Episode Description
In this week’s podcast our SVP of Sales John Zanzarella, sits down with two heavy hitters in marketing compliance – Alexandra Megaris, Partner at Venable LLP, and John Henson, General Counsel at ConsumerAffairs – as they discuss how organizations are facing a unique set of navigating marketing compliance challenges in 2023. Their discussion topics include:
- How small compliance teams can keep up with increasing demands
- Effectively prioritizing and allocating compliance budgets
- The risks of not prioritizing training and development
- How organizations can make the most of their relationship with consultants and outside counsel
Show Notes:
- The State of Marketing Compliance Report: https://bit.ly/3LcF2un
- How to Navigate Marketing Compliance in 2023: Expert Insights: https://bit.ly/426siwn
- 5 Signs It’s Time to Invest in a Marketing Compliance Software: https://bit.ly/3NhORtC
- Connect with John Zanzarella: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnzanzarella/
- Connect with Alexandra Megaris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-megaris-6a018623/
- Connect with John Henson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-h-henson/
Subscribe to COMPLY: The Marketing Compliance Podcast
About COMPLY: The Marketing Compliance Podcast
The state of marketing compliance and regulation is evolving faster than ever, especially for those in the consumer finance space. On the COMPLY podcast, we sit down with the biggest names in marketing, compliance, regulations, and innovation as they share their playbooks to help you take your compliance practice to the next level.
Episode Transcript:
Ashley:
Hey there COMPLY Podcast listeners, and welcome to this week’s episode. In this week’s podcast, our SVP of Sales, John Zanzarella sits down with two heavy hitters in marketing compliance, Alexandra Megaris, Partner at Venable LLP, and John Henson, General Counsel at ConsumerAffairs. As they discuss how organizations are facing a unique set of marketing compliance challenges in 2023, their discussion topics include how small compliance teams can keep up with increasing demands, effectively prioritizing and allocating compliance budgets, the risks of not prioritizing training and development, and how organizations can make the most of their relationships with consultants and outside council. Thanks for listening and enjoy.
John Z:
My name is John Zanzarella. I’m the SVP of Sales here at PerformLine, and we are really excited to have a chance to speak with you all today, but also to have a chance to host two absolute industry leaders when it comes to advertising and marketing compliance. Two people we’ve known for years and we’re really excited to have a chance to have them share today. So we’ll start with a quick round of introductions. Alexandra, do you want to kick it off?
Alex M:
Sure. Thank you, John. My name is Alex Megaris. I am a partner at Venables New York office and part of our advertising and marketing law group. I have for 15 years been mostly defending companies in enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, State Attorneys General. In what’s broadly referred to as Consumer Protection Law, and that covers a broad range of statutes and regulations that cover financial services and other advertising, including very product specific compliance issues for different verticals. And also we’re kind of a counseling hat for many of those clients and very happy to be here.
John Z:
Awesome. Well, we’re thrilled to have you and if you all are not following Venable’s newsletter or tuning into their All About Advertising blog, there’s definitely two things you’ll wanna focus on after this, because they have great content that I know our team benefits tremendously from. And John, we’ll pass it over to you. Why don’t you give an intro?
John H:
Yeah. I’m John Henson, I’m General Counsel at ConsumerAffairs.com. Prior to joining Consumer Affairs, I was at LendingTree for a number of years in both legal and compliance roles, as well as Assistant GM of Mortgage vertical. So both coming from a compliance, legal and business background, and very excited to talk today.
John Z:
Awesome. Well, we’re excited to have you too, John. And similar to Venable, John shares a ton of tremendously valuable content on his LinkedIn page, so if you haven’t yet, go look him up, John Henson, you can follow him there and I promise you will not only learn some new things, but you’ll also be entertained as well. So I think we’ll jump right into it. You know, the basis of today’s conversation with some of the data that came from the PerformLine State of Marketing Compliance report that came out at the end of last year after interviewing over a hundred individuals in different compliance teams across the country. And I think we had some significant findings about not just compliance teams, but some of the challenges heading into this year. And those challenges are not compliance-specific, I think all companies are facing different challenges.
