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Hi everybody.
It's quiet in here.
I know it's like the unenviable last slot of the day.
Of the conference, I do believe.
So... I've already scared them away!
Oh my god, guys, I'm just getting started here.
Jeez.
Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot.
It should be on.
Oh man.
Oh, yeah, it is on.
Okay, cool.
Cool.
So everybody in here is like, hey, dude, we're just here because...
Hopefully, are there salespeople in the audience?
Cool.
We got...
Reformed?
We got two.
Former.
Former salespeople.
Hey, salespeople out there, you should be in here.
They're not going to come in here.
They all tore down their booths and they're gone already.
This is like the best time, too.
I don't know about that.
So, hey, let's dive into this.
So we're here to obviously talk a little bit about the whole wonderful cybersecurity sales process.
But for those of you who don't know me, I'm Alyssa Miller.
I'm a hacker, an author, a researcher.
I'm CSO, I'm a board member.
I've spent 27 years in tech.
Woo, let me throw all that at you.
Why am I up here?
I've worked for more different types of companies.
I've been on the buyer side.
I've been on the seller side and everywhere in between.
And when I mention being on a board, well, one of the boards that I'm very fortunate to serve on is for an organization called Epiphany Solutions Group, which happens to be a seller of products and services.
So that puts me in a position to work with this character next to me who I'm going to let introduce himself.
Hey guys, my name is Ben Tempas.
I'm the co-founder of ESG or Epiphany Solution Group.
You know, I'm actually relatively new to the tech industry comparatively.
I've only been working in this industry for about since 2018.
But I think one of the really cool things that working with Alyssa and just understanding who people are is building genuine relationships with people and developing partnerships with our clients.
Honestly, just treating them like people first and buyers second.
And if we did that in our industry, I think we'd have a lot less frustration.
And these are just some pictures of our clients, some of my friends.
These are all IT professionals that I've taken in the last six months.
Now wait, are they all clients?
Because I thought I saw at least one founder on there.
Okay, IT professionals.
So you already heard like Ben, you know, we're trying to break him of the ongoing.
Everything's a sale.
You know, you can kind of hear it, but it's cool.
I mean, he talks about ESG with some pride and that's, you know, obviously having a CISO and a reseller working together kind of lends itself to this topic.
You know, Ben and I, we've talked.
How many times?
We talk all the time about stupid salesperson tricks that I bitch and moan and complain about, right?
100%.
And what do you tell me in return?
That it's stupid.
Did you hear that?
Some of them get it.
All right, this is cool.
But the fact of the matter is, in talking with Ben, you also find out that CISO is kind of, well, buyers.
I'll say buyers because not everybody who's got the infamous purchasing authority is a CISO, right?
Awesome.
We have one of those humans right here.
Oh, yes.
That's why I bring that up.
Nice.
So, I mean, let's actually start there.
We'll start with the unpredictable, which is, I mean, Ben.
Let's talk about some of the things you've told me.
What are the problems when you're dealing with buyers?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
I mean, but Alyssa, at the same time, I get it from your perspective, too.
I mean, who loves getting 45 emails in a row?
Like, anybody?
Does anybody like getting asked weird questions about budget?
I noticed you haven't responded to my first 39 emails, so I'm going to send you another.
It's like, I don't understand.
Okay, so I always equate the buying process like dating.
I'm like, do you ever ask to marry a woman on the first date or a partner?
I actually know somebody who did that.
I was like, I don't understand how this process works.
So our goal here is to educate people on what's going on.
But things that I have to face on a daily basis is, you know, so I work with Series A, Series B startups, and we introduce them to organizations like Alyssa's.
And one thing that consistently happens is I'll make an introduction, and then they'll just circumvent me.
Because they want to get the best price, right?
Or I'll book a meeting and say, hey, this is what's going on, no call, no show.
I get it, people have lives.
But at the same time, I think there's a level of respect.
This one is a personal favorite.
When you're working on a project, they give you qualifying material, and then they just ghost you.
That's always my favorite.
Or lastly, you know, I have empathy towards people.
Because I think they tend to need us, like us, we have great energy, and they say, hey, let's work on this deal together, yeah.
And the next conversation is like, oh yeah, I bought that from somebody else.
So I think the goal here today is just how to educate people on how to work through that process.
Right, Alyssa?
