The proliferation of sham PR agencies is a mounting concern nowadays. These firms, masquerading as reputable providers of PR services, frequently lack the necessary skill set or acumen to excel in the industry. Despite their glaring deficiencies, these con artists are still able to dupe unsuspecting clients into shelling out exorbitant sums of money. As a result, it falls upon investigative journalists to shed light on these fraudulent outfits and expose them for the charlatans they truly are.
In some cases, these fake PR agencies may even go so far as to fabricate press releases and news stories to promote their clients’ businesses, further perpetuating a culture of deception and misinformation. In this extension of our previous article, Lira Brothers and the Fraudulent PR Agency of Empathy Firm we will delve deeper into the world of fake PR agencies, exploring masterminds behind the curtains & their tactics to lure in unsuspecting clients and their actions’ impact on the public and the media industry as a whole.
Dave Valentine is another mastermind in the world of fake PR, claiming to be running seven different agencies and having stakes in a few of them but unlike when we talked to one of the companies he was able to trick into giving him control— Empathy Firm– and have Lira brothers on record saying that Dave doesn’t own seven companies and doesn’t have any money. Yet there are several podcasts with Dave Valentine making boastful claims.
Seven businesses that he constantly boasts about, yet In several of his podcasts and PR articles, he didn’t mention anything other than Avadel. There are two different companies which are VHS Design Company, Fly Valentine, which he has a connection based on this podcast. Even in the same video, he has another plaque on the wall behind him that has Empathy written on it with the same logo as the fraudulent agency of the Lira brothers, the Empathy Firm whom we exposed previously.
When you look at the first company (a web design company that guarantees sales within five days of the site going up), you see a $20,000 package offering SEO. If you look at the SEO power of this agency offering SEO services, this is what you get (attached, for zeros across the board).
Fly Valentine looks just as fake (see the screenshot showing zero SEO power and zero traffic to the site).
Learn how these highlighted metrics could tell you the fakery of sham PR agencies.
Gavin Lira said that Dave Valentine put $0 into his company in exchange for mentorship in scaling more 7 figure agencies. We can see that these “companies” are clients of each other– with Dave’s fake PR bought by Gavin and the “seen on Forbes” logo plastered across all these sites. Of course, most of these “as seen on” mentions can be bought for under $100, as I demonstrated last week via another honest PR vendor that is truthful about the bought PR they provide.
We decided to connect Andy Valentine (Fly Valentine) with David (it seems he would be the brother) to see its worth. Per Facebook, they are connected. They’re both in Fort Worth, TX – and we can see that Andy lists himself as Director of Business Development at Avadel (Dave’s company that guarantees booked appointments). His LinkedIn page also showed him working under the same title as the defunct Rethink Creative, one of many failed shell agencies put up by Dave Valentine.
There’s nothing we saw that suggests any sketchiness on his part. However, it is interesting to have a family member in a completely different industry working in a marketing / creative space.
Gavin, the founder of the fraud company, the Empathy Firm, confessed that Dave controls his company, where the founder must run all decisions by him.
Yet this company is going under because the Empathy Firm has to employ one of Dave’s friends, even though the firm cannot afford it, and the founder has to live at home, taking zero pay. Gavin mentioned the 35% ownership and control of all decisions until the company hits $2.5MM ARR.
BlitzMetrics is a digital marketing agency which partners with schools to train young adults. As the CEO, I’ve built this company exhaustively and I’ve been mentoring young individuals, assisting students to grow their expertise to manage social campaigns for enterprise clients like the Golden State Warriors, Nike, and Rosetta Stone, and helping them accomplish their dreams for over two decades now.
Tristan, a promising young adult who was installed as CEO, had helped build his network, had his debts. He is a hard worker and a highly intelligent individual. As a 20-something, he has the potential for a long career ahead of him if he stops digging a hole, can swallow his pride, and honor relationships. If the ethics of what he did doesn’t convince him, maybe the law will.
Tristan Parmley and I each own 47.5% of ChiroRevenue. Together we spent about a year building the team and our clientele, utilizing BlitzMetrics systems, income, and my own personal finances to subsidize the ChiroRevenue agency while our clientele was insufficient to cover expenses. Investing in marketing, systems, and people is normal for digital agencies.
Tristan didn’t think this through at all. Every client that we have is valuable to us. We’ve built a long-lasting business relationship with every one of our clients. He created a new company named “Lead Cure” (a rebranding of ChiroRevenue) and stole everything from ChiroRevenue so that he could pretend that he built it on his own.
