Coffee Break with Jake

Jake Voll
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Jake Voll brings security industry professionals together to discuss best practices, challenges, and opportunities.

  1. Sep 22

    Mobile Surveillance: Growing Your Fleet

    This week Jake Voll brings three lenders and one operating dealer together on the money side of mobile surveillance trailers. Marvin Fuller of M&S Security Services Inc has gone from two rusty prototypes to seven trailers in about a year. Jim Wooster of Alarm Financial Services lends against RMR, Jennifer Holloway of CIBC Bank leads the specialty security group there, and Peter McCoy of NewLane Finance writes the fast equipment paper. Nobody spends a minute on camera specs. The whole hour is how you pay for the first trailer, and then how you pay for the fleet. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ Marvin's path from two prototypes in the yard to seven units, including why he bought a couple of used ones✅ Selling a $2,000 a month trailer when your sales team is used to $40 a month alarms✅ Who actually buys these, from contractors and municipalities to solar fields, and who to stop chasing✅ Short term versus long term contracts, whether they are on wheels or not, and why the advance rate differs✅ Utilization rate instead of attrition as the number that matters, and how two dormant months eat your margin✅ The three financing routes: an RMR based facility, a traditional bank line, and one page equipment paper✅ CIBC's three by three by three timeline, and why the banking relationship has to exist before it starts✅ NewLane's four hour credit approval, and financing your customer instead of guaranteeing the note yourself✅ Four week billing and the thirteen month year, which Jake had not heard before this call✅ Cash flow versus crash flow, and the concentration risk hiding inside a 150 trailer deal Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

  2. Sep 15

    The 107-Year Startup

    This week Jake Voll talks with Jack Doyle, President and CEO of Doyle Security Systems, a company founded on St. Patrick's Day in 1919 and now in its fifth generation of family ownership. Doyle runs roughly 60,000 customers and $2.3 million in recurring monthly revenue across upstate New York and Erie, Pennsylvania, which puts it 19th largest in the country by RMR, and Jack stepped into the CEO seat in 2023 after a deliberate three year succession plan. What makes the story worth an hour is not the longevity itself but what the company was willing to give up to get here, starting with a guard division that once employed 3,200 people. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ The family business constitution, including the rule that you work somewhere else before you work at Doyle✅ Why the family holds annual retreats and conflict resolution sessions, after an earlier generation's split broke the company in two✅ Selling a 3,200 employee guard division to reinvest in the alarm business, and dropping to 80 employees✅ Exiting locksmithing, and the phrases that tell you a division has outlived its usefulness✅ Deciding where to play and, just as deliberately, where not to✅ Keeping a UL listed central station when almost everyone offloaded theirs, and how video monitoring made it a differentiator again✅ An acquired customer base whose RMR grew 10% over four years while the unit count shrank✅ What a trusted security advisor does differently from an integrator chasing projects✅ Why you cannot automate the ambiguity out of a central station seat✅ Jack's closing advice on contracts, and why you cannot cede ground on the customer relationship Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