Yeah, I mean, so this started off as we were going to talk about stupid salesperson tricks.
That was going to be the whole talk.
And, I mean, you kind of heard, you know, Ben and I got to talking about it, and I started to hear, and it's like, I wasn't really shocked, but it was a good reminder that, yeah, you know, from the buyer side, in my case, the CISO side, we can be as much of a part of the problem as we are the solution.
I mean, we talk about, you know, you're talking about that whole idea of like circumventing.
I've seen this, and it worked for a reseller, not ESG, prior to ESG, a big red boxed company that many of you probably are familiar with because they sold computers for a long time.
We used to run into that too, right?
And you would work with a customer, you'd put in a lot of effort, get them connected to a lot of really cool people that are in your network, and all of a sudden, they're calling that vendor directly, which, free world, right?
I mean, that's your right.
You want to do that.
One, it's generally a, pardon my French, shitty human thing to do to somebody else.
But two, it's actually counterproductive to you as a CISO or as a buyer oftentimes because, yeah, maybe you're thinking to yourself, well, boy, if I work through this reseller, Ben's taken his points off the top, and I could just cut that out and go straight to one of their salespeople,
and I'm going to get a better deal.
Right.
And Alyssa, I think that you bring up an interesting point, is I understand people have certain budgets, right?
I totally understand that.
But what happens when you get that great discount, and all of a sudden, shit hits the fan?
You know?
Like, who are you going to call?
Like, am I going to pick up on the first call?
Nine times out of ten, I do.
But if you call that salesperson, it's like, oh, I just left.
I'm sorry.
Like, how many have experienced that?
Right?
So I think that's how you can develop...
None of them have worked with Microsoft, apparently.
Oh, okay.
Sorry.
No, that was my point.
They never do.
But, you know, I mean, the other part of it, though, is honestly, and thinking from a raw price perspective, and this is the perspective I got from working for said big red company, you know, yeah, maybe in the macro sense, there is some benefit to working with a reseller.
Maybe that's where that term value-added came from, right?
I mean, I would hope that it's not foreign to people, first of all, that working with your reseller, they're working in volume.
And vendors like volume.
They like to sell lots of things, not little onesie-twosie things.
So while they may give you a bigger discount, in theory, you're missing out on the benefits of what that reseller is giving you.
However, what I'll tell you from my personal experience and the other side now, is the really good resellers can also tell you how much more...
God, I'm going to use this... I hate this yucky term, but juice there is to squeeze, so to speak.
When you're in negotiation, your reseller who's been working with that vendor actually has some knowledge of that vendor that maybe you've just met, right?
And so I don't want this... this is not...
I'm realizing as I'm talking right now, it sounds like I'm a reseller commercial.
Like, you should work with resellers because resellers are great.
That is not what I'm saying.
Sometimes they are amazing, sometimes they're not.
But my point is, understand the bigger picture when you're working with a salesperson and understand that they're not just these evil humans who are, you know, as we'll talk about in a little bit, bombarding your email and doing horrible, terrible, ill-advised things.
So, you know, understand there's a lot more, and there is value in if you're working directly with, you know, someone who's made that introduction, whoever they are, they probably, rather than cutting them out of the loop, they might have something more to offer you.
Totally.
I mean, that cover that you figure, that's kind of where we're at.
Right.
I think, Alyssa, what would be great next is, you know, perspectives from both sides, you know?
So, it's really fascinating.
You know, I started my sales journey when I was 13 years old.
I started my first company and have transitioned to the young age of 33.
But what's really fascinating is that a lot of people in corporate America, especially in sales, all they care about is numbers, right?
All they care about is numbers, and they just want to say, hey, you know, the more calls, the more emails, the more touches you give means the better results that you're going to get, right?
And I think that's where some of the problems, Alyssa, kind of lie, right?
Oh, could I write a dissertation on this topic?
So, let's talk about it.
I mean, I actually want to dig into this because it's...
Yeah, we talk about, okay, we've gone over, you know, some of the, at least a couple of things that CISOs do that can be problematic, but obviously there are things.
And I think from the general makeup of the room, I think most of the people here are more on the buyer side.
And we're the ones that are getting the 40,000 emails.
We're the ones who are getting...
I think it's 50.
Okay, maybe 50.
We're getting the unsolicited meeting invitations.
