looked like I was starting to turn a corner, we're getting all types of leads and referrals and we weren't able to close the deal.

ROB
Coronavirus right now. [Laughter]

KEVIN
Well yeah. [Crosstalk - 11:23].

ROB
I’m having a lot of people right now. I’ve had some deals. It was closer then coronavirus and everything’s on hold.

KEVIN
Everything's on hold. And so if you take that… And yeah, it's very disappointing emotionally. It can really take the wind out of your sail.

ROB
Yeah. And you're playing two different emotions, if you will. Just to interject then I’ll let Tunde come in. It’s like you're playing between--

You have to have persistence as part of it because you're going to get… I'm sure you've gotten for every “Yes,” probably 10 or plus “Nos.” So you have to have that persistence at the same time, balance the patience to not let it drive you crazy because it's kind of figuring out that balance and walking through it. I think is what tears people. It's like you’re constantly pushing, pushing, pushing and then when it doesn't work out, you get impatient. And if you don't push enough, you don't get it. But if you get impatient, you won't get it either. So it’s like you have to balance those two.

KEVIN
Yeah. I boil it down to consistency. The only thing that I can control is my own consistency. If I get up every day and I prepare for my day on the night before, the weekend before, as long as I prepare and I'm consistent in my preparation, the rest of the stuff will take care of itself.

There's been situations where we really thought we should have had a deal, that deal fell through and then three or four months later… I'm thankful that we didn't get the deal because they’re being investigated for something that would have happened before I ever showed up.

A lot of times there are barriers or blocks in our path but a lot of times, I found that they’re for our own good.

ROB
The struggle was part of the process. And understanding that from the beginning is that, yes, you want to have belief and you want to believe that you're going to get through these things but understanding that you're going to have the struggles is… You have to just understand that process. I can speak from my own experience. It's always been… And I’ve always imagined it to be hard but it's always been a little bit harder than I even thought to get to where I got into right now. So if you want to know, yes, you can be positive but expect to embrace struggle. -- Tunde.

TUNDE
This is great. Kevin, I want to thank you again for coming on. I already have a page-full of notes. It's tough. I just captured it and didn't even expect the conversation going on this road.

One of the things I wanted to ask… because again, I didn't think this would come up. But you made a great point about your kind of childhood and your exposure, having a parent that was an ambassador allowed you as a young guy from Baltimore to live in different countries and be exposed to different people and cultures.

And it resonated with me because… We have different, obviously, backgrounds but I share some similarities with that having lived overseas during my high school years. And one of the things that I find is that when you're exposed to a lot of different kind of cultures, people, experiences at a young age, it helps alleviate some things that I’ve seen in some friends of mine that have not been exposed at that… I wouldn't say at that level but at any level, which is some people when they grow up with less exposure have an inhibition or a certain insecurity about dealing with people from another group. And it could be anybody, right? It could be a black person that’s uncomfortable now as an adult dealing with whites and Hispanics. It could be a white person uncomfortable dealing with minorities.

One of the things I wanted you to maybe speak on was how much of that do you think has influenced your ability as an entrepreneur specifically in an environment where it's not that common to see a black man owning a compliance firm in the securities world?

That's what I wanted to kind of get your thought a bit which is… like, what is it that you do because for me, even saying that, I know it's kind of murky to some people what that means. And then how did you fall into that especially in an environment, again, where there's not too many people that look like us at the moment that own these kind of businesses?

And I'm sure… because I'm in the business in terms of being a financial advisor or financial planner, I know there's the percentage of us that do what I do is limited. So you're also dealing in a world where your clients, for the most part, don't look you. So speak to that if you could to help some of the audience that might be dealing with some of the stuff on their own.

KEVIN
Just to start off with the first question, “How important or valuable…” Okay. I went to Baltimore City Public Schools all the way up till third grade and unshockingly, I wasn't reading on a third grade level. There was always something else to be done. I grew up in the city so I could always be outside. There were just other distractions.

And when we first moved to West Africa, I started to look at the kids. And instead of talking about the latest episode of He-Man, they were talking about The Wind in the Willows and different books that they had read and it encouraged me to want to be able to participate.

