Tristan Parmley | Thief Marketing Officer (I Never Saw it Coming)

Imagine you started a business, grew it from almost nothing to 80 clients, and installed a promising young adult as the CEO. You built his network, paid off his credit card bills, and trained him how to run a business.

Then one day, he locks you out of the accounts, renames everything in his new agency’s name, and declares that, overnight, he built a 7 figure business, while at the same time declaring the first business bankrupt.

He was hoping you’d just sign over everything to him, the clients, intellectual property, money, physical property. After all, he says, everything was a “gift,” just like the $20,000 in video and computer equipment he packed up and took with him while no one was at the office.

You can be sure that I confronted him about this.

When things didn’t go the way Tristan Parmley intended…

So rather than own up to his mistakes, he attacked me, his so-called “mentor.”  Hacked my bank accounts and personal email, even boasted about how he got in, hoping that personal attacks would distract others and himself from the crimes he’s committed.

The reality is that he wants to win so badly he keeps reassuring himself in social media posts that “winning at all costs” is the only way to go. This delusion has led him to believe that I, his mentor, not only have zero value, but also a thief like him.

From the outset, he was in sole control of the bank accounts, controlling the money in and money out.  I never had access.  I did contribute $20,000 a month to cover development, getting clients to the steady-state retainer phase, and paying for his college friends. I’m talking about flights, meals, hotels, for people like Josh Matthews, who was his college friend on our payroll, but who didn’t do much, work-wise.

Tristan Parmley is a hard worker and highly intelligent. As a 20-something, he has the potential for a long and fruitful career, but only if he stops digging a hole, can swallow his pride, and honor his relationships. If his ethical barometer can’t convince him that he’s done is wrong, maybe the law will.

Tristan Parmley and I each own 47.5% of ChiroRevenue. Together we spent about a year building a team and clientele, utilizing Content Factory systems, income, and my own personal finances to keep the ChiroRevenue startup afloat while we waiting for our clientele to be sufficient enough to cover operating expenses. Investing in marketing, systems, and people is normal for digital agencies.

Dennis Yu and Tristan Parmley teaching a webinar together
Dennis Yu and Tristan Parmley at an event
Dennis Yu and Tristan Parmley making a deal!

ChiroRevenue was positioned to be very lucrative. We had over 80 clients, although not all had been transitioned to monthly retainers. There is a cost to building a solid reputation and to on-board clients with our digital plumbing.  Normally, this takes 90 days, but we took a lot longer, and hadn’t converted most clients to monthly retainers until March. 

These clients were worth over $51K a month of recurring income in April and had become worth over $83K by May, according to Tristan. Our business evaluation was $1.25M as of late 2020 when we brought in a 5% equity investor.

In early 2021, Tristan began blaming me for the challenges he was facing delivering to our clients. In our division of tasks, I brought in the clients and he was responsible for the execution of the client packages. Our team was young but they were getting stronger every week.

I believe his lack of experience, the stress of building a business from scratch, and the challenges he faced delivering for our clients ultimately got the best of him and he began to act irrationally. He began to blame me for his failure.

On Tuesday, March 30th, he disappeared after a reply-all email to our team members about how my recommendations to make the company profitable won’t work.

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I redacted the rest of the email due to its length.

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I redacted the rest of the email due to its length.

On Thursday, April 1st, he flew to Florida for 4 days with no warning or planning, leaving our employees to wonder about the state of their jobs and what to do with our clients.

Then on Friday, April 2, 2021, Tristan hacked my personal and business accounts with Chase Bank, and my personal gmail account.

On Monday, April 5th, he accused me of “snooping” in his Instagram account – absolutely sure I had logged in, though I did not. Why would I?

Late on Monday, April 5th, without warning or discussion, he decided to throw away our project management system, Basecamp and switch to ClickUp. We’d built significant processes at that point, to tie together multiple tools. So he should have understood that a completely new system is too much, too fast, while being unavailable for the better part of a week.

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Still later on Monday, April 5th, he blatantly ignored multiple messages from clients, saying we don’t have to respond to clients or team members if they aren’t using the right threads. My response to him was that we always respond to clients, then direct them to the correct method to ask questions.