  3. Sep 9

    Wireless Jammers

    This week Jake Voll brings the topic of wireless jammers to the room, and the room has stories to tell. A few years ago this sounded like a movie plot or a theoretical problem. Now police and federal prosecutors are describing it in burglary investigations, and the dealers on this call have lived it. The uncomfortable part is that nothing on the shelf today would have stopped either one. Encryption stops spoofing, not jamming. Frequency hopping and hardwired sensors buy you a local alarm at best, because the same device that jams RF also jams the cellular path carrying the signal out of the building.  In this episode, we talk about... ✅ Two dealer incidents in detail, including the cut network cable with video proving the alarm sounded locally, and the 90 second smash and grab where the sensors fired but nothing reached the panel✅ Why a redundant communication path is thinner comfort than it sounds✅ What encryption actually protects against, and why frequency hopping and hardwired devices still leave you with a local alarm at best✅ The hardwire everything standard one dealer landed on after a takeover job, and how he rebuilt that customer's confidence without giving the work away✅ Four documented cases from Jake's research, from nine residential burglaries in Edina, Minnesota to a federal conspiracy that hit 29 financial institutions for more than $4 million✅ How cheap and available these devices have become online, and the reminder that buying one is a federal offense with no professional exception✅ RF jam detection on every wireless panel, why almost every dealer enables it at install and disables it before leaving, and how that decision reads in a lawsuit when the customer finds the feature later✅ Local and edge storage as the hedge for when the connection drops, from a dealer who puts that recommendation in writing every single time✅ What a central station does with a failure to communicate today versus what it should do with a jamming alert, including the question nobody has answered about dispatch✅ Security beyond the panel, from the burglar's eye view walkthrough to resistance, deterrence, and displacement, and using CPTED to make a house the one they skip Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak!

  4. Sep 1

    Fleet Management: Technology and Policies for Company Vehicles

    This week, Jake Voll sits down with Robert Few of The Connection Xchange and Greg Sariti of In Charge Electric to talk about company vehicles, the part of your business that is the most visible, the most expensive, and the easiest to ignore until it bites you. Robert runs TCX, a consulting and coaching company that works with integrators, electrical contractors, and distributors on building a foundation and getting to scale. Greg is the home technology director at In Charge Electric, which runs over 380 trucks across four Texas metroplexes and ten branches. He has lived the whole curve, from three or four trucks of his own in the early 2000s to a fleet with a full-time manager. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ What GPS and telematics are really solving for, and why that conversation is easier today than it was ten years ago✅ What the systems track beyond location, including AI that flags eyes off the road, plus the insurance discounts and the carriers that now require cameras✅ Why the rolling billboard cuts both ways, because anyone with a phone can put your truck on Facebook✅ Writing the fleet use policy before you need it: take-home rules, the geofencing questions nobody documents, and who eats the deductible when a distracted tech causes the accident✅ On-call policy for techs with trucks at home, including zero tolerance on alcohol from both guests✅ Fuel cards in practice at In Charge, from driver numbers and mileage at every fill-up to why Robert says fuel only and means it✅ Maintenance that actually happens: shops next to every branch, monthly manager walkarounds, and Greg's 30-day truck party✅ Buy versus lease, the repair-or-replace math that sneaks up on you, and two ways dealers turn an old truck into a retention perk✅ Coaching, write-ups, and when a bad driver has to go, plus the scorecard that makes that call defensible instead of personal Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

  5. Aug 25

    From Interest to Acquisition: Buying in the Security Industry

    This week, Jake Voll pulls together a three-person panel to walk through what an acquisition in the security industry actually looks like from the broker's chair, the banker's chair, and the operator's chair. Colby Monachino of Monachino Partners handles the brokerage side, Jennifer Holloway of CIBC US handles the debt side, and Sean Forrest of Alarm Detection Systems, Inc. handles the buyer side. Between the three of them, they cover the arc from "should I even be looking at this" through LOI, due diligence, close, and the first ninety days after the wire clears. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ Three reasons Sean pursues acquisitions at Alarm Detection Systems✅ The "get your own house in order" test before you even start looking✅ Colby's read on today's market✅ Jennifer's warning about strategy discipline: have a checkbox on every target✅ Why RMR lending is a specialty product and your local bank probably can't do it✅ Margin benchmarks Jennifer looks for✅ Cash versus bank versus seller financing✅ Colby's tale of caution on seller financing from the buy side✅ Why two nearly identical RMR books can get wildly different valuations✅ Sean's red-flag checklist✅ The deferred revenue conversation ✅ Sean's integration advice, from a guy who has made the mistake more than once✅ Loan covenants after close✅ Colby's first-90-days trap✅ Mike Tyson's rule applied to M&A: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, so plan on getting punched in the face Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