And I always wanted to be a part of the group that knew and those in the know. So because of that, it pushed me to go into an area where I struggled reading to be able to have conversations with my classmates. That classmate could have been from West Africa. They could have been from Indiana. It's all types of different government workers and employees and their families overseas. There's also people from different nations and their families are there on business. Just different walk and a different understanding. In Baltimore City, the only real interaction I had with someone of a white race… I didn't have any contact with Spanish people that I knew of in Baltimore up until 1984-’85 but my teachers were white.

So I always saw that but I never knew what it was like to actually interact with someone from a different race or a different culture. And having the opportunity to do that, taught me a lot. And it taught me a lot even more when I lived in Quito, Ecuador. I just started paying attention to other things -- not so much the race but how people lived and how the quality of life overseas was different than the quality of life in my neighborhood in Baltimore.

And because of that, I started to develop a desire to live a life that would allow for me to live as if I was living in Quito, Ecuador and looking out the window and seeing a mountain every morning.

So that was real instrumental in my drive and in my push in how I work with folks so much so that it just carried over. I’ve traveled so much as a kid. I graduated from Tampa University, [Sykes - 18:18] school of business and management where I earned two degrees, one in international business and the other in economics.

So International has played an integral part. And that goes back to some of the other questions. “How do I get the clients?” I'm just myself. I tell them my story. “Hey, I lived in Quito.” “Oh I'm from Argentina” or “I’ve been to Quito. I’ve been to Colombia.”

So there's got to be a human level of contact and understanding. And at that point, a lot of times, especially in the compliance world, your business is going to come from a referral. So someone's got to think very highly of you before they even give you a chance. It really is a networking type of business.

So because of that, once we were able to start to do the work and we could show the work that we were doing, showing that we were improving our clients’ compliance, the rest of it just falls in place. And we've been able to expand existing clients because they've developed a trust and a comfort in what we do and how we do it and that just comes from all of the years of travel and learning and being able to listen.

ROB
Yeah. Just really quickly, so you actually brought your perspective from, first, growing up in Baltimore and then getting to travel the world and not having the… The fact that you didn't read at a third grade level, you didn't read to your potential…. You weren't dumb then and you weren't more smart when you went to West Africa. The only thing that changed is the circumstances and the people around you which is why it's so important, I think, for our kids to be exposed to different circumstances because you literally aspire to the things in the environment and the people around you and that makes all the difference in the world.

That is still true as adult. Who you hang around… Science has shown that literally will rewire how you think. So it's really important… when you talk about who you choose to be in, in life and business and friendship and anybody that occupies your energy and space, if they don't add value… And I'm not talking about giving you money. I mean add knowledge, add love, something that's doing something for you, it's going to take away from you because you're going to be the sad people. Whether you think you are or not, science shows that you're going to give in more often than not to your environment. But what do you tell people right now… And I know Tunde have a quick question. I’ll go to Tunde. He got another question. -- Go, Tunde.

TUNDE
It’s kind of sharing the relationship here with all of us. It's interesting because you're a client of our firm from the wealth management side so one thing I always appreciate about your Kevin is you're very proactive as an entrepreneur. And I want to say that kind of on air here and maybe you could share some of the stuff that I'm about to get into. I mean you are the one that approached me. I think, about setting up the key man insurance. You were the one that was pushing me about the retirement plan. And then when we got your estate plan done, you did it quickly to protect your kids with the life insurance and all that.

My question is… because I deal with a lot of entrepreneurs in our practice and business owners and a lot of times, I'm kind of chasing them like a mom almost, like beating the wooden spoon on them. Like, “Hey, do this. Do that” -- taking them to task. But you were very proactive and didn't require me chasing you down a lot.

And also -- I’ll just mention this -- through our relationship, I hear you talk about decisions you're making with employees, dealing with some client issues, all that. So tell us a little bit more about your personality, how it is that you're able to… that you came about taking some of these things serious that a lot of business owners… I know they it's serious but it's the thing that they kind of want always put off to the backburner. And also just--

ROB
Particularly now in the corona times. Just to put it in--

TUNDE
Yeah, exactly.