Can I cause... it's CypherCon.
Fuck right off with that shit, okay?
If you're a salesperson who's ever...
if you're any person who's ever done that to anyone, just get out of here, right?
Like, no, no, that's not how you do it.
But , you know, and the one that really has been...
and this is...
so now we're going to get into things that maybe you guys don't even think about as much, but I'm hoping you do because I do.
I've had conversations with lots of salespeople.
I worked in a couple sales orgs, whatever, right?
So I've had these conversations.
And the question always comes back to me when I bitch about what they do in email and their terrible ideas for how to connect, is, well, how do we do better?
Okay, well, one of my pat answers is, if you're going to cold call, cold email somebody, offer something of value.
Totally.
And now we're starting to see this, which is good.
I'm seeing more and more vendors will say, hey, you know, I don't know if this is...
if you're working on the latest, whatever, identity access, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But, hey, we just did this report.
We worked with some research firm.
We've released this report.
Just in case it's of interest to you, here you go.
And that's all the email says.
I'm like, that's great.
And then I go and I look at the link.
And what did they do?
Details.
Exactly.
They put all this tracking shit on this.
And I don't know that it's actually the sales people.
I think this actually comes from their marketing teams.
I mean, they're basically sales, though.
True.
But the reason I bring this up is, A, for me, okay, I'm not clicking that link.
Thanks.
Goodbye.
I will look at the link, and if it's just like a UTM or something, I can strip, and then I can still open up the location from somewhere in a sandbox browser.
Yeah, I'll go grab it still.
But understand, too, yes, I'm the idiot who will put in that much effort to just spite you to go get that file now, right?
But other times that's not even possible.
Because other times, you know, just the link itself is the tracking information that they need.
But here's the problem.
Why do they do that?
Why do they put this tracking information on there?
Thoughts?
Say it loud for the whole crew to hear that word.
Metrics.
The M word.
Metrics.
We are all about metrics everywhere, aren't we?
But let me ask you this question.
If you're a salesperson, and Ben, this is what I asked you, right?
If I'm a salesperson, and I'm trying to, as the name would imply, sell things, does the fact that somebody opened that report mean I've sold anything?
Does it mean that they're going to call me the next day?
Does any of that equate?
Is there any linear, you know, causation there whatsoever?
They don't know anything from that.
But it's like we see at the conferences when it's...
You know they do this, right?
At conferences.
That they're measuring how many people come into their booths.
That's why they want to scan you.
Gotta love those QR codes.
I mean, yes, they want to because they want to build their lead sheet.
But the people who are doing the scanning, most often they're getting rated by how many scans per day they get.
And it is the most useless stat.
So...
You know, Alyssa, I was just talking to a security professional outside.
Worked for a large, large organization here in Milwaukee.
And I was even talking to some other people this week.
You know, I think, honestly, a lot of you buyers, you don't mind learning, right?
Here's what I think the problem is.
I don't think that people in the sales industry understand that they're disrespecting your time.
Specifically, even around cold calling, right?
I've heard a lot of people say, man, I hate, I hate when people cold call me.
What's really interesting, when I first started my business, that's all I did.
Yet, I know the CISO of the largest privately owned company in Illinois.
Right?
I've developed some of these great relationships.
I'm just saying that people respect it.
He pulls this shit all the time.
I'm just saying.
He's subtle.
He won't drop the name, but he'll drop the title.
You know, but I'm just saying, like, I think it's a respect thing.
And I think it's also, like, sales people in the room, like, you need to learn how to give people new ideas and make them think.
Like, I think when you can do that, people appreciate that.
And they actually want to partner with you.
Like, Alyssa, do you agree on that?
Well, yeah.
And I mean, back to the metrics conversation.
It's like, all right, so I'm trying to, if I'm cold calling you, what is my objective?
Well, my objective is to start a discussion.
Right?
Yeah, to have a conversation.
At the end of the day , I want to start a conversation.
Because I know I'm not going to sell you anything if I don't get to talk to you.
So, okay, great.
Well, that's where we're back to how does me opening the file you sent create that discussion?
It might.
I mean, I might actually open it up and be like, wow, you know, Jim Bob Joe, whatever, you know, AI, super, super, super special, whatever, you know, anti-everything monitoring system.
Yeah, this is great.
I want this.
And I might call.
