IAM1711 – Co-founder Offers Content Writing Services

Jack Pittas Teaser 00:00

I really wish I knew early on. This really is only applicable to like, consulting-type businesses. So any type of function of a business that someone's trying to contract out, all that consulting, right? Web developers, cybersecurity consultants, IT management companies, and anything like that. One thing I wish we knew early was a lot of these contract jobs that you can apply for that are long-term and good paying and stuff, and consistent. You can literally apply for on just job sites as if you're applying for a regular job.

Intro 00:26

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders, without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:53

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh for me. I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we are repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, and what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on technology. We're a technology company that does dot, dot, dot. Technology is no longer an afterthought or something that you might do and is actually a core part of your business. If you are a real estate investor, you're using it. If you're a financial firm, if you're a cleaning company, an author, or speaker, you are using technology. If you are in any business, you are using technology, and if you're not, then you're probably going to be disrupted by an organization that is.

So this month we are going to look into purposing episodes that are around technology, whether that be firms or organizations that are actually using and investing in technology as a core part of their products and services or potentially those individuals that are using and leveraging CEO hacks and CEO nuggets that center around technology and sharing ways that we can leverage it as well. Remember that you are a technology company that does dot, dot, dot. Sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jack Pittas of PK Cyber Solutions Inc.

Jack, it's great to have you on the show.

Jack Pittas 02:25

Thank you for having me. Gresham.

Gresham Harkless 02:27

Super excited to have you on, and before we jumped into the interview, I wanted to read a little bit more about Jack so you could hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

Jack is the president and co-founder of PK Cyber Solutions, Inc. He and his business partner initially founded the company to provide cybersecurity and other technology consulting services to small businesses. Later on, they began offering content writing services specifically on more complex technical topics, which is now their exclusive service offering. Prior to starting his business, Jack had worked as a commercial lines insurance producer at a locally owned insurance agency, where he developed many small business management skills that he utilizes today.

Jack, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Jack Pittas 03:08

Oh, I'm ready to speak.

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Gresham Harkless 03:09

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So I love everything that you do and especially to be able to take the complex that I imagine a lot of people don't understand from the technology standpoint and be able to translate that.

But I guess before we get into that, I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I like to call your CEO story.

Jack Pittas 03:26

Yeah. So, as you had said, I'd actually worked in insurance prior to doing commercial lines. Commercial lines producer, was kind of the title. And a lot of what I sold was actually cyber insurance cyber and data breaches insurance. So what I was finding was there were a lot of small businesses and smaller nonprofits that were struggling to procure cyber insurance because of just the lack of basic controls. So I had talked to a friend of mine who had been working for one of the Big Four doing a lot of systems architecture, software development and information security solutions. We decided to just like start this business and see where we can fill in the security gaps for these small businesses.

We then ended up pivoting adding on other services, other tech consulting services like cloud implementation, and then software development. But you and I have had this conversation privately before, but I mentioned that it's very difficult to sell risk management to the risk-tolerant. And what I had meant by that was basically since we're targeting all these small business owners, by nature they're risk tolerant and probably aren't gonna be as enthusiastic about their own cybersecurity, especially if they think that their IT management company was handling it.

So that's why we made the pivot into offering other technology services as well. And then I guess it would've been probably March, we saw all these opportunities come up with content writing for cybersecurity and tech topics and these contracts were popping up. We were like, we should go for these. Like, we already know this stuff very well. We can enjoy writing content. Writing is like a passion of mine. I love doing it. So we extended into that and then recently made it the exclusive service offer.

Gresham Harkless 04:55

Nice. I absolutely appreciate that. And I always say that a true sign of excellence and a true sign of maybe being excellent at what it is that you do is to be able to communicate that. I think so many times, and I don't know if you would find this, like especially a lot of the tech companies and the people that are doing the work, sometimes they can't communicate that to the end users, potentially to the risk-tolerant as well too.

So to be able to bridge that gap through your services, I imagine is absolutely huge.

Jack Pittas 05:20

Yeah. Yeah. I always like to say that the difference between a consultant and an engineer is the consultant can communicate it. That's the difference. That's how I always like to look at it. So, yeah, for sure. Another thing too is like a lot of our clients, obviously, are IT management companies that might have a blog on their website or whatnot. And just all the ones I've talked to or I am currently assigned on to work with, one of the biggest issues was finding freelance writers that could actually do this topic, intelligently, right? That actually had a baseline knowledge to be able to write about it.

it's just a recurring issue and there seems to be a shortage right now of content writers in this space, even though it's, super needed for people to be able to broadcast these complex topics to non-technical audiences. That's the big thing.

