From my new book, FIFTEEN CRITICAL INSIGHTS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS OVER FIFTY … Hardback release May 2, 2021. Go here
Maybe I went home with her and maybe I didn’t. The nightclubs were ingeniously dark and smokey back then. The drinks were very strong. Anyway, this article is not about the wild 70s. It about the wild 2000s and over-50 entrepreneurs, and Biometric Verification. Let’s GO!!!
For the over-50 entrepreneur, technology is often a recurring stumbling block that discourages promising business opportunities that require moderate to advanced levels of technical know-how. To learn that another facet of tech-entangled innovation is slowly being unleashed upon cyber-deficient Baby Boomers is nerve-racking, to say the least. And yet, it doesn’t have to knock you out of the big entrepreneurial game.
Online cyber scams related to identity thief are growing exponentially. To reduce the estimated $600 billion in losses each year, many companies are instituting biometric verification. Simply stated, biometric verification uses artificial intelligence (AI) to verify you are who you say you are.
Nuts and Bolts of Biometric Verification
It works like this. The website signup page requests a form of ID, maybe a passport or driver’s license, or even your voice recording. Once you upload the scanned document, they immediately request a “right now” photo of you created by your monitor camera or smartphone. The AI algorithm compares (millions of) details of the two images to determine if your document ID photo matches your “right now” photo. Unless you have some outlandish lie accompanied by expensive receipts from a famous plastic surgeon in California, you’re out of luck.
The process can be daunting if you don’t know how to scan and upload, or don’t have a smartphone, or are simply too apprehensive to send your precious information to some stranger in the Cloud.
Unless you have on your full business-owner combat armor and your brain is gear for an all-out tech-fight, you will head for the locker room.
Your original objective will be trampled beneath the feet of the big-name players like Amazon and Apple that started in a tiny garage, but stayed in the game.
Shall we digress with this short example? Last week, I logged into a website to buy some cheap cryptocurrency. Yes, crypto coins! In 2013, the little-known digital currency Bitcoin was selling at $13.40 per coin. Last week, it closed at $55,000 per coin. There’s no reason some one-hit-wonder, lurking out there in the boondocks, can’t perform half that well.
Back to the website. I went through their arduous biometric verification. The robots told me I was approved to continue being who I am. Once inside my account, they asked if I wanted to use fiat funding or a toll payment QR code. WHAT THE???? Or, it was okay to use an external wallet that had Bitcoin for an exchange, extra steps because they were not a wallet service. WHAT THE????
For the record, fiat funding is just another tech-fancy way of saying government-issued US dollars or euros. A wallet is where your currency is stored. I fought through everything and bought my crypto. It has already gone up in value. (Disclaimer: I’m sharing a personal experience, not a financial recommendation.)
Two BIG GAME strategies:
First, you CAN beat this tech headache. Get help in advance to scan your passport or other ID documents and put them in a folder on your (desktop or laptop) hard drive. (Even better, buy a printer/scanner or a cheap one-button scanner to hook up to your desktop and “learn” to do it yourself.) Take a picture of yourself and send it to your email. Download it from your email to your hard drive and put it in the folder too. Now, when the robots hit you with those ridiculous demands, you’ll give them the middle finger. You’ll accomplish your original objective. You’ll stay in the game.
Secondly, FIX YOUR MIND!!!! The real battle is not on the internet. It’s inside your head. Be ready for the next outrageous tech blitz that tries to send you to the locker room. You CANNOT run a business reminiscing about the old beeper/telephone booth/fax machine days. You have to want to get in the new game. No wired up, circuit head AI is going to stop you … say that every day.
Otherwise, go ahead and find a $10 an hour delivery truck job. Drive, no pressure, until they tell you to turn in your keys because your eyes are failing and you’re running over to many children and dogs.
If you want it, go get it. Let’s GO!!!
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Ready to join a group of advanced business thinkers to help you through the reset?
(Join the Over-50 Entrepreneur Master Group here:
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