ROB
It should be more in front of your mind that bad things can happen. -- Yeah, you’re getting to that point. Go ahead, Tunde.

TUNDE
Definitely. I appreciate that, Rob, because it's true. Under this time, doing those things that no one ever wants to do, those are the important things that now is bringing the light like the estate plan and other things. But then also, I'm sure, a lot of people in this corona time are dealing with employee issues.

ROB
Absolutely.

TUNDE
So speak to that about how you deal with it.

KEVIN
Well I think there were two things at play here. One, I met you three years into the business. So for the first year-two years, going into that third year, it was really about trying to recoup what I had invested in order to start the business. And it took a long time to find someone who could actually find the insurance policy that I was looking for. And when you were able to provide that, I then was then able to quickly move with it because that's what I had been looking for.

So I would say that my proactive nature in doing this was because I was looking for it. I knew that I had to do something to protect the income in the event of my demise quickly so that my kids have a path forward even if I'm not physically here for that path. It's been provided for them for college, first homes, that type of thing.

So that was really important for me as a small business owner because I heard so much about, “Oh you got to have all of this money in the bank. You got to have all of these properties for the kids.” There's a lot of pressures. I just don't believe that people really understand, especially in my family, what life insurance is and the value of life insurance.

You know, I come from a family where it was almost preached that you don't capitalize on someone else's death and that life insurance looked to be a capitalization on death rather than saying, “Hey, you're not capitalizing on me dying. That was going to happen anyway. Here’s money to help for the next generation.”

ROB
You’re going to die. I’m sorry.

KEVIN
You’re going to die. I was going to start this at first by saying, “Hey, I have an expiration date just like you guys.”

ROB
We just don't know when it is.

KEVIN
We don’t know.

ROB
Two things we don't know.

KEVIN
Exactly.

ROB
Well we know we're going to die. We don't know when.

KEVIN
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I believe that it was a lot of exposure and having the conversations and working with brokers and trying to find the insurance policy that once you were able to provide it, I had to jump on it because I knew that I had to provide because as a small business owner, one of your challenges always is cash flow. So you want to stay as cash liquid as possible but that's not going to be enough to take care of kids for a decade or even grandkids or give them a head start. So I think a lot of it is just rejecting kind of what was the underlying premise when I was young and going forward with an understanding of what it has to be for my kids’ generation and beyond.

ROB
Yeah. I mean that's well said. So did you find it harder sometimes dealing with -- switching subjects a little bit -- African-American… I'm not talking about Africans that are national but African-Americans and getting them to buy into your business, sometimes giving you more hurdles and more obstacles than they would give others simply because we just don't understand and believe in each other as an entrepreneur, sometimes. Have you seen that play out? And if you have, how have you overcome that?

KEVIN
I haven’t. Thankfully, I haven't encountered that.

ROB
Oh that’s good.

KEVIN
Yeah. I haven't encountered that. What I would say is, is that I would love to encounter that in my field because that would mean that there's a lot more of us getting involved in the stock market and managing money and investments.

History shows us over a 10-year, that the stock market yield more than any real estate investment. It is a fact that it creates generational wealth. And we haven't been a part of African-Americans or black people… As I recall is we're not a part of that space. So the number of black owners or broker-dealers, to me, especially here in South Florida is very limited.

And if you go outside of South Florida, you get in to New York, you go to these other places… You know, I had an opportunity to work with an investment advisor out of New York that was black-owned. It didn't go anywhere but I don't attribute that to a barrier because of our race. I think it’s just a matter of pricing. You know, a lot of times pricing does come into play not just for black clients or potential black clients but also our Latin clients as well as our white clients. It's just what is going to work for them; what they have been accustomed to. To me, [crosstalk - 27:28]--

ROB
So what would you say… You said you didn’t have that experience. What would you say, Kevin, to entrepreneurs… This applies to all entrepreneurs. But let's take entrepreneurs of color that are faced in this environment right now that they didn't expect the economy, appear to be strong. You can have arguments whether it was or not. But for people who were spending money and all of a sudden, they just stopped. Essentially is what's happening now. What advice do you give an entrepreneur that is… where you were when you were just starting the business or just at the beginning stages and is maybe were developing leads and then all of a sudden this happens. How would you advise them?