John Z:
But in the compliance space in particular, we noticed that there are a lot of small compliance teams, some certainly were affected by layoffs, but 74% of organizations reported having a team of five or fewer people. And one of the other things that really stood out is just the significant challenges that those teams were having when it came to heaping up with regulations, comprehensive oversight and bandwidth. And although, you know, we weren’t reported among the top three compliance challenges, it definitely a growing challenge this year is that companies aren’t expecting to have additional headcount added on, so they will be having to do more with less. And I think, John, maybe we’ll start with you. Currently in your position at ConsumerAffairs, what is the state for you all when it comes to just compliance resources and how are you handling having to do maybe more with less this year?
John H:
Yeah that’s a great question. I think one, we are a very small compliance team with myself and a paralegal running both legal and compliance for the organization. And when you look at the license spaces that we’re in, whether that’s mortgage, whether that’s insurance, whether that’s other areas just the licensing portion alone is a full-time job in some companies. So having to do more with less is something that we have to really focus on and understand what our business is doing and understand the processes in place to make sure that we’re meeting those needs. I would actually say the number one thing that any small compliance department can do is understand the business. And that is so almost trite to say, like you would think that everybody knows that, but it’s an area that a lot of people struggle with, especially if they’re coming from a larger institution like a bank into a small company. Understanding the business is not easy to do, but it’s critical to that to being successful in a small department.
John H:
Those larger organizations, you really can get siloed and really focus on your one area. And yes, you’ll understand all the mortgage regulations and what documents need to go out, but if you shift to a smaller organization, there’s a lot more than just that. And you’ve gotta really understand how those regulations are playing out, not only in the mortgage, but how it affects the business as a whole and what departments it affects as a whole. So a lot of small departments are responsible for licensing and advertising regulations and there’s some info information security and privacy, and there’s just a lot going on, but to really be beneficial, you have to understand your actual business.
John Z:
Yeah, and John, just sticking on that for a second. So you were at LendingTree through a lot of their growth and scaling phase and then you transitioned to ConsumerAffairs, which is a different business, different business model than LendingTree. When you got there, who were some of the resources that you found internally to help you better understand the business?
John H:
I was really lucky in that when I came to ConsumerAffairs, there were a couple people that I had worked with at Tree who could really make those analogies, which were great. But then also we had a very veteran executive leadership team that I could lean on that knew a lot of the why things were the way they were and could give you that historical background. So looking at it that way, if you’re joining a new organization those people are completely invaluable to talk to and to understand why things are currently being done that way. And sometimes that’s great and there’s a great reason they’re being done that way and sometimes it’s just the way we’ve always done it, which is not necessarily ideal.
John Z:
Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing we see across our customers, especially over the last few years, is just compliance, being more of a part of the business and making business decisions and their input really mattering. So making sure you have those conversations is important. Alex, I’ll put it over to you. How are you currently working with clients who are being asked to do more with less?
Alex M:
So one of the things that I think makes sense for any organization of any size is doing a risk assessment on a regular basis. And that, you know, does not a one size fits all exercise, but being able to prioritize the various long list of items on any legal or compliance department’s list based on risk to the business, I think really helps focus resources and allocate them proportionately to the consequences of not doing it right. And so when you talk about a compliance management system and taking into account all the different regulations and other risks that are organizations exposed to, you wanna make sure that you’re also understanding not just what the statutes are, what the regulations are, what the consequences are, but also what’s the impact to the business from a financial perspective, right?
Alex M:
So some areas of the business might require significant resources from a compliance perspective because, for example, if there’s a licensing regime, right? But if it’s a very, very small part of the business and something that maybe is not gonna be a priority in the near or medium future, then maybe it doesn’t make sense to put disproportionate number of resources towards that project when there’s other areas of the business that are moving faster, growing more touching more people and dollars. And so that’s just something that allows you on a regular basis to kind of reset based on all the inputs of risk. And there’s legal risk, compliance risk, financial risk, reputation risk, all of those things need to be taken into consideration when engaging in a risk assessment.
