Private Company

I design and manage security solutions aligned with business goals. I deploy, optimize, and manage network security technologies, contribute to vulnerability assessments, support compliance assessments and audits (ISO 27001, SOC 2, DORA, SEC), and facilitate incident response.

Current Tech Stack
Check Point FW, Palo Alto FW, Fortigate FW, Cisco ASA, F5, NGINX, Akamai Guardicore, RedHat ACS, RedHat OpenShift, Zscaler, Cisco R&S, Squid, Elastic Search, Kibana, Logstash, Nozomi, Claroty, Splunk SIEM, Exabeam, SOAR, Tenable Nessus, Qualys, Ubuntu Server, MS Azure, Keycloak, Okta, Azure DevOps, Ansible, Phoenix Contact mGuard Remote Access, Propius Machine Selector, OpenVPN, Docker, Kubernetes, Security Scorecard

What I've done so far:
● Managed the external Vulnerability Posture of the organization and raised the reputation from D to A
● Implemented advanced micro-segmentation strategies and optimized firewall/IPS configurations, reducing lateral threat movement (90%), unauthorized access (65%), and false positives (95%).
● Designed, implemented, and optimized network security solutions, security operations, and incident response processes, and led incident response efforts resulting in:
- 40% reduction in mean time to detection (MTTD) and 60% faster incident resolution times
- 95% decrease in false positive alerts through refined detection rules and automated threat details enrichment
● Worked with project teams to help build secure architecture designs and develop SOC security architectures
● Designed processes to implement the information security policies.
● Supported ISO 27001, SOC 2, DORA, and SEC audits through documentation, security control implementation, and audit response; led industry-specific remediation (e.g., MasterCard's RiskRecon).
● Contributed to the development of business continuity plans and disaster recovery plans
● Designed and led business continuity and disaster recovery tests.

Cybersecurity Architecture & Engineering Consultant 

Bridging Gaps

Bridging Gaps' mission is to bridge the gap between potential and performance through expert career mentoring and coaching, empowering mid-management professionals in IT, Consulting, and Services sectors to achieve their highest potential.

What I do: 
Pro bono career coaching and mentorship for IT and Tech Professionals.
I work pro bono to help individuals design and build fulfilling careers, whether they're aspiring cybersecurity professionals breaking into the field or individuals seeking a more meaningful career shift.
I provide personalized guidance on career transitions, technical skill development, and certification strategies while supporting job search optimization, professional growth, and long-term career fulfillment.

Career Design and Transformation Partner

Honeywell

I led the design and optimization of security solutions across multiple platforms (Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Check Point). I focused on network security, IPS fine-tuning, and security automation while managing vulnerability assessments, incident response, and providing mentorship to enhance the organization's security posture.

● Designed and advised on complex technical solutions across a range of vendors, including Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Check Point, and Juniper, ensuring robust security architectures for diverse client environments.
● Mentored interns and delivered internal technical training sessions, enhancing team capabilities and fostering a culture of continuous learning and development.
● Implemented and fine-tuned security policies on critical devices such as Cisco ASA, Checkpoint FW (R77.30, R80), and Palo Alto FW, strengthening overall network security posture.
● Automated repetitive tasks using custom scripting, improving operational efficiency and reducing manual workload for the cybersecurity team (Ansible, GitLab, Jenkins).
● Developed and maintained backup policies for critical infrastructure, ensuring data integrity and rapid recovery in case of system failures.
● Conducted periodic reviews and audits of firewall policies to minimize attack surfaces, ensuring compliance with both CIS benchmarks and vendor-specific best practices.
● Monitored security logs and system alerts to detect potential intrusions, ensuring rapid response and minimizing downtime through proactive security measures.
● Led the configuration and management of VPN tunnels, ensuring secure remote access and maintaining system performance standards.
● Tuned Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to meet client-specific security and performance requirements, reducing false positives and enhancing detection accuracy.
● Oversaw the upgrade and patch management process for various security devices, maintaining strong defenses against emerging vulnerabilities.

Senior Advanced Cybersecurity Architect / Engineer

Advanced Cybersecurity Architect / Engineer

ING Romania

I supported risk management initiatives and ensured compliance with internal policies and regulatory standards. I also contributed to strengthening security controls, supporting IT projects, and leading incident investigations to enhance the bank's overall security posture.

My responsibilities included, but were not limited to: 
● Conduct application and infrastructure security and vulnerability assessments; 
● Perform proactive research to identify and understand new threats, vulnerabilities, and exploits; 
● Support IT department and business functions in setting up controls to proactively manage information security-related risks; 
● Support bank projects and changes from the perspective of IT and Information Security; 
● Internal contact for questions related to IT and Information Security; 
● Advice and support regarding Information Security requirements for IT Assets and processes; 
● Participate in the implementation of the security architecture, both in terms of infrastructure and applications; 
● Review and approve the operating security guidelines (OSG) developed for IT Assets; 
● Monitor the scope and effectiveness of security controls in IT processes (e.g. patching, vulnerability management, lifecycle management, external connections management, security event monitoring, technical state compliance monitoring, penetration testing, change management, etc.); 
● Investigate security incidents and define remediation plans accordingly; 
● Redesign the management of Cybersecurity Incidents (People, Policies, Procedures, Tools, etc).