But until the point that I've actually called back, what have you accomplished?
Nothing.
Right?
Well, the marketing people know what message is working.
The marketing people know the message is working.
Hmm, people are interested in that report we did.
Yay!
We still had a shit quarter.
No one cares, right?
And that's the point that I think, you know, from a buyer side we want to make is, hey, understand that this is, you know, if I don't respond, there's a reason.
It's your message doesn't resonate.
Your product isn't something I need.
It's not in my roadmap.
And, oh, by the way, if you think that, like, instant gratification is going to make your quarter better, well, newsflash, I have never worked in any organization in my entire life, other than a sales organization, that worked on quarters for anything.
I don't make my budgets every quarter.
My budget's set in October the year before.
So if whatever you're trying to sell me in March of 2025 is not in my strategic vision, I don't care how big, bad, wonderful, excellent that next-gen AI scrappy thing is that you're going to give me and sell to me at some wonderful discount off of your list price,
I'm still not buying it until at least next year.
So what are we talking about in the next 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 months, maybe?
And that's where I think us, as the buyers, can start to maybe share that perspective.
Because I think that this is something, I don't think, don't get me wrong, as buyers, we're not changing the world.
Sales organizations still go working quarter to quarter.
I have yet to work with one that doesn't.
They get to the end of the quarter, they set their goals by quarter, and it makes sense.
I get why it exists that way.
They're looking to keep flat growth.
You don't want the huge hockey stick in one quarter because you know the next quarter is going to kick you in the ass.
That's the reality.
That's their perspective.
That's what they're working from.
Now, as I think about it, what are we going to do to start playing together a little bit better?
Well, hey, let's start with just being open and honest about who we are as the buyer.
You know what?
This is actually a really cool thing that you're talking about here.
I really like it.
I think it could definitely solve our problem with people trying to exfiltrate our code.
Sorry, I'm borrowing from the last topic, the previous panel.
But you know what?
Hey, I don't have this on my radar at all this year, and I'd like to talk to you more about it, but it's going to be at least a year before we can even make any type of purchase or talk any numbers here.
So can we schedule a demo?
Listen, let's also talk about this idea, and I think this is something else that's kind of fascinating.
With me running this company for the last four years, so if you tell a buyer, maybe even like a reseller, like, hey, you know, I have this big project that we're spending $10 million on, and you meet a salesperson for the first time, and they're like,
oh, my gosh, like, Alyssa, we have the best thing that could help you with your needs.
Are you going to work with that person?
I want you to know.
I have never been approached by a salesperson where I ever felt the desire to say, you're the greatest salesperson ever, oh, please, what can I buy from you?
So what's really fascinating, though, about that, right?
Listen, a multi-million dollar project, what happens if that project goes bad?
Were you guys up here for the career panel earlier?
I would be needing that, right?
Right .
I mean, I say this as someone who's sitting in the middle of, right now, trying to resurrect an IAM program that I inherited that's falling to hell, and it may be the end of my job.
So, you know, consider that for what it's worth.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
It won't be the end of my job, but it may have some problems still.
But, like, so here's what I'm trying to get to at this.
Like, I feel like when I was early on in my career, like, I'd hear Alyssa say, like, oh, I am like, oh, my gosh, like, this is going to be an amazing project.
I'm going to hit my quota.
I'm going to make all this money.
Like, there's, like, if Alyssa and I just met, there's no way in hell she would ever work with me on that.
Like, that is her job.
Like, we need to build trust and show people that we're, like, in it for it.
And probably, Alyssa, on something that big, you have somebody you've been working with for the last 15, 20 years, where you're like, hey, I need some help.
I know you're the shit.
Like, let's work on this, right?
Yeah, usually.
Yeah, exactly.
Not always, though.
You know, and I guess that's the flip side of it, is understand there are opportunities where there might be, hey, I'm really just kind of looking.
Right.
You know, I'm... back to the IAM problem again.
And working with a terrible third-party implementation partner who, you know, crapped the bed.
And those do happen.
But see, that's the difference, is when you sit down and you talk with a customer, and customers, when you're willing to sit and have that conversation with an account manager, account rep, there's about 47,000 different names that they use for themselves now.
Everybody's got a cool title.
They're all down.
The titles, he means.
Enterprise Account Executive.
Yeah, that's my...