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On Tuesday, April 6th, he confirmed he locked me out of access, so I was unable to work on key projects. He then refused to grant me access, despite the urgency of critical projects and multiple requests.

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On Wednesday, April 7th, he sent out company-wide emails saying he’s shutting down ChiroRevenue, firing everyone, and halting all clients except for the few he had before.

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On April 8th, 2021, Tristan went “secret rogue.” He locked me out of our ChiroRevenue Google Drive, which contained much of my intellectual property, training, and our client documentation. After locking me out he duplicated the drive, stealing all of the information I had been working so hard to create.

https://youtu.be/oI7Mh_Dh6HY

On Wednesday, April 16th, Tistan maliciously kicked me out of our Zoom account and deleted a webinar I had with 400+ people moments before the meeting was supposed to start. This cost our company at least $50k in lost sales and hurt our reputation.

Tristan boasted about this during a recorded team call. Note, his Zoom account still said “ChiroRevenue” and the file name was labeled as Lead Cure, recorded on 5/12/2021.

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He renamed all ChiroRevenue assets and accounts to Lead Cure, declaring he built a successful agency in just a few weeks.

He literally took our ChiroRevenue Facebook, ChiroRevenue LinkedIn, ChiroRevenue YouTube, and everything else– and just changed the names on them.

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But these were and still are ChiroRevenue clients.

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On April 23, Tristan tried to transfer the clients and synchronization of clients’ accounts in the Content Factory SEMRush account to the Lead Cure SEMRush account.

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Three months after transferring these clients, he then said ChiroRevenue is bankrupt and has no assets. And improperly files a motion to shut down the company.

Tristan stated he’s not leaving ChiroRevenue, but at the same time transferred assets to his new agency.

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You all know I willingly give my systems away for free. I love to teach. But what makes this different is that he stole all the chiropractors we were serving in ChiroRevenue. He told all our clients terrible lies about me and asked them to no longer communicate with me. He stole my IP, damaged client relationships, and lost 24 of our clients as he transitioned them to his new Lead Cure agency, 27 of which are currently still on his income sheet.

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This is the extent of the client list on Tristan’s income sheet. All those in green were active ChiroRevenue clients. You can see that most of his Lead Cure clients are actually ChiroRevenue clients. Of the 27 clients Tristan stole and convinced to stay with him, 18 are currently paying at least $20k in Monthly Recurring Revenue with more to come.

I have this information because Tristan foolishly took all of the ChiroRevenue accounts I was 50% owner of and changed the name to Lead Cure. What he didn’t know is that I can still view his income statement, his client list, and employee names and salaries, among many other things.

He simply renamed our old documents, rather than creating new ones, creating new intellectual property, and going out to get new clients. I can see that he renamed ChiroRevenue documents as Lead Cure.

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Tristan sent this email to a client with screenshots to our own files.

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He even stole and continues to use the ChiroRevenue email list.

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All of our digital assets are also currently being used by him as Lead Cure, such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts, to name a few.

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Note that hovering over the ChiroRevenue link shows the actual Facebook page

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In LinkedIn, he changed the logo but didn’t rename the company. Nor did his employee whose identity is hidden here.

As of June and later, Tristan was still operating under ChiroRevenue accounts:

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Tristan didn’t realize everything that was owned by ChiroRevenue has value.

Every client that ChiroRevenue had, paying or not, had value. All of the future clients ChiroRevenue has is due to the ongoing marketing and business relationships we have built over time. All the documents, systems, branding, SEO, email lists, etc. have an inherent value that is not diminished when stolen. Nor can one claim they have no value. He created a new company name, Lead Cure, and stole everything from ChiroRevenue so that he could pretend that he built it on his own.

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Tristan is claiming to be a 7-Figure agency. But is it true? Is it true if the majority of your income is from stolen clients? If you notice in the income sheet above, it shows the monthly MRR they currently have is around $29k/mo. That is far from the $83k/mo an agency would need to claim the 7-Figure agency title.