Information Security Officer

I deployed, managed, and secured network infrastructures, ensuring the protection of systems through configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting. My focus was on maintaining the integrity of security devices, optimizing performance, and supporting incident response efforts.

My responsibilities included, but were not limited to:
● Manage the following technologies: Web Application Firewall, IDS/IPS, DDoS tooling, Firewalls, Web Gateway, Mail Gateway, NAC, Endpoint Security Solutions, Load Balancers, and Vulnerability Management;
● Implement, maintain, and troubleshoot a complex security tooling infrastructure;
● Perform daily operating system administration tasks, including hardware and software upgrades, patch management, and maintaining regulatory controls;
● Review the environment and have initiatives to reduce failures, and defects and improve performance;
● Perform daily systems checks and correct any issues;
● Perform performance analysis, proactive troubleshooting, continual improvement, and capacity planning;
● Ensure timely and accurate resolution of the incidents on the administrated systems;
● Investigate the problems in the production environment;
● Document tasks and changes, including deep analysis in order to prevent any downtime;
● Maintain security and data integrity;
● Define and refine IT security runbooks;
● Test the effectiveness of the existing security controls;
● Coordinate IT security actions in case of an incident.

Senior Security Infrastructure Engineer

I was responsible for designing, implementing, and troubleshooting complex network and security solutions across various platforms. My role involved managing security policies, maintaining device configurations, and ensuring the integrity of network infrastructures while supporting clients' evolving security needs.

My responsibilities included, but were not limited to:
● Designing or advising on different technical solutions covering a large area of vendors: Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, McAfee, Check Point, Juniper;  
● Troubleshooting or advising in the troubleshooting process of different types of issues in regard to: Cisco Routers, Cisco Core Switches, Cisco ASA, Checkpoint FW (R77.30, R80), Palo Alto FW, Juniper FW, McAfee NSP;  
● Implementing and troubleshooting security policies on Cisco ASA, Checkpoint FW (R77.30, R80), Palo Alto FW;  
● Configuring and maintaining backup policies;  
● Maintaining the security posture of the managed devices in accordance with CIS and vendor-specific best practice guides;  
● Perform periodic reviews and analysis of firewall policies in order to reduce the attack surface to a minimum accepted one;  
● Monitor logs and output of various software and data collected by monitoring systems to identify abnormal situations, computer attacks, system downtime, and use of access rights;  
● Respond to key system alerts; determine the optimal technical solution for a specific issue.

Network Consultant

Reliance acsn

I led a team responsible for managing and securing client network infrastructures, ensuring high service quality and adherence to security best practices.
● Led a team managing and securing client network infrastructures, ensuring high service quality and adherence to security best practices.
● Oversaw incident response efforts across multiple security platforms, guiding the team in troubleshooting and resolving security incidents efficiently.
● Directed firewall policy configuration and optimization, ensuring robust security while mentoring team members on best practices.
● Conducted security reviews and compliance assessments, leading the team in minimizing attack surfaces and maintaining industry standards.
● Supervised log monitoring and VPN management, ensuring quick response to threats while supporting secure remote client access.

Managed Security Services Team Leader

Oracle

My responsibilities included, but were not limited to, the support of devices from the following list:
•	Firewall - Juniper, Fortigate
•	Load Balancer - F5
•	Proxy Web Gateway – McAfee
•	IPSec VPN - Juniper, Fortigate
•	Array SSL VPN
•	Cisco AAA
•	Cisco ASA Remote Access VPN

Network Security Engineer

Secureworks

My responsibilities included, but were not limited to:
•	Analysis of different attack vectors (malicious e-mails, malicious documents (MsOffice, PDF, etc), malicious scripts, etc);
•	Analysis of InfoSec incidents;
•	Correlating pieces of information gathered from different InfoSec Intell Sources IPVoid, Alien Vault OTX, Sucuri, Schodan, Xnode, URL Void, etc);
•	Raw log output analysis;
•	Event correlation (QRadar, Cylance, SEP, Sourcefire, Cisco ASA, FirePower, Juniper FW, F5 LTM, Windows 7/10, Windows Servers, Linux Servers, Qualys VMS, ProofPoint, Cisco Threat Grid, REMNUX, Websense);
•	Knowledge sharing with other teams from SecureWorks and the customer’s environment;
•	Best practice guidance and knowledge sharing in the fields where I have relevant hands-on experience.