Strategic Enterprise Account Executive.
Awesome.
These are great.
Yes, named Account Executive.
Named Account Executive.
So...
Ultra strategic.
Anonymous Accounting Representative.
I don't know who any of my customers are.
I might have said that to a vendor once.
But no, I mean, seriously, the point here being is, you know, when you actually take the time to share information, and not be cagey and distrusting of the salesperson right away.
Now, if they give you reason to be distrusting, yes, don't trust them.
But you can slowly...
This is that building a relationship thing, right?
And , God, are we really...
I'm going to go back to the dating thing you brought up earlier.
I mean, it's relatable.
Fuck.
So, dating, you don't just go in on the first date and start spewing all of your problems.
Well, maybe you do, but that probably doesn't work really well for you.
Or even a friendship.
Like, if you meet somebody, you'll be like, oh, yeah, I'm having GI problems.
That's not something that you do, right?
Except he did.
Like, oh, yeah, I have a problem with IBS.
I just know you wanted to know that.
But seriously, we talk about how do we break this?
How do we fix the cycle?
How do we get salespeople...
We do have a part to play in this, okay?
It's not something that we just are going to see go away because we yell on the Internet, which I might be guilty of doing a lot of.
You know, you do have to be willing to be open and help the people that are annoying us see how not to annoy us.
And it just begins with, all right, maybe I give them a little piece of information.
Maybe I talk to them.
Just take that call and figure out what the hell.
I will tell you that for me personally, it's been really interesting.
Because, of course, the minute you put CISO in your LinkedIn bio, we all know what happens, right?
I mean, you put Director of Security in your LinkedIn bio.
Holy shit!
Then you put VP.
Whoa!
And then you do CISO.
It's like, Jesus!
Stop!
Okay?
You know, it happens.
It's crazy.
But because I have all those calls, I can actually find the good ones.
And there are some, right?
And the cool thing is I've talked to people who are selling things I had zero interest in.
Hey, do you want to buy this really great...
I wish I had the example right now, but it was a SIM.
And it was actually, I think, someone you were working with.
By the way, I don't buy anything from ESG.
Not because they're not awesome, but because that would be a serious conflict of interest.
So just to be clear on that.
But I do talk to a lot of the vendors that they do because they're vendors I'm interested in.
And it was a SIM vendor...
And that's how it should be, by the way.
Yes.
So it's a SIM vendor.
And where I'm going with this, I promise there's a point to this.
It's a SIM vendor.
It had some...
I don't even remember what it was about it, but it was interesting.
It was just interesting.
Okay?
I've worked in cybersecurity 27 years.
I like to see interesting ways that people look at these things.
So I actually took the call.
Now, I'm on Microsoft Sentinel.
I'm an E5 shop.
Like, I'm in Sentinel.
Love it or leave it.
Right?
I'm not going to go buy a new SIM.
That would be...
I don't know how I'd write that business case.
But wait, we use AI.
Yes.
Stop.
Stop .
Co-pilot.
Evil.
I'm going to just call you Co-pilot from now on after that.
Double entendre.
But no.
But what was cool was two things.
One, I got to see...
It was actually kind of a neat product.
And I actually am feeling bad that I can't remember the name of it right now, because I would love to actually share it with you.
But more importantly was I got connected with that account manager.
That account manager, after our first conversation, set up a call with their CEO.
Okay, cool.
Their CEO came to Milwaukee from Atlanta-ish, I want to say.
Sat down with me.
Took me to dinner right over here at Mason Street Grill.
And we sat down and we talked.
Well, he ended up networking me with a bunch of different people.
I got connected to a whole bunch of cool new people.
I ended up getting connected to the CEO of...
Ontinue, our friends.
Guess who my MDR partner is now?
It's Ontinue.
And me and Jeff Hayden actually have a really good relationship now.
Jeff Hayden being the CEO of Ontinue, sorry, I should be clear.
But that's, you know, there are benefits to you.
You get to learn about a cool new thing if the salesperson comes with the right people.
And be clear about your expectations, what you want them to come with.
Hey, I don't want a sales pitch.
Bring in a sales engineer, I want to see this thing in action.
I don't want a caged demo, I want the real thing.
Show me what this looks like.
Sales people, you also need to communicate that to your leadership.
Like, CISOs don't care about your five-step, eight-step, ten-step process.
