Meet Rick Allen of 30fold

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rick Allen.

Hi Rick, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Like a lot of business owners, where I am, where I’ve gotten to, is not where I started out to go. I admire those who have this crystal clear vision and make what seems to be a beeline towards a specific goal. That’s certainly not the case. The underlying objective and principles are the same, but how we achieve the objective is totally different.

Having a background in technology with what was at the time a tech giant serving a Fortune-100 client, I began my post-corporate phase of life simply plying that trade to smaller companies and organizations. When a company competing in the religious book arena called on me to support their technology I had no idea I would end up owning the company. It was there I figured out how much I did not know, how ill-prepared I was and how under-capitalized I was to run such an endeavor.

You would think since I had supported 300 attorneys and executives and vice-presidents at that Fortune-100 company, I would know that you can’t run an enterprise without a strong support team that includes quality legal, financial, and business advice. I was definitely flying by the seat of my pants, and they were wearing thin.

It was about that time I began to wrestle with a monumental problem. I tried my best communication skills in trying to mitigate the problem, but it just kept getting worse. Through fate or providence, I ended up in a presentation by a company that specialized in delivering legal and business advice very differently from the traditional model – more of a group-buying power model, not unlike how a Costco or Sams Club deliver goods at a different price point.

That ended up taking an issue I had grappled with for 6 months and resolved it in a matter of days. Just imagine trying to bore single-handedly through a mountain and someone comes along in a car, offers you a lift, and speeds you around the mountain in minutes. As a technology person, I had done just that for others with technology challenges.

That opened my eyes to the value of the right legal help at the right time, and I became an immediate advocate. What’s more, I realized that most small business owners were in similar situations all the time and that by sharing my experience I could deliver more value to more people than with anything else I had going, so I pivoted to market the service that had helped me so much.

Fast forward 13 years, we provide a blend of affordable business and legal solutions for business owners and individuals primarily across the United States and Canada, with a few of our services that are available globally. Our brand, 30fold, is derived from the parable of the sower in the New Testament.

It’s the story of abundance and the power of repeating simple tasks that multiply exponentially. We tell a story. We get questions answered. And when we protect a person or small business we harvest.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There were many struggles along the way. Because we build through bringing on independent business partners rather than employees, we found a lot of people along the way who simply were not at a place in their lives where they were ready for independence. They still had an employee mindset. That’s not a criticism, by the way, just an observation.

In fact, overcoming the employee mindset and the attending habits myself was a challenge. The ideals of entrepreneurship were easy. They were obvious. How that translated into daily disciplines and how it manifested in the day-to-day and moment-to-moment choices and activities was not obvious at all. I would hear things like, “what the mind can believe it can achieve” and wonder why the desired results didn’t show up for me when it seemed to for others.

It took long, hard lessons to understand that there were habits and skills already bred into them so that when they applied those philosophies results showed up. It’s kind of like the story of the dash between your birth and death date… you have to know the right ingredients to get the specific dash you want. Some have it naturally. Some learn it to varying degrees. Some never will. Frankly, I struggled with, OK, what do I need to be doing right now, this minute, to make my business a success.

As an employee it was easy. I know a bunch of stuff, and I was imaginative and could see through technical challenges, apply them or teach them, and achieve success. Someone else was doing something. All I had to do was show them how to do it faster, easier, and better. That came naturally to me. Figuring out what to do in the first place… that was not so obvious.

Someone really smart would probably say something like, “so, you were in your own way” or, “you were self-sabotaging”. Easy to see in hindsight.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Under the brand, 30fold, our objective is to help individuals and small businesses grow and prosper. We do that by providing a suite of services that include:

• Web services like domain names and web hosting and related services.
• Cyber security and identity protection services from IDShield and IDShield for business and Trend Micro.
• Legal support services through a nationwide network of dedicated law firms assembled by PPLSI, Inc.
• Specialty niche market legal service plans for home-based business owners, ride-share and delivery drivers, and commercial drivers.

We specialize in companies and consumer segments previously underserved by the traditional delivery models. We also advocate the idea of preventative legal services not unlike preventative medicine. Those 300 attorneys at that Fortune-100 company understood that money spent making sure a problem never happens and having contingency plans for if it happens anyway was a wise investment.

Most small business owners suffer from the sort term thought process of “I’ll worry about that when it happens”. It’s far less expensive to prevent problems than to solve them. We encourage our plan owners to consider their servicing law firm as a strategic planning partner, not a last resort failsafe.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
As the world grows more complex, and the number of laws and regulations grows exponentially I see this industry growing 100 times bigger. In the past, we’ve stood almost alone in providing the services we provide in the way that we do. Arguably, our delivery model is quite unique. I see the potential of real competition as the concepts of what we do spread.

I speak specifically of the legal and identity protection plans here. Especially with the addition of making legal services available through an app on your phone rather than an appointment that eats half of a day, and the idea that an attorney could be a trusted advisor rather than the butt of your best jokes – because you can actually afford the service, this will outpace the entire existing legal industry.

The head of the American Bar Association predicted long ago that “in the future, most people will access everyday legal services through a prepaid legal plan.” Consider that at about $300 billion, the existing legal industry only services the top 5-7% of people and industry – like that Fortune-100 company and the executives that ran it. Makes you wonder, “what about the other 93%?”

Pricing:

• Compare $300/hour to $30-170 a month for consultation on unlimited matters with no hourly cap.

Contact Info:

• Email: rick.allen@30fold.com
• Website: 30foldBenefits.com
• Instagram: @30foldBenefits and @30foldDomains
• Facebook: facebook.com/30foldinc
• Twitter: @30fold
• Youtube: youtube.com/30fold
• Other: 30foldDomains.com