Senior Information Security Analyst

Cegeka Romania

My responsibilities included, but were not limited to:
•	Implementing routing on different types of devices: Cisco Routers, Cisco Core Switches, Cisco ASA, Checkpoint FW, Fortigate FW, Palo Alto FW, Juniper FW, OpenBSD FW, PfSense FW;
•	Securing networking devices - Management, Data & Control Planes;
•	Implementing PBR rules on different devices (as it can be seen above);
•	Setting up and debugging VPN tunnels and also SSL VPNs (F5 APM);
•	Configuring Virtual Servers on the F5 LTM;
•	Configuring and upgrading network devices;
•	Tuning IPS functionality according to the customer's security and performance requirements;
•	Intaking remote sites for one of our customers;
•	Upgrading networking devices (Cisco, Aruba);
•	Managing user access for specific platform;
•	Incident response and management;
•	Troubleshooting networking and security related incidents that affect the environments of the customers, in accordance with their priorities and SLAs.

Network & Security Support Engineer

Romanian Navy Headquarters

My responsibilities included:
• Implementing Information Security Standards and Procedures to guarantee Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability regarding the managed data; 
• Performing specific periodic Information Security inspections; 
• Providing direction to lower-level personnel when necessary;
• Gain senior management and stakeholders' commitment to supporting the implementation of the information security strategy; 
• Define, implement, and monitor information security responsibilities throughout the organization and lines of authority; 
• Conduct audit activities; 
• Contribute to the annual acquisition plan regarding specific technology; 
• Identify internal and external factors that impact the information security strategy; 
• Identify legal and regulatory compliance requirements; 
• Keep senior management and stakeholders up to date with the specific legal and regulatory compliance requirements; 
• Evaluate information security controls against acceptable risk management levels; 
• Maintain the process for information asset identification and classification; 
• Monitor and report information security metrics to senior management and key stakeholders; 
• Monitor and maintain incident response plans, specific business continuity plans, and the disaster recovery plan; 
• Define and implement processes to ensure proper information security incident management; 
• Organize and train incident response teams;  
• Define, maintain, and monitor the information security awareness and training program; 
• Provide analysis and support for continuous improvement initiatives; 
• Provide enterprise-wide retrospective analysis of schedule performance while continuously improving the involved processes; 
• Working closely with field operations managers and enterprise leaders to complete the scheduled assignments. 
• Creating, distributing, and maintaining organizational-wide strategic, operational, and tactical plans regarding military equipment acquisitions;

Cybersecurity Professional | I Help Businesses With Secure Digital Environments For Their Employees And Customers | Writing About Cybersecurity, Personal Development, Success Mindset, Productivity And Career Development

Cybersecurity Architecture and Engineering Consultant | Career Design and Transformation Partner | Founder, Mentor, Certified Career Coach

CISSP · CISM · A-C|CISO · Check Point CCSE · Palo Alto PCNSE · CCNP TSHOOT · CCNA Security · CCNA CyberOps · ZCCA-IA · Comptia Security+ · Software Security Practitioner - Software Architect · Cisco Certified Specialist - Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure Implementation

I'm a dynamic Information Security Professional, a former Navy officer, with over 10 years of hands-on experience in cybersecurity architecture and engineering, security operations, incident response, and network security management, in both Private and Public sectors.

While I avoid overspecializing in a single field, my background, including 12 years in the military, helps me easily adapt to new environments, technologies, and teams.

I value transparency and honesty, and I am a self-learner, committed to self-improvement and personal growth.

Here's how I can help:

Cybersecurity Consulting: Providing strategic guidance and practical solutions to safeguard your digital assets, mitigate risks, and enhance your security posture.

Cybersecurity Technology Deployment, Management, and Optimization: I ensure your systems are fortified against threats while optimizing their performance for maximum efficiency.

Information Security Management Program: Crafting comprehensive programs tailored to your organization's needs.

Information Security Risk Management: Identifying, assessing, mitigating risks, and developing proactive strategies to safeguard your data and maintain business continuity.

Information Security Program Optimization: Fine-tuning existing security programs, aligning them with industry best practices, and driving continuous improvement.

Service Management Consulting - Delivery & Optimization: By streamlining service management processes, I enable your organization to deliver exceptional customer experiences, optimize resources, and drive business growth.

I am also a Certified Career Coach, committed to helping others discover, design, and grow fulfilling careers that align with their values and purpose, pro bono, through mentorship and personalized career guidance.

Liviu Munteanu CISSP, CISM

Brian Dordevic

Delivering profitable web design with SEO first approach. Official Google partner.

I started as a $4/hr offshore virtual assistant and became a USA citizen & business owner.

I help you generate more profit with your existing traffic efforts by optimizing conversion rates, improving your site speed & content strategy.

Chief Executive Officer

As the CEO of Alpha Efficiency, I steer the strategic direction of the company while managing an expanding team of 30+ professionals, spearheading growth initiatives, and driving operational efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) & Achievements:

Team Leadership & Management: Championed a culture of performance and accountability that led to a 35% boost in operational efficiency. Regularly oversee talent acquisition and retention strategies to ensure our team is well-equipped for success.