On Monday, April 12, 2021, Tristan has planned to absorb “ChiroRevenue” into Lead Cure, LLC and redistribute equity of Lead Cure, LLC with the following terms that I, Dennis Yu, and Tristan Parmley will each receive 20% equity.
On Monday, April 12, 2021, Tristan wanted to begin the week with these updates before transitioning to Lead Cure, LLC:
Initially, he wants me to build a Sales Team and eventually sell directly to the clients. As soon as foundation is set, I plan on rolling out the “Content Machine” and building our MRR quickly.
He also stated above that I will be serving for the role of CTO and will be providing some advice on current projects as well as new ones, while he will be in charge of Operations.
On Wednesday, Apr 21, 2021, Tristan was unable to translate to delivery because packages were sold last August and blamed me for it. He says that he inherited a mess that was caused by failure to deliver.
Tristan stated that once he got over $30,000 in MRR, he will not even roll out the Campaign Machine. And they should be onboarding clients.
New Submission from BlitzMetrics Partner
Re: Admin Changes ChiroRevenue -> Lead Cure
On Tue, Apr 13, 2021, this shows that the new team has already started receiving payments, which means that they are “officially hired” as the new starting team.
As stated below, they are ready to move client assets from ChiroRevenue to Lead Cure.
He is converting the ChiroRevenue, Youtube, and Facebook pages so that they don’t have to restart. They also plan to start with Youtube and Facebook for its long-form content teaching Marketing, Operations, and Sales LIVE.
“I’m happy to teach the Operations, but I’m not seasoned with brewing kool-aid from a ‘Marketing’ perspective to get people what they want and to do things on a whim– that’s where Dennis is a pro.” – Tristan Parmley
This is the one whom I mentored for years. Backstabbing me. He should know that there are consequences to these things. Time will tell.
On Tues, Apr 13, 2021, Tristan purposely excluded me from this. Not one of them is new– it’s 100% theft and transfer.
On Mon, Apr 12, 2021, Tristan has already assigned tasks to his new team using the project management tool Click Up.
It was in early February that Tristan hatched a plan to transfer clients out of our project management tool that only he has access to.
In April, he changed the name to Lead Cure and declared that he had a 7-figure agency and locked everyone out.
On Thu, Feb 4, 2021, Tristan said that he is not building a project management tool. He implied that they are just building the box that has some of these features and triggers.
On Tue, Feb 2, 2021, Tristan also stated that they would need to GET WAY from BaseCamp as quickly as possible.
On Monday, April 5th, without warning or discussion, decided to throw away our project management system, Basecamp, and switch to ClickUp. We’ve built significant processes here to tie together multiple tools. So a completely new system is too much, too fast, while being unavailable for the better part of a week.
Re: Team & Company Decisions
On Fri Apr 9, 2021, Tristan stated that BlitzMetrics and ChiroRevenue clients, deliverables, payroll, and teams are 100% separated. ChiroRevenue will sunset as mentioned. Rebranding as Lead Cure, LLC.
Finalizing the current content we have in the queues. Moving the final folders and tasks to Click Up. Upgraded our systems, team, and vision with the Black Diamond Club.
— A public speaking coach who says umm all the time. — A motivational speaker who has to pump themselves up every morning. — A social media marketer who relies upon spamming for business. — A dating coach who has insane relationship problems. — A business coach who has never run a business before.
The coaching profession has absolutely exploded.
Now everyone is an author, speaker, and coach.
Take a weekend seminar and hire a ghost writer– that’s all it takes.
Then pay $500 to get yourself “featured” on Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, and Huffington Post.
Pay $20 on Fiverr to get 5,000 followers each of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pay $3,000 to get a blue check mark on Facebook and Twitter.
People want “instant authority”, and the influence peddlers are happy to fill the need.
Why put in the work to develop a real skill or a real business when you can be an “influencer” by checking the boxes above?
I speak at a few dozen conferences a year. So I can tell you that behind the scenes is a lot of fraud by well-intentioned people.
The time it takes to put together a solid presentation, coordinate logistics, travel all over the place, and so forth, means the time that used to be for hands-on execution disappears.
Dunning-Kruger is alive and well- and knowing what that is will change your life.
I’ve not put together a presentation in years.
Instead, I open a web browser and start sharing, going where the audience has questions.
And I’ve cut way back on travel, since the team needs me, my body needs me to treat it with respect, and I need to focus on priorities.