  6. Aug 18

    Seeing Around Corners

    This week, Jake Voll sits down with Jon Perry, president and owner of Sting Alarm in Las Vegas, for a 24-year look at what it takes to build a security company in a no-response city, roll out remote guarding before anyone was calling it remote guarding, and stay disciplined about which shiny objects to chase. Jon's background is IT, not alarms. He graduated UNLV in 1998, and in 2003 his longtime family friend Jonathan Fine pitched him on starting Sting Alarm with the line "we'll be on every casino on the strip." That was the hook. Twenty-four years later they're headquartered in Vegas, deep in gaming and a handful of other verticals, and recently opened a second market in Phoenix. What they built in the middle is the interesting part: an alarm company that treated the IT side and the physical security side as one thing back when nobody else was, and used that convergence as its first real competitive edge. The through-line of the conversation is discipline. Discipline about who you buy, discipline about which technologies you roll out, discipline about what you say no to, discipline about setting the expectation on every remote guard account before the cameras go live. Jon is candid about the misses too. Around the time they moved their monitoring from in-house to a third-party partner, they lost roughly 90% of their video analytic customers because the service couldn't deliver what had been sold. Some of those accounts were four figures a month. He calls it terrible, learns out loud from it, and now Sting brings every new video account on with a much tighter filter and a much clearer promise. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ Why Jonathan Fine's "every casino on the strip" pitch got Jon out of IT and into the alarm business in 2003, and what the analog-to-IP shift looked like from an IT guy's seat✅ Las Vegas is a no-response city: the police don't come unless the alarm is verified by a guard, audio, or video, and how that one municipal rule shaped Sting's entire product roadmap✅ Video verification in 2004: tying the customer's camera to the alarm panel, popping the DVR feed to the operator, and using that as the wedge to compete against the incumbents✅ Rolling out video analytic monitoring around 2012 on the Video IQ platform (later gobbled by Avigilon, now Motorola) and running it out of their own central station✅ The brutal transition when they moved monitoring to a third party the first time and lost ~90% of their video analytic customers because the service couldn't be delivered, and what that taught them about setting expectations before the cameras turn on✅ Two businesses under one roof: separate teams for residential/small business and commercial enterprise, because they show up different, talk different, and need different training✅ Adding fire construction and fire monitoring through a local acquisition, and why fire is a different kind of platform play than bolting on more RMR✅ Over 1,000 five-star Google reviews and the platform, leaderboard, and gamification behind them, and why "just ask" is the whole trick if you actually earned it✅ Jake's own $20 spiff experiment that landed a hundred five-star reviews in two weeks and cost him $2,000 he'd happily spend again, and Jon's read on what those reviews do to the team internally✅ Eight-plus acquisitions since 2010 and what Sting looks for now: cultural fit and how the accounts were originated (not just the RMR), no door-to-door dumps, no square peg / round hole deals, no lawsuits ever✅ Halo sensors as camera-less cameras: the technology Jon says he missed the boat on and is bullish on now, especially for hotel and casino applications where privacy and awareness both matter✅ Why remote guarding is at the "toddler stage" of its growth curve, and how that shapes Sting's next ten years of camera and RMR sales✅ Rapid fire: the industry needs to get better at communication and transparency about what products actually do (and don't), and customers still underestimate how long real response takes Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