SEO & Content Management: Supervised the creation and execution of our SEO strategy, which saw a remarkable 60% surge in organic website traffic within six months, augmenting our brand's digital visibility.

Paid Media Strategies: Pioneered the deployment of innovative paid media campaigns, resulting in a 50% increase in brand awareness and a 30% rise in customer acquisition, significantly expanding our market footprint.

Performance Benchmarking: Developed and implemented performance benchmarks to ensure constant progress. The systematic monitoring of these metrics brought about a 20% improvement in overall productivity.

Stakeholder Management: Successfully maintained robust relationships with key stakeholders, attaining a 90% satisfaction rate, testament to our commitment to delivering value and fostering transparency.

Financial Management: Maintained stringent control over fiscal operations, consistently delivering profitability and surpassing financial objectives by 15% in the previous year, solidifying our position in the market.

This multifaceted role requires a delicate balance of leadership, strategic thinking, and operational excellence. It's my mission to continue propelling Alpha Efficiency forward, driving sustainable growth, and adding value for our stakeholders.

Most web devs ship the site and disappear.

Client is left with:

• Title tag: “Just another WordPress site”
• /wp-admin begging to get hacked
• No favicon, no brand memory

Client never checks this stuff.
But Google and bots do.

Amateurs build pages.
Pros protect assets.

Be the dev who makes them money and keeps them safe.

alpha-efficiency

act-leadership

fleetwoodlimousineworldwide

cult-of-traffic

digitalcash2go

web-design-chicago-agency

JSESSIONID

Sales Navigator

li_at

Talks about #ppc, #seo, #webdesign, #ppcmarketing, and #webdevelopment

Helping B2B Law Firms increase local AI SEO visibility and maximize perceived reputation | Hubspot, Google & SEMRush Partner | View portfolio for inspiration

B2B is hard. It also pays the most.

Premium B2B services sell in the $10,000 to $50,000 range. And the buyers spend fast when the problem is real.

Yet too many teams sit back and wait for a form fill. Average conversion rate is around 2.5%. That is 1 lead for every 40 clicks.

This means your business is missing out on 97.5% of opportunities that come your way.

Exact reason why most companies stop advertising on Google and Meta.

Inbound vs outbound is a fake war. Champions run both.

Here’s my Eastern European take:

I used to be 100% inbound.
No permission? Don’t bother them.

That mindset is expensive.

Then I went outbound-only and booked 100 sales calls on a lean budget, fast. It worked, but the targeting was weak, so it turned into a hamster wheel.

Not fun, do not recommend.

Everything changed when we paired outbound with website intent data.

Inbound and outbound are tools.
Use one in isolation and you cap growth.

The Real Play: Turn Website Traffic Into Outreach

Every visit to a money page happened for a reason.
They clicked because the pain is real, even if they never fill out your form.

When you can identify the company behind the click, the game changes:

 • You stop guessing
 • You stop chasing random lists
 • You start contacting people who already touched your brand

Your outreach is no longer cold. It’s informed.

How to build your B2B list the smart way:

 • Map pain points
 • Match each pain point to a landing page (SEO or paid)
 • Capture visits to money pages as lead sources
 • Segment in your CRM
 • Retarget by pain point
 • Run manual outreach and sequences to the same audience

That is how you stack touch points and win B2B.

Want me to audit your B2B marketing strategy?
Reply AUDIT and if your business qualifies, I’ll send my calendar link.

Here is how my web design agency hit $500,000 this year (without burning out and drowning in sales calls):

1. Build an infinitely recurring offer

We stopped selling random projects.
We focused on three core outcomes:

• Tech stack we can support for years
• Clear care plan attached to each client
• Design that loads fast and CONVERTS

Every new website came with maintenance baked in, not as an optional extra.

This moved us from 80% one time revenue to 80% RECURRING revenue. 

Life gets easier when you know where your next payment is coming from.

2. Then we stacked layered recurring revenue

Instead of pitching “full service marketing” up front, we did:

• Website first
• Then Local SEO
• Then email automations
• Then grow into ads management

One win at a time.

Clients stayed because each layer made their funnel more profitable, not more complicated.

3. Make recurring work feel like a product, not chaos

We treated retainers like products:

• Fixed deliverables
• Fixed reporting rhythm
• Fixed weekly meeting cadence

Clients knew what was happening every month.
Team knew what to ship every week.
This killed most of the “emergency” calls.

4. Do the hard things competitors avoid

While others chased AI short term tactics to avoid hard work, we:

• Fixed technical SEO properly
• Cleaned tracking and analytics
• Optimized page speed and UX
• Talked to clients’ intake teams about lead quality

Unsexy work.

But it is what moved revenue for clients and made our retainers untouchable.

5. Turn happy clients into a referral engine

We did not beg for referrals.
We engineered them:

• Case studies that show revenue growth
• Simple “Who do you know like X?” asks
• Partner deals with vendors already serving our clients

Result: referrals drove more revenue than cold outreach.