Be like, oh, we can't do a demo until we have a discovery call.
Like, who cares?
Like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, you know?
And this is a fact.
How many of you have ever had trouble getting a demo on a first call?
Right?
They want to come in, well, we want to talk to you and learn about your organization.
They play it off like, we're going to learn something about your organization, have this grand conversation.
And listen, that's the thing, like, me coming into this industry back in 2018, that I did not understand, which is why I started my own company.
I'm like, what do you think, like, sales people, what do you think that you could teach a technical buyer?
Like, on a first call.
Like, the answer is probably not much.
Unless you were in IT and then made the evil switch.
Right?
Joking, but...
So many comments.
But, so this is again back to what Ben said early on.
It's understanding that who you're talking to is a human being.
In general, they actually do want to do good.
Okay, I mean, now yes, they are out there, they are absolutely profiteering, that is literally the nature of their job.
That's what they get paid to do, is make money for the company.
So, yes, keep that in mind, but also keep in mind that most of your sales people are going to understand that pissing off the person they're trying to sell to probably isn't going to fly really well.
So, by being clear with your expectations up front, hey, you know what, I'll take a call, you can walk me through your deck, I really don't anticipate we're going to be buying anything right now.
Be legit, I mean, that's an easy one.
If you do want to see the product, be clear, because it will save you, it will save you stress too.
And I've done this, like I said before, just hey, you know what, I'll do this call, but I don't want a PowerPoint-based demo or anything.
Make sure you've got somebody who can actually put this thing through the paces and can operate off script, because I'm going to want to dig into specific areas of the product as I see it.
That one scares them, by the way.
Wait, you want me to bring maybe a sales engineer or whoever and let them run off script through the product?
No!
But when you tell them it's what you want, they kind of listen.
They might be resistant, like you said.
I mean, they might be, oh, we want to introduce you to our company and tell you that we're here in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and here's all the logos on the big logo screen that's got companies we couldn't possibly actually be doing business with.
I've got news for that vendor.
Canceled.
If people can't listen on a first impression, what's going to make you think that they're going to listen once you're actually a customer?
That's the thing that drives me nuts.
So what else can I do?
I'm a CISO.
What else do I want to do?
You brought up an interesting point, Alyssa, about setting expectations up front, but say that person that called you 30 times, 40 times.
We have to be a part of the solution to the problem, right?
Maybe we have a 30-minute conversation with them and say, hey, I want to take five minutes at the end of this call, and I want to say, hey, I understand that you have a job.
I understand that you're doing things, but you didn't do a great job with this, this, and this, and it would actually lead you to be a better human being if you did these things.
Because I know when I've gotten that feedback early on in my career, I actually took it to heart, right?
Now, not all people are going to understand that, but the ones that are trying to grow and learn, and the ones that are probably in this room right now, will actually take that.
You know?
So props to the salespeople in the room trying to learn and better their careers as well.
Same with the buyers.
Is it still just Daniel back there getting beat up?
No, Jake's back there.
I know Jake's back there, supporting me.
Alright, we've got at least two.
Yeah, and that's the thing.
It's interesting, because as a CISO, the first thing I would tell you is you don't owe anyone your time.
And you don't, right?
But at the same time, if we're going to, as I might be known to do, complain, moan, scream into the voids of the internet, etc.
about how awful salespeople are doing things, we can help make it better by taking the time, maybe with just one or two...
I mean, I've engaged with some through email.
I did, literally, and I came off pretty snarky, but credit to her, she came right back and was willing to make a conversation out of it.
It was one of those where it was, I noticed you haven't responded to my other emails, so I wanted to send you one more, and this was email ten.
I literally went back and checked.
This was number ten.
So I sent her a pretty snarky response, something along the lines of, you know, I didn't respond to the first nine, and I guess you got me because now I'm responding to number ten, but I'm not responding to you for anything productive to your sales goals,
you know, kind of thing.
And we came back, and she came back, she had a pretty good conversation.
Some of it was her woe is me story, my marketing team does this, I don't even send these, they use Hootsuite and it sends it on my behalf, I get it, but maybe you need to have a conversation with your marketing team about what they're doing to your sales process,
because it's killing you.
Right?
But it led to a good conversation.
And that's what I'm saying, and it was just, that conversation never left email.