John Z:
Yeah, I think that’s a great point, Alex. And one of the things you just mentioned sort of coming out of that risk assessment was priorities and prioritizing what are the next few things to do? One of the other items that stood out with regards to the report was around budget. And I know personally I think we’ve seen probably more CFOs or financial executives involved in compliance decisions over the last few months than we had seen again in the years previous. The data in the report said that only 41% of respondents expected an additional compliant budget this year. That number is down from 65% in previous years. And so Alex, I’ll start with you, but how are you advising companies to make those priorities and allocate their budget efficiently?
Alex M:
So as someone that is outside council, I feel those budget constraints directly hearing more and more from clients on whether we can adjust our rates or have some sort of alternative arrangement when it comes to various projects. And so I feel it as well daily, even though I’m outside, I’m at a law firm. One very, I think practical way is to really be attuned to what’s going on in the both regulatory environment and also class action lawyers to see where are what are their priorities and how are they using their tools to enforce the laws. And so staying up to date on those activities and actions and statements that forecast where the regulators are going, what they’re thinking, what they’re prioritizing certainly is one easy and cost efficient way to input in terms of making and ranking your priorities.
Alex M:
And that’s something that increasingly that information is free. You just mentioned the blog that we publish many law firms do the same thing. You’re able to find a lot of this information now from professionals that really do understand how to interpret the various actions that regulators or cost action lawyers are bringing and very easy to get that information in real time. Another way to kind of help prioritize are based on when you look at your matrix of the different laws of regulations that you need to incorporate into your compliances. You know, there are some that are very black and white, and there’s some that are very resource intensive, like getting licensed and keeping up with licensing requirements. And then there are others that are a little bit more amorphous and hard to implement in terms of day-to-day compliance monitoring. And so understanding what is black and white, what is required has like mandatory minimum requirements versus things that are gonna be a little bit more discretionary or requiring judgment, I think also helps prioritize how to use resources.
John Z:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a lot of good information there. John, I’ll pass it over to you. You know, maybe you could talk a little bit about how you and your team being that it’s only a team of two kind of approached budget planning this year and if anything was different on your end.
John H:
Yeah, I think I realistically piggyback off what Alex said earlier about the risk assessment and prioritizing and understanding what’s important to the business. You can work with your finance team to understand what your budget is and what they see as some risks are as well. And if you can align those things or growth is super helpful. You know, every job is sales, right? And you have to understand the risk to your business and be able to sell your finance team on what’s important and how you need the budget to address the risk that are facing your company, especially over the next 12 months as either growing in an area or there’s additional risk being created in that area cause of regulatory activity, as Alexandra said. And I think it’s one of those things that you really do have to balance both where the business is going and what the business is trying to do with a good baseline knowledge of what’s going on on the regulatory side to be able to accurately sell that to your CFO.
John Z:
Yeah, and I think your answer there sort of ties back to your first comment about really understanding the business. Cause it does seem that for almost every buying decision on the compliance side today, a business case is required, needs to be presented to the CFO, it needs to talk about how it’s gonna affect the overall goals of the business. And it doesn’t seem like it’s just from a risk perspective anymore. They want to tie sort of compliance to growth in some of the different goals that companies have. John, any recommendations to executives who are listening in today who might need to put together that business case for a compliance spend?
John H:
Yeah, I would just say that it’s hard, right? Because from a compliance standpoint, let’s use TCPA as an example, right? I can always say that our risk is statutory damages times the number of people we call, oh my God, look at this giant number, right? And that is probably the least helpful thing you can do because at some point you’re just trading on fear, uncertainty and doubt. And your business team will see right through that and therefore you’ve now hurt your case as opposed to helping it. So you have to be able to balance damages and then like what realistic risk is there. And I think that’s one of the hardest things to do is to really understand that balance of potential versus actual risk, right? And, but if you can do that, it’s helpful. I would also say though that like, again, I keep beating this drum, but like having those relationships with your finance team is invaluable. And you should be having those conversations year round and not just at budget time.