6. Protect energy, not just profit

To avoid dying on sales calls, we:

• Had short, focused discovery calls
• Said “no” to clients who wanted chaos
• Used templates and checklists to scope fast
• Pre qualified leads through forms and content

Fewer calls.
Better clients.
More energy for actually building.

If you run a service business and want to turn it into a recurring revenue machine without living on sales calls, reply “SYSTEM” and I will send you a breakdown you can implement in your agency.

People flex with watches.
But owning your time is the real flex.

Most people signal status with what is on their wrist.
I use mine to remember I never want to sell my time again.

I own three watches:

• A $1,000 Apple Watch Ultra
• A $5,000 Breitling
• A $500 Tissot

You would think I wear the Breitling the most.

I do not.

The Apple Watch used to run my life.
Notifications. Activity rings. Constant pressure to do more.

It made me productive.
It did not make me free.

Then two clients came along.

We built and scaled their crypto platform.
Those projects alone brought over $200,000 for Alpha Efficiency.

As a thank you, they sent me the Tissot.
Paid for in crypto. (reminder that tech moves fast)

That watch did something the Apple Watch never could:

It disconnected my self worth from the clock.

I stopped timing my workouts.
Stopped checking messages every few minutes.
Stopped living by notifications.

Every time I look at that Tissot, it reminds me:

• Technology should serve you, not own you
• One right deal can buy you years of optionality
• Your time is a reflection of the clients you choose

Later I bought the Breitling to prove something.
To myself. To the industry. To people who play status games.

It mostly sits at home now.

Because the real status upgrade was not the luxury brand. It was a regulated nervous system.

Learning how to get clients that pay you so well that you stop trading hours for money.

That is the game I care about teaching.

If you want more clients like that, and fewer that drain your energy and calendar,
I broke down my systems inside Infinite Deals.

It is where I document how I:

• Attract high ticket clients online
• Buy back more of my own time each year
• Turn a few great projects into multiple six figures

The watch is just a reminder.

The real asset is the skill of getting the right deals.

Developer made $3,246 mistake that blew up our advertising budget. (And the easy fix no one talks about)

When I worked at eTech, the SEO team pushed a site update in the middle of the day...

• No warning
• No coordination
• Just a routine update

Except it crashed the website.

And our Google Ads kept spending.

For three straight hours, every click went to a dead page.

By the time the site came back up, we burned $3,246 on nothing.

That one screw-up taught me a rule I still follow today:

Never send PPC traffic to your main website.
Ever.

Use a landing page platform that doesn’t break when someone edits a menu, updates a plugin, or pushes a deploy.

That’s why I run everything on HubSpot landing pages now.

Cleaner. Faster. Safer. Built for conversion, not chaos.

Here’s what it gives you:

• Your ads keep running even if your site goes down
• Predictable performance while others burn money
• A/B tests without asking a dev to push code
• Tracking that doesn’t leak data
• No SEO signal pollution
• Faster load speeds
• No team collisions

Three hours.
Three thousand two hundred forty six dollars.

One rule that never fails me.

If you're running paid traffic, book a call with me on ways I can setup your Google and Meta Ads for success. (Link in comments)

HubSpot

Corporate HATES remote work.

That's why my team loves our 100% remote agency (and ZERO commute).

Yet that doesn't stop us from:

• Driving around $2,000,000 in revenue for a disability law firm
• Shipping enterprise grade web development for a major non profit
• Adding over $4,000,000 in revenue for a home improvement business

All delivered from laptops in Ibiza, Paris, Palma de Mallorca and Chicago.

No HQ. No fancy boardroom. No glass tower with a logo on it.

Just:

• A MacBook
• Nitro cold brew
• Blazing fast internet
• Senior operators who care more about results than clocking in

Here is what we do not have:

• Office politics
• Pointless water cooler talk
• Commutes that drain everyone before work even starts

Here is what we do have:

• Deep work
• Fast shipping cycles
• Clients who measure us on revenue, not timesheets

Remote is not an excuse for lower standards.
For us it is the reason we can focus on the only thing that matters: 

RESULTS.

Want to see what this kind of fully remote operation produces?

Check out our portfolio!

Landed in Chicago 12 years ago (photo from THE South Side)

Rented room
Cracked laptop 
Safety Net ZERO

No investors. No agency mastermind.
Just wifi and the decision to figure it out.

Fast forward.
Last quarter my agency helped clients add multiple seven figures in revenue.

Concrete wins, not theory:

• Around $2,000,000 in revenue for a disability law firm
• Over $4,000,000 in revenue for a home improvement company
• Enterprise grade web development shipped for a major non profit

None of that happened by accident.

Here is the operating system behind it:

Pick a painful problem

I focused on lawyers and local pros.
When their leads stop, payroll hurts.
Solve that consistently and they remember your name.

Sell the smallest real win

Not a massive “done for you everything” promise.
Just one clear outcome: Website + Local SEO sprint.