  7. Aug 11

    Creating a Great Workplace

    This week, Jake Voll sits down with Randi Elrad of Crime Prevention Security Systems for a 51-year lesson on what it actually takes to build a workplace people don't want to leave, and why the trophies on the wall are the byproduct, not the point. Randi's origin story is one of the best in the industry. In 1975, she was a special education teacher and her husband Johnny was a microbiologist studying rheumatoid arthritis. Johnny worked odd hours at the lab and Randi could not sleep alone in the house. They found a sound discriminator that plugged into the wall, listened for the high-frequency crack of breaking glass, and tripped a siren with a tape dialer to the police station. Randi figured if it helped her sleep, it would help a zillion other people. Fifty-one years later, Crime Prevention is the 65th largest alarm company in the United States, running three branches across Gainesville, Orlando, and Jacksonville with 60 employees. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ The 1975 origin story: a sound discriminator, a nervous special ed teacher, a husband at the lab all night, and the installer who told them there was no future in either the alarm business or computer science✅ Crime Prevention's no-gossip policy and the escalation ladder that lets employees resolve friction directly without letting resentment metastasize into the walls✅ Why Randi tells every new hire "we are absolutely not your boss"✅ The toilet analogy Randi uses to reset angry customers who think their alarm is somehow her personal responsibility to babysit✅ The reverse-psychology move for de-escalating a hot customer call ✅ The installer who burned out after 20 years, moved into sales instead of quitting, and now closes millions in systems every year because he loves what the product does for people✅ The quit-properly rule: give two weeks and you are always welcome back if the dream job turns into a nightmare; leave a post-it note on your desk and the door is closed for good✅ Longevity and honest favoritism: employees at 43, 40, and 35 years of tenure, and Randi's refusal to pretend those relationships are the same as the ones with someone six months in✅ Corporate Chaplains of America, the free non-denominational counselor Crime Prevention keeps on retainer, and the employee who got connected to real financial resources through a chaplain conversation nobody in leadership ever heard about✅ Randi's read on why so much workplace friction is really unhealed personal stuff walking through the door at 8 am Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

  8. Aug 5

    Turn Every Camera Into a Motion Detector

    In this special edition of Coffee Break With Jake, Jake Voll sits down with David Erickson, co-founder and COO of CHeKT, to unpack what it actually takes to turn a book of camera system customers into scalable, defensible recurring monthly revenue.  David walks Jake through the founding vision he helped build about 10 years ago: there is no reason a camera can't replace every motion detector in the world. When you take that idea seriously, everything downstream changes. The camera stops being a "video product" and starts being a detector the monitoring center can act on. That reframe is what unlocks fixed site pricing, standardized central station protocols, and portable accounts that can be moved from one station to another in under 10 minutes. In this episode, we talk about... ✅ The 10-year-old founding vision that shaped CHeKT: replace every motion detector in the world with a camera, and treat the camera as the detector the monitoring center actually responds to✅ Why the "one smart IT guy" model isn't scalable, and how a centrally managed cloud platform protects both your book of business and your customer's cybersecurity posture✅ Portability that actually works: moving a video account from Central Station A to Central Station B in under 10 minutes with just an account number change, no truck roll required✅ End-to-end supervision from camera edge to monitoring center down to 60-second intervals, including the video stream, the ISP connection, and the camera's analytics✅ The national integrator model where subs box out pre-configured bridges and never touch the sensitive parts, and how that solves the technician-shortage problem dealers keep bringing up✅ Why CHeKT has spent years lobbying central stations for fixed site pricing, and why that pricing certainty is what actually lets a sales team quote video monitoring with confidence✅ Real recurring revenue numbers: $80 to $120 per month on interior secure commercial (SMBs, banks, high-risk retail, jewelry, pawn), and $300 to $400+ per month on exterior secure locations like plumbing contractors, body shops, and equipment yards✅ False alarm attrition risk on traditional alarm accounts and how camera-as-detector reframes the value conversation with the end customer✅ David's advice for the dealer with hundreds of camera system customers who hasn't built any RMR yet: start with your most trusted customer, deploy it with them, let the platform prove itself✅ CHeKT's new sales enablement data: statistical vertical targeting that tells a dealer which account types in their specific market are most likely to buy video monitoring Ready to see what CHEKT can do for your book of business? Connect with your SS&Si account manager and ask about the demo discount on your first bridge. Coffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

See All (44)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Jake Voll brings security industry professionals together to discuss best practices, challenges, and opportunities.

Information

  • Creator
    Jake Voll
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Jake Voll

You Might Also Like