John Z:
Yeah, a hundred percent. And your mindset around everyone’s in sales at some level is so true, especially now where so many different departments are vying for a limited budget. You really need to sell the fact that yours is important. It aligns with the company goals and that isn’t a developed skill. It’s not always one that just people inherently have on the compliance side of things. So, that’s great. John, I’ll stick with you for a second. One of the other notes in the report was that while organizations are spending on employee costs and compliance technology, there has been a decrease in training and development consulting and some legal services. Are there risks to businesses who are maybe not doing as much when it comes to training and development in the coming year?
John H:
I think so, and I think a lot of it is look, if you’re in a smaller compliance department, okay, you’re probably busy and you’re probably busy doing the day to day fire putting out, and it’s hard to stay abreast of regulatory updates and changes. And realistically, again, if you’re not dealing with the business a lot, it’s hard to understand what the business is doing and how it’s changing. Like, I’m not gonna lie and say that I’ve never been in a situation that we were going down a path, then we go talk to the business and they’re like, oh yeah, we’re not doing that anymore. We’re doing this now. And you’re like, what just happened, right? So you’ve gotta stay abreast and it’s hard. And I would also say, by not doing the training, by not having those trusted advisors, whether they’re consultants or outside professionals like Alex, you’re really taking some risks that you’re not being current and you are running some additional risk there. Right?
Alex M:
If I could just jump in, I think training and development is one of the most efficient spends in terms of preventing non-compliance, which ends up being very expensive to clean up on the backend. And it’s really hard to quantify. But when you think about most organizations, like you said, have small compliance departments, they don’t have compliance personnel embedded in the various business units or sales teams like a bank maybe would. You really need to rely on the business units, the people themselves to self-identify or flag potential issues. That’s in any compliance program, that’s the first line of defense are those people. It’s compliance comes second. And so if they’re not equipped to even identify a yellow flag, it’s going all on compliance and those resources and outside council, which is of course the most probably expensive way to manage compliance. So yeah, I think not having regular training for the people outside of compliance so that they’re aware of yellow and red flags is a mistake.
John H:
Yeah. I would also say that there are too many resources available for people in compliance to not be training. And that’s either, and I don’t mean like formal training, but like, there’s too many webinars, there’s too many law firms doing webinars to be able to say I can’t keep up, I don’t know what’s going on. Like, again, we are compliance professionals and part of being a professional is self-development. And if you’re not willing to do that and spend that time or your company doesn’t see the value in that, you’ve gotta take the reins and do it yourself, which is easier now than it ever has been.
John Z:
I’ll just add one thing to that, John. It is a time where if you are a compliance leader and you can take the reins and find a cost effective way to do some of these things, it’s gonna really shine brightly on you, especially as we come out of these years and resources open up again. And so I think the fact that there are a lot of good resources out there even though budgets are cut, people can still take ownership of their role and their risk goals to go ahead and move forward and help to develop the team. Alex, I’ll pass it on to you for a second just to talk about, so let’s say you are listening in and you’ve found out from finance that your budget for legal services has been cut back. One of the things we love about the team of Venable is that you all really do partner with your clients, it’s not a transactional relationship. And so tell us any suggestions you have for them to still make the most of their relationship with consultants or outside council, even if the full budget that was there in 2022 is not there.
Alex M:
Yeah, so I mean, first I would always say have an open conversation about the pressures that you know that you’re feeling. And so that to see what your outside advisors can do about whether it’s rates or having some sort of fixed fee, especially for compliance projects, I think they lend themselves to having kind of more of a fixed fee arrangement. As opposed to like, when you’re defending a litigation in court, it’s just very hard to predict costs and so oftentimes don’t lend themselves well. But also ask your outside advisors for training. And you know, we love to go to our clients and do presentations at no cost to them, to their legal departments and compliance departments. It allows us to interact in person or just in a less transactional way with our clients.