Easy yes.

Once they see it working, bigger checks make sense.

Create proof in public

Endless hundreds of proposals on Upwork
Daily posts on X and LinkedIn
Documenting what works

The content brings people in already half sold.

Let systems do the follow up

HubSpot workflows, intent data, and simple pipelines.
No “just checking in” energy.

Prospects move through a process whether I am online or not.

Stack rare skills

AI, technical SEO, CRO, local search.
Enough depth to solve hard problems.
Enough range to connect the whole funnel.

Treat cash like oxygen

Weekly money reviews.
Profit targets.
I built for boring predictability instead of viral spikes.

Borrow other people’s trust

Partner with vendors who already serve attorneys.
They send us their clients.
We send them better performing websites.

Everyone wins.

If you are in a new city, with no network and nothing but a laptop, you do not need permission.

Steal one of these.
Stack all seven.

Then let the internet do what it does best:
Turn specific skills into an agency that quietly prints results.

Your pal, Brian
P.S. I'm getting that hairline BACK.

In 2026, content marketing is NOT enough.

▸ 64.6% of AI interactions won't buy a thing.
▸ Average form fill on a landing page is 2.5%.
▸ 97.5% of your marketing goes to waste...

The window for influence has nearly closed.

What follows reflects a week where platforms, algorithms, and behavior all shifted at once:

1. AI Content Needs to Serve Tasks, Not Transactions

Over 64% of AI interactions won't buy a thing. They live in the middle of cognitive work: learning, planning, editing, deciding. 2026 is about meeting intent.
https://hubs.la/Q03YpfgJ0

2. Google’s December Core Update Rolling Out at Two Speeds

Expect movement over the next few weeks as Google reassesses content across the index. Traffic snaps, source selection, and visibility shifts, all in motion at once.
https://hubs.la/Q03Ypd8R0

3. The Positionless Marketing Manifesto (Not a Trend But an Exit)

AI removed the assembly line. Dependencies are gone. What’s left is a new kind of marketer; one that moves at the speed of the customer, not the org chart.
https://hubs.la/Q03YpdVD0

4. Your LinkedIn Post Might Rank Before Your Website

Google is surfacing standalone social posts as part of the search experience, giving them millions of organic sessions once reserved for websites.
https://hubs.la/Q03YpgPK0

5. Inside a 75K-Brand Correlation Study on AI Citation Patterns

Across 75,000 brands, one factor outperformed every classic SEO metric in AI answers. Content volume barely registered.
https://hubs.la/Q03Ypgl50

Strategy sounds clean on paper...

But execution is messy, multi-platform, and unforgiving.

If you want help making it work, let's connect: https://hubs.la/Q03Ypgcq0

When someone says “you do not need to niche down,” I am 99% sure what level they are speaking from.

SPOILER: Not the beginner stage...

For beginners, not niching down is hell.

I started as a virtual assistant making $4/hour offshore. I kept the job, I excelled at it, and I tried building my own thing at night with a fried brain.

That is when I learned the real problem with being a generalist:

You can still get clients.

You can even hire a small team.

And then the trap locks in.

Because generalism does not kill you on day one. It kills you at scale.

Every proposal becomes a custom document.
Different industry. Different language. Different objections. Different deliverables.

So you write from scratch.

Again. And again. And again.

That is not a sales system. That is paid improvisation.

And improvisation does not scale.

Your ops get infected too, because every project becomes a new species. New setup, new edge cases, new expectations. Your business starts running on your brain.

If you step away, quality drops.
If you delegate, it breaks.

Here is what I wish someone told me earlier:

You do not niche down to limit yourself.
You niche down to create a vector of attack.

Same market, same pain, same outcome, same proof.
You get reps.
People start to know you faster.
Your marketing gets cheaper because you keep talking to the same list.

One nuance most people miss:

Niching is not only vertical (one industry).
Horizontal niching is often the real escape: specialize in a repeatable problem and outcome across industries.

Fewer variables is what creates scale.

My regret is simple: I waited too long to choose a lane.

I told myself I was staying flexible.
In reality, I was staying vague.

Niche down first.
Build momentum.
Earn the right to expand.

Most web devs ship the site and disappear.

Client is left with:

• An admin login sitting in plain sight, getting hammered by bots 24/7
• Weak passwords and no 2FA, so one reused credential turns into a breach
• Plugins and themes that never get patched, just waiting on the next known exploit
• No backups that are tested, so “restore” becomes “rebuild from scratch”
• No security headers, no monitoring, no alerts, no idea they were compromised until rankings drop

Client never checks this stuff.
But scanners, scrapers, and credential-stuffing bots do.

Here’s what “safe” looks like in real life:

Example: A law firm launches a new WordPress site. Within hours, automated traffic starts trying /wp-admin and thousands of common password combos.
A pro setup quietly blocks the noise with rate limiting, CAPTCHA on login, 2FA, least-privilege accounts, and a WAF rule set.