He even broke into my studio in Las Vegas and stole $20k worth of my audio and video equipment claiming it was his. This is a small sampling of all the items I bought for the business.

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In Tristan’s Instagram Story, you can see some of these items.

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Here is hacking my gmail and bank account, gleefully boasting to others that I’m broke.

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Tristan claims that ChiroRevenue had zero value and he can unilaterally push me out and close the company. You can see that ChiroRevenue was valuable and was growing. Stealing assets doesn’t make them less valuable. It is clear that ChiroRevenue was the entire foundation of Lead Cure. If there was no value there would have been no need to steal any of these assets.

Since Tristan has hacked my accounts, he also locked me out of access to the payment processor used to process ACH (Automated Clearing House) payments from my clients. He then proceeded to cancel tens of thousands of dollars in monthly recurring deposits set to go to my account and instead set these deposits to go to his own bank account.

Even as of August 28th, he is still utilizing ChiroRevenue financial systems to pay invoices, clearly commingling Lead Cure and ChiroRevenue finances. How is it possible that ChiroRevenue is still being invoiced for services after everything he has done and claimed? Because Lead Cure is ChiroRevenue. This is nothing more than rebranding, not creating a separate company. All of this being a ploy to steal my 47.5% of the ChiroRevenue.

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If ChiroRevenue was worth nothing, as Tristan and Shawn insist, why are all the assets and accounts still the same?

Who is Shawn, you may be asking? I’m referring to Shawn Dill, the crook that is puppeteering Tristan. He’s the one who has been advising Tristan at each step on how to steal assets and play games. Of course, Shawn has benefited nicely– we caught him red-handed stealing 50% of the company’s profits each month.

How could it now be worth 7 figures, with the same client base, and same systems?

Perhaps they switched to a new project management system and hired a few of Tristan’s friends, new to digital marketing, but what are the significant changes?

These are the facts about what happened. Unfortunately, I trusted Tristan. Not only did he steal from me, he also hurt me and many employees and clients in the process. His sole motivation seems to be a desire for power and money without a thought that his “partners” and clients are actually paying the highest price.

There is a lot to learn from this situation. Trust is very valuable. Always be willing to give it, but be sure to document the agreement legally as well.  Have a purpose in life that is beyond making money. Help people and give the best of yourself to your clients while giving and receiving trust. Fortunately, our documents of incorporation and bylaws are crystal clear about our ownership of ChiroRevenue and the fiduciary responsibilities. This is my saving grace.

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He thought he could remove me from ChiroRevenue as if I were an employee. To just declare that I’m not in the company anymore and have no ownership.

Could you imagine if I went into your garage and wrote myself a contract that I signed myself, saying your car is now mine?  Then rationalized the theft, saying that you didn’t take good care of the car– the windows are dirty.  So the car needs “liberating”.

He’s telling clients that Lead Cure acquired ChiroRevenue and that ChiroRevenue doesn’t exist:

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He wishes it doesn’t exist anymore– but our company is still active.

The quick search on the Nevada Secretary of State confirms it:

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An alleged acquisition or sale to Lead Cure, but there’s no documentation or approval of this, largely because Tristan wanted to grab the assets for free and shut down the company.  But we have a company, shareholders, legal agreements and other things.

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Many young adults believe that social media is a fast track to success. Kids like Tristan Parmley are talented and hard-working. But being “determined to win at all costs, no matter what” as he’s said, is not the right way to do things.

Seasoned business owners like us know that quick “wins” evaporate just as quickly.

There are two sides to every story. He could claim other people stole from me, too– that’s true. Or that I spend a couple hours a week on Clubhouse. 

Fundamentally, business is about long-term relationships, as opposed to quick and clever tool usage.  Let this be a lesson to anyone in business to value trust over hustle.

Tristan Parmley— if you’re reading this, it’s not too late to make things right.  Swallow your pride and own up to what happened, even though it’s ugly.  It’s easier to attack me, claim you were “rescuing” these clients, or say that all the things you stole were a “gift”. If I had the same opportunity as a twenty-something year old, I’d reconsider, too.

Dennis Yu

About the Author

Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads.  He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations.You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel.You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.