Alex M:
We think it provides value all around and we’re happy to do it. So that’s something you should definitely take advantage of, or at least ask the question. Same thing with you know, to the extent how providing a lot of already free content make sure you know about those resources and ask maybe, I know I do this for tailored updates, I have some clients that really want to read that content and don’t wanna just receive it from the whatever gets released. You know, they want it from me with my little spin on it. And I’m happy to provide that. I mean,I’m already writing blogs. I might as well get it to the client that’s gonna read it and help connect her to what’s going on in her business to what the development was. But I would say that there’s more flexibility than maybe you think when it comes to fee arrangements.
John Z:
Yeah. I think for all the compliance professionals listening in, this is the year to ask those questions to partner with people, to have transparent conversations. Even on the software side of things, really lean on if you wanna bring a new vendor on, lean on that team to help you build the business case. It’s not out of the question for our team to go into a client and do what Alexandra just described. Not a sales pitch, but an educational, you know session around how PerformLine operates, how we help similar companies. And sometimes when you do things like that, you can involve more of leadership who will then get more of an insight into what you are hoping to accomplish with this outside council or with this particular vendor. So those things are available to a lot of companies. And maybe you haven’t asked those questions before, but I think this is a good year to start doing that.
John H:
I would add two things to that. One is I have always found it to be very helpful to have outside counsel come in and talk not only to the legal department, but also to like the business unit, right? It helps to have an outside person talk to your business. And then, I’m going to go on a small tangent. The example that I always use is my kids, right? I can tell my kids, don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that. And once another adult that they respect comes in and says, Hey, you probably shouldn’t do that. They’re like, you know what? I’m gonna stop doing that. Right? It’s the same thing with the business, right? They at some point, and as an internal partner, what you say can fall in deaf ears only because you say it so much, but as soon as that is reiterated by an outside attorney that is world-changing for the business.
Alex M:
And the outside attorneys can, oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt
John H:
No, please go ahead
Alex M:
I’ll say the outside attorneys can also say how other companies are doing it. Because oftentimes you’re thinking my internal personal has is just very risk averse, right? And they don’t understand the business pressures, other companies are doing it this way, why can’t we? And I think outside council can kind of put it into context as to what can go wrong, but also other organizations that you’re not hearing about in the news because they’re staying out of the news and the lengths that they’re going to to get to stay outta the news.
John H:
Yeah no, I agree. And I actually had an outside council come in one time and say, you said that other people are doing it, and you’re right, and I’m defending that other person now. The second thing I was gonna say is even if you don’t have the business come in and listen whenever you do a training, I find it incredibly helpful to summarize it in three bullets for the business. Say, hey, I just did this training on UDAAP. We’re seeing this, we’re seeing this and we’re seeing this. Happy to discuss, right? There’s lots of reasons to do that, but I do think that one selfish reason is to build yourself as a knowledge base internally. And thar again going back to sales, right? You wanna be that trusted expert in your company. And if you can keep sharing that information, it goes a long way internally.
John Z:
Yeah. So I think some of the key takeaways are yes, you’re gonna be asked to do more with less this year, but you still have a lot of resources at your disposal if you are willing to sort of step out and go and find them, whether it’s some of the free resources that we talked about or just some of the partnerships with potential technology vendors, outside council consultants, and all those people who are there to help you with some advice or some guidance.
Ashley:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the COMPLY Podcast. Many of the key topics of the discussion today are highlighted in our annual State of Marketing Compliance Report. So if you haven’t had a chance to read that yet, I’m gonna drop it for you in today’s show notes. We also created a blog that highlights the key takeaways from today’s conversation that I will also share. And finally, if while listening to this, you realize you may need help with automating and scaling your marketing compliance program, I’m also going to include a piece called “Five Signs It’s Time to Invest in a Marketing Compliance Software.” As always, for the latest content on all things marketing compliance, you can head to content.performline.com. Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time!