If a plugin vulnerability drops next week, updates are staged, verified, and rolled out. If something still slips, monitoring flags file changes, and a clean backup restore is measured in minutes, not days.

Amateurs build pages.
Pros protect revenue.

Be the dev who makes them money and keeps them safe.

The first time I “celebrated” Thanksgiving, I was not even in America.
I was in a small apartment in Serbia.

Cracked laptop. Weak WiFi.
Working remotely for an American tech company for $700 per month.

On my screen I saw what Thanksgiving was supposed to look like.

Big tables. Big families. Big bird in the middle.
Football on TV. Warm light. Full plates.

On my side of the screen?

Cheap food.
Cold apartment.
Trying to make the numbers work so I could get to that country one day.

Back then, Thanksgiving felt like another planet.

And here is what always fascinated me about it:

On Thursday, everyone is grateful.
On Friday, everyone loses their mind over fake discounts.

• Same people
• Same houses
• Different tabs open

They say a prayer over the turkey, then twenty four hours later they fight over televisions that were “discounted” after the price was quietly increased.

While that was happening, I was grinding for $700, trying to answer a much simpler question:

“How do I build a life where gratitude is not a costume I wear once a year?”

So I did the only thing I could control.
I stopped waiting for a good break.
I started becoming more valuable.

SEO. Content. Design. Systems.
Anything that made me harder to replace than the next resume in the pile.

One skill at a time.
One client at a time.
One small win at a time.

Then came the leap.

• I moved to the U.S.
• Built a 20 person SEO team.
• Drove over a million dollars in organic calls.
• Started my own agency.
• Hit consistent six figure months.

The plates at Thanksgiving look very different now.

But here is the part most people miss:

Gratitude is not what you post on Thursday.
Gratitude is the work your past self did when nobody watched.
The sacrifices nobody clapped for.

The discipline that did not get likes and comments.

Your former self paid the price.
You live the upside.

So the real question is not “What are you thankful for this year?”

The real question is:
Are you living in a way that makes your past sacrifices worth it?

This Thanksgiving I am giving back.

While many throw out Fake Discounts and hope you won’t notice.
I am running my best sale yet. One that will change your life if you act on it.

My Substack yearly plan includes my two best selling courses - (people valued them at $349). Link to my substack is in the comments.

Infinite Deals - That teaches you how to get clients on repeat.
Profitable Websites from Scratch - That teaches you how to build websites that convince AI and Google that your website is the real deal.

Add the community, and you’ll get all of this for $99. I am pulling this offer 23:59 EST. And won’t run it again. Sign up on my Substack profile and DM me your email for the bonuses.

Why 99% Stay Addicted and 1% Get Rich

When I was a kid, technology was a TV in the living room and a plastic shovel in the sandbox.

Today I walked past my old kindergarten and remembered how we used to dig holes in the playground.

• No apps
• No screens
• No notifications

Just dirt, tiny shovels, and a group of kids trying to reach the center of the earth.

Now look around.

Heads down. Blue light. Infinite scroll.

We removed boredom from life, and with it a lot of real growth.

Yet your entire financial future depends on attention.

If you cannot capture and direct attention, you are invisible.
If you can, you are playing a different game.

When I quit my job, it was not bravery. It was math.

I knew I could take a stranger from the internet and turn them into a paying client often enough that I would be fine.

• Not warm leads
• Not referrals

Cold traffic.

That one skill quietly funded my life:

• Training without guilt
• Travel without panic about money
• Good restaurants instead of counting every bill
• Time to think while my team and AI agents do the boring parts

None of that came from hacks.
It came from learning how to turn cold to closed.

Most people treat Black Friday as a chance to buy another screen.

New gadget
Same income
Same calendar
Same problems

If I could only buy one thing on Black Friday, it would not be hardware.
It would be the skill of converting cold attention into buyers.

Once you can turn:

Stranger to visitor
Visitor to booked call
Call resulting in a paying client

You stop worrying about opportunity. You decide when to turn it on.

That is what I am teaching in alphaOS.

How I think about attention.
How I structure offers so strangers get it in seconds.
How I turn cold traffic into booked calls.
How I run most of it from my phone with a lean team.
How doctors, lawyers, dentists and other local businesses can plug this into what they already sell.

For Black Friday I opened a short presale on Substack (on yearly plan).

You get included with Substack annual subscription:

• Access to a community for a full year (where you can ask me questions)
• Profitable Websites from Scratch (my web design course)
• Infinite Deals (how to turn prospects into clients)

You are already surrounded by overstimulated attention.

The only real question is whether you keep donating yours, or turn it into income.

A decade-old SEO is sold as an AI breakthrough.

And somehow, everyone’s acting like they’ve uncovered a hidden variable.

• 90% of “AI visibility” is just SEO.
• One lucky mention doesn’t make you relevant.
• The “new tactics” are just retrieval doing it's thing.