KEVIN
I had an opportunity to listen to a podcast last week and the theme of that podcast was “Pivot.” And I agree with them. For anyone who's just starting or been in business for a year or less or still in kind of that development stage is see where you can pivot your skill in the short term and create an opportunity for you to continue to build your skill set but maybe just in a different area.

We've been in business six years now. I'm even looking to pivot into healthcare. Why -- because pandemic is a healthcare crisis and so there's always going to be something in healthcare going forward. We're going to end up probably… I think the joke is, is that we're going to end up with a baby boom after corona because everyone's on quarantine. Well if we increase in population, what does that do -- that creates additional health care needs in the future.

No matter where you were in your company life cycle, this is an opportunity to pivot. Figure out how your skill sets can translate into different areas and then apply those skill sets. Yeah, it may require that you have to go and take a certificate to class. That's fine. This is the time to do it. Why? You're at home. If you're working from home, you can work from home. You can put in the time. You work on projects.

One of the things that folks can always do during this time, if you're having struggles with your business, is look at your business plan and account for a major disruption on it going forward.

ROB
Yeah.
KEVIN
So there's a lot of things that you can do -- either shifting gears or looking at what you're doing now and developing it to take this type of situation into consideration in the future.

ROB
Yeah. I define “Innovation” as the rebellion against the status quo and not accepting things as they are. I think the greatest risk you can take is not taking some chances and not pivoting as you said. If you haven't traditionally done stuff online, figure out ways to do outreach to your clients. If you're a dentist and you can't see people, you should be all on social media telling your potential clients, tell your clients, “These are all the ways you need to take care of yourself during this quarantine.”

Find ways to market yourself. No matter how hard it is, you have to. You either pivot or you fall. I mean that's really the only choice you have right now, right? -- Tunde, I know we should probably wrap up. Do you have a final point at all, Tunde? -- No, he didn’t.

Look, I’ll just say this. Let's ask you one final question if you got a second. Let's say you have an ad, a billboard, a Google ad, whatever you want to call it, that symbolizes a saying or… it's a saying that really kind of summarizes your belief in life or in business. What would that say and why?

KEVIN
It would be, “Man in the arena.”

ROB
Teddy.

KEVIN
Yeah.

ROB
Teddy Roosevelt.

KEVIN
You’ll address a man in the arena. Like we can all be the critic of the person who's daring greatly… just dare greatly and let your critics fall where they fall because this is your journey. I view life as a journey more so about what we accumulate in terms of knowledge and the challenges that we rose up to.

So who cares what someone down the street thinks or who cares that I'm not moving as quickly as someone else or I'm not in all 50 states yet. I'm not in Europe yet but I'm in South America and that's a start.

That's a huge start for us and we want to continue to build on that. And we will get to all 50 states and Europe when the opportunities present themselves. If they don't then we'll just look to go further into South America and we want to continue to push on that.

So the critic doesn't count. It's really not about those that sit on the sidelines and they just don't know what success or failure is. And failure is a learning experience; is how to do something better the next time. We all encounter it. There's nothing wrong with feeling. It's just for setting you up to where you need to go next.

Again, we said earlier, it's just about the mind state, that, “Hey, this is going to be what we're doing. Now let's look at…” Because of pandemic, because of a recession, anything can throw it all.

As I said earlier, you can get fired from a job that you sat at for 20 years. That doesn't matter. What matters is what are you going to be able to do when uncertainty hits or when--

You know, they used to say that a “recession was when it was your neighbor getting laid off but it's a depression when it's you.” So in either of those scenarios, prepare for what's next. What is your next goal? What is your next plan?

There's nothing wrong with having B C D E F as long as it just makes sense and you're not giving up on one because it's challenged. Stick with it. It's all about consistency.

ROB
Kevin Rowe, that's a good way to end Disruption Now. You definitely disrupted common narratives and constructs on the show. Don't make yourself a stranger.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]