Gresham Harkless 05:57

Yeah, absolutely. And it's something that's necessary, as you mentioned when you were talking, when you were looking from an insurance standpoint, just the number of I imagine cyber breaches and cybersecurity issues are probably on the increase. And so being able to get that information out there for these companies are so huge. So I love that you're able to do that.

Jack Pittas 06:16

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely and even in insurance, insurance isn't the most intuitive topic to understand either. I was doing a lot of content writing on the side for insurance topics back when I was working as a producer. So I've just extended that into the new business and we also will actually write on other business and finance topics.

I have a couple of contracts where I'm actually writing about commercial insurance, small business management, B2B marketing. So we've expanded our writing capabilities outside the tech realm, but we're mostly the tech realm is where we see the biggest need right now.

Gresham Harkless 06:44

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you for sharing that. And, I know you touched on a little bit about how you work with your clients and serve. Is there anything additional on, like how that process goes, what that looks like, for clients that you work with.

Jack Pittas 06:54

Yeah. So, in terms of how we work with them, it just depends on their needs. So, I'll have clients that will really just send me topics that they want to be completed with keywords because a lot of it is done for SEO, right? So they have these keywords that they want in there and I'll draft it up for them, send it to them, let them look through it. If they wanna make any kind of revisions they can send them, they can make the comments on there and I'll revise it.

I've had some clients, well they'll actually write something themselves and they want me to edit it or finish it. That's fine too.  Then we have some clients that don't even know what topic they wanna talk about. So we'll literally send them the topic idea and we'll start from square one. So all of it is fine no matter how they want to go. But yeah, I see us as almost industry advisors who just happen to communicate it through content writing. That's kind of how I see us.

Gresham Harkless 07:35

Nice. So, would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce. I like to call this a thing that you feel sets you individually apart or the business, or a combination of both. But is it that ability to bridge that gap and also have such technical knowledge as well as the ability to communicate that?

Jack Pittas 07:53

I would. I would say that our big differentiating factor is that we have industry experience which allows us to actually produce better content. Another thing too is our ability to communicate these technical topics to non-technical audiences. More specifically to the writing, not necessarily the business, but yeah that definitely helps us.

Also just the service itself, there's not too many of them out there. You have a lot of marketing consultants and SEO consultants. But then actually trying to find someone to do the content writing part I'm finding that it's not a very saturated space which makes it a lot easier to sell.

Gresham Harkless 08:25

Yeah, absolutely, because I don't have the statistics or everything in front of me, but I imagine there are more people that are starting those cybersecurity spaces, as you mentioned, the SEO that people wanna market. But again, you don't have people that actually are doing and have that knowledge in addition to doing it, to be able to help those organizations be able to connect with their potential clients.

Jack Pittas 08:44

Exactly. Aside from the knowledge part, the content writing can take a while and a lot of companies don't want to actually sit down and have someone internally doing because it's just so time-consuming. It's better just to contract it out. So that's why it's much easier to sell than cybersecurity, for example, right?

Gresham Harkless 08:58

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah because you have to teach people about all those different things. So I love that you've been able to bridge into that. Now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Jack Pittas 09:15

I would say it's nothing really tangible. I would say it's my support network. It's the people around me. I've really only worked for small businesses even before working at the insurance agency. I had worked at or interned I guess you can say at a local financial advisory firm. Then one summer, I worked at a small construction company. I've really only been in the small business face so I'm used to that environment. We have to wear a lot of hats all the time and that's actually probably my favorite part about being an entrepreneur is you get to wear all the hats. You're not stuck to one task all day.

So definitely the support network. My parents are emotionally supportive. I think especially when you're starting out your week, it's a rollercoaster of emotion, right? You have crazy highs and you might have some pretty low lows. So it's always good to have your parents supporting you. My brother brings out a competitive drive in me. So I think that definitely helps with just being motivated every day to wake up and just try to make you and your business better. So yeah, I think it's definitely just the supportive network is kind of the hack I would say that I have.