5 pieces last week shattered the illusion that AI changed everything:

1. Your "AI Strategy" is "Just SEO" with Better Marketing

Behind the hype, AI visibility still depends on the same technical foundations that power traditional search. Most supposed breakthroughs are just old SEO principles dressed as something new. 
https://hubs.la/Q03WywpV0

2. ChatGPT Turns Shopping Into a Personalized Research Engine

ChatGPT now adapts to your product preferences in real time. Shopping becomes a guided conversation powered by real-time data and personalized context. 
https://hubs.la/Q03WyCl10

3. The Hidden Cost Behind “Fast and Cheap” SEO

SEO still runs on the same triangle of time, cost, and quality, and cutting corners always comes back as rework and lost visibility. 
https://hubs.la/Q03Wyy5s0

4. A 50% Deletion Test Boosted Traffic Instead of Killing It

Deleting over half a site’s content sounds reckless, but this audit proved the opposite. Removing 1,000 outdated, low-value pages boosted organic traffic, tightened funnel performance, and raised conversions.
https://hubs.la/Q03WyzRR0

5. $227M Went Into the Wrong AI SEO Trend

Investors poured millions into LLM monitoring while the real defensibility sat in agentic SEO tools. The competitive edge is in shipping faster, better, and across more channels.  
https://hubs.la/Q03Wyv050

Clarity and structure have carried brands for years.

But the pressure to use them is rising...

If you want yours to hold up, join me on a quick call: https://hubs.la/Q03Wyvqh0

When I open my LinkedIn inbox, I see a graveyard of cold DMs:

• Long pitch
• No context
• No relevance
• Straight to the sale

Embarrassing.

How did we normalize this?

Attention is scarce, but spam is still the fastest way to lose it.

Cold outreach can work.
Cold outreach with zero context usually backfires.

Counter narrative is common sense

Earn familiarity first.
Post useful content.
Leave thoughtful comments on your ICP’s posts.
Start conversations like a normal person.

That is the foundation of social selling.

Enter Advanced mode (if basics still don’t work for you)

If you want to be strategic, think like your ICP:

• What pains are they trying to escape?
• What outcomes do they actually want?
• What solutions have they already tried?
• What options have they not considered yet?
• What “common belief” can you challenge without sounding like a contrarian?

Use that to guide content and distribution.

And if you want speed, add paid distribution:

• SEO
• Niche Newsletters
• Creators Outreach
• LinkedIn ads, Google ads, Meta ads.

Just do not rely on “post and pray.”

There is a 44% chance your lawyer is an addict.
Not to alcohol, but to “no new cases” at 1:13 AM.

36% of attorneys screen positive as problem drinkers.
9% report prescription drug misuse.
And no stats for illegal drugs use...

That is one in two.

What pushes them there?

Not the hours
Not the verdicts
Not even the clients

It is the gap between running their own practice vs. being burnt down by corporate management.

Those that went solo suffer when: 

• The phone does not ring
• There is no next case in sight
• Payroll is coming and cash is not

Those that are in corporate are drinking through: 

• Persuasive arguments
• Worrying about the appointed judge
• Client that lied to them in disposition

Those that left Big Law for freedom, quietly count credit karma drops and debt.

Those that stayed worry about their spouse secretly despising them for being absent. (and filing divorce paperwork)

If only they could pick and choose their cases...

The best source of new cases is already decided for them:

• AI Search
• Google Ads
• Google Maps
• Local Service Ads

When someone prompts “disability lawyer New York” or “estate planning attorney Chicago” they are not looking for content...

They are looking for a lawyer.
NOW.

Yet most firms are barely investing into these channels. Or they tried once, burned money, and walked away.

It's not that search doesn't work..
But their investment in it is not.

• No call tracking
• No real lead magnet
• No intake automation

Just a generic homepage and a lonely “Contact us” button that doesn't get any clicks.

So even when Google actually sends them a live prospect, the visitor bounces, gets distracted, or calls a competitor with a better offer, clearer next step, or faster intake.

If half of the energy spent worrying about money went into building one predictable search engine pipeline, a lot of partners would sleep better and drink less.

Here is what the calm firms do differently:

• Treat AI, Google Maps, LSAs and Ads like rent, not a lottery ticket
• Use a clear lead magnet that filters and warms up prospects
• Track every call and form so they know what works
• Turn that data into a repeatable acquisition system

Predictability is the real antidote.
And no engine creates more predictable intent than AI & search.

If you are a lawyer and want to see why your firm is not getting a steady flow of cases from Google Maps, Local Service Ads and Google Ads, comment AUDIT and I will show you exactly where the leaks are in your funnel.

Add $60,247 per month for your law practice with AI-driven local SEO (without blowing up your Advertising budget). | Hubspot, Google & SEMRush Partner | View my portfolio for inspiration and revenue-generating ideas.

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The Battle

Liviu Munteanu CISSP, CISM

Brian Dordevic

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Brian Dordevic's LinkedIn Performance

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