Gresham Harkless 10:10

Yeah, absolutely. And so, you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be around content writing, or it might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

Jack Pittas 10:25

Yeah. So actually the first thing that comes to my mind is that I really wish I knew early on. This really is only applicable to consulting-type businesses. So any type of function of a business that someone's trying to contract out with all that consulting, right? Web developers, cybersecurity consultants, IT management companies, and anything like that. One thing I wish we knew early was a lot of these contract jobs that you can apply for that are long-term and good paying and stuff and consistent, you can literally apply for on just job sites as if you're applying for a regular job.

You just go there, you filter out to the contract jobs only, and then a lot of them will allow you to do it through your business as an independent contractor. That's something I wish we had known early on because a good chunk of our revenue is from contract jobs, these longer-term commitments. I think it's good both for financial reasons but also morale reasons, early on to have those long-term revenue-generating contracts. So that's one.

Another thing too, I had known I wanted to start a business but wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, especially when I was in college. I had known I wanna be an entrepreneur and what I would tell young people who know they wanna start a business but don't quite know what, is work in commercial lines insurance. The reason I say that is because you're exposed to all these different businesses. You get to see all the risk exposures, how their operation is running, price points. You see where what common revenue estimates might look like especially in startup businesses, then you can figure out where's the best fit for you.

That's exactly what I did because we had worked with a lot of tech companies when I was there in cybersecurity companies. And I'd realized like, okay, so this is how they do it. This is how they get compliance. This is how they do quality control with their services. All that kind of stuff. I think it's just interesting when I was working. I would encourage anyone who wants to start a business and they're young but don't know what they wanna start, start in insurance first. I think it's a great environment to be in to learn what type of business you might wanna start.

Gresham Harkless 12:15

Truly appreciate that. Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're hoping to have different quote and quote, CEOs on this show. So Jack, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Jack Pittas 12:25

Being a CEO I guess it would be interesting because as I guess I'm putting them together with business owner, entrepreneur and I think that the CEO is just the leader who actually does the problem-solving, right? So an entrepreneur is a problem solver who monetizes it, right? Who knows how to make money off of it.

The CEO doesn't necessarily have to be the entrepreneur but no matter what it is, the leader of that initiative regardless if they were actually the founder of the company or if they did come on later down the road. So I would say it's the face and leader of the problem-solving initiative.

Gresham Harkless 13:01

Nice. I love that definition. I love how you distinguish both of those as well too. Being able to see the problem and whether it's leadership or actually creating the solution for the problem or a combination of both it might be. But I love that holistic definition because I think so many times we can get caught in the title. I think it's probably even more important to know like what we're doing in the business and what the business needs and be able to fulfill that.

Jack Pittas 13:21

Yeah, exactly. There are companies that start where the actual people starting the company aren't the ones who end up managing it, right? They end up hiring someone from the outside with more experience to actually manage the company.

That's why you do have to make that distinction. But ultimately, yeah, it's gonna be the face of the problem initiative. Problem-solving initiative.

Gresham Harkless 13:37

Absolutely. Well, Jack, truly appreciate that definition and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all awesome things you're working on.

Jack Pittas 13:52

Yeah. So, I guess the way you get ahold of me, you can email us at info@pkcybersolutions.com. Or you can call us at 571 295 7738. Our website is www.pkcybersolutions.com. And I guess the one thing I would add is I do wanna emphasize especially for the younger people who kind of want to start a business is that a business can come out of everything.

If you look at where this gig economy is going and this freelance economy is going, we're at the point now where I know people who start a business doing administrative work only, they are their own business at their administrative assistants as a business. So I think we're moving in a direction where pretty much anything can be contracted out. Anything can be a company and anyone can basically start a business if they have that skill set. So that's kind of the last little nugget I would throw in there.

Gresham Harkless 14:32

Nice. Absolutely appreciate that, Jack. We will have the links and information in the show notes. I love that last piece because I loved how you talked about entrepreneurship and being problem-solving because I think especially during a disruptive time like now, things are completely different. Seeing that there is a problem, seeing how you can solve your problem that's how you can build a business from there.

So as you said so well, anything can really be a business. If you can find that problem and be the solution for that problem or at least create it. So truly appreciate you for doing that and of course reminding us of that. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 15:03

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast, powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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