But now it's information, think about it, she's got that email chain of her and I going back and forth, me telling her how bad her marketing team is screwing up things for her.
What do you think happens if she takes that email chain, which I invited her to do, back to her marketing team?
Hmm, maybe, just maybe, somebody might hear something.
It is, I can tell you from working the product side, and working for both a startup at one point, and a reseller, that in most cases, your product vendors, they do actually listen if they get feedback like that.
Like actual demonstrable, constructive, hey, this is a problem, you need to stop doing this kind of stuff.
So it is sometimes worth taking that time.
But not all the time.
Well, not with you.
Of course, of course, not me.
You know, listen, I think the other thing that I feel like a lot of sales people don't understand, and I read this book called The Phoenix Project, has anybody read The Phoenix Project?
Yeah, sales people, you need to read that book, because you actually understand what an IT professional goes through on a daily basis.
This job is not a 9 to 5, by the way.
If you didn't know that, read the book.
You know?
So I think it would also be , you know, to give some people perspective on what you go through on a daily, weekly basis, you know?
You want me to give that perspective here, or you're just suggesting that I give that perspective to sales people?
Uh, maybe a little bit of both.
Because I think most of the people in this room probably understand my perspective pretty well.
I'm hearing the phones ding while we're here, right?
I mean, we know what this is.
You go to a conference and you don't always get to leave the phone behind.
Let me take a step back.
How many emails do you get in a given day?
Do I have to admit it?
Yes.
Do I have to admit that I actually did the research to find out this number?
I wanted to know!
Honestly, I really actually wanted to know.
And thank you Copilot, by the way.
I badmouthed them before.
I will say thank you to Copilot for this.
I think I can trust it.
I don't think it was a hallucination, although I kind of thought it was the first time I saw the number.
It was 1,732 emails a day.
And how many of those emails are important?
A hundred.
And how many do you actually read?
Sales people, seriously!
Listen to this!
And how many do you respond to?
Out of those that actually need to be responded to, it's about maybe 15.
Right, exactly.
And then you hear these sales people bitching and complaining Oh, they don't look at my emails.
Oh, they didn't come to my event.
Oh, that's because they're getting 1,000 emails a day.
Don't let a sales person pressure you.
Exactly , 100%.
It is your time.
Oh, 100%.
That's why when I emailed her back, I admitted, like, okay, I'm actually giving you this.
I'm giving you the satisfaction that, well, you haven't responded to the first nine, how about number 10?
It actually worked.
You got me to respond, but you got not the response you wanted.
But yeah, you don't owe anybody your time, is the point.
It is your time.
And to be fair, 1,700 emails, a lot of those are automated.
I get all the PIM activations, so I get all those alerts.
Those are fun.
Are they, though?
Yeah, because it's fun when you find out that your IT team doesn't think anyone reads them.
And let's see, I had the lyrics to Hey There Delilah was in one.
Another was a very existential single person, multi-person conversation about just the state of the world.
And note, there's no minimum length to these things.
They're just required to put something right now.
Sorry, I totally digressed.
Back to sales people.
There's something else that I want to talk about.
We're talking about strategies, how to improve, right?
I want to be super blunt here.
Email and calling is the lowest form of business development.
I like her.
Yeah.
Right, totally.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah .
That's a great approach.
The thing that I've learned over the last two years, though, is I've learned in the art of the referral And working with it professionals to say, hey, Great example.
I had a customer of mine before I started my company.
They were giving me a good amount of business.
It was over seven figures and they couldn't do anything for the first three years.
A lot of people in my position would be, that's not fair.
I can't believe that.
You're not my friend anymore.
But what I did do is I partnered With this individual.
Happens to be one of my best friends.
And the guy gave me 40 plus referrals.
Gave me over $250,000 in new business.
That is the thing that we as sales professionals need to get better at.
We need to get smarter.
And so much so that you can partner with people like Alyssa.
Alyssa can't partner with me, but what she can do is say, hey, Ben, There's this amazing technology partner.
You need to work with them.
And as a buyer, by the way, Now maybe you're not on the board of a reseller and you don't have that opportunity.
I do use that.
I will tell them, I'll take a call and I'll be like, look, We've already got a chosen IAM solution right now.
We're knees deep in the rollout of this.
We're getting PAM launched.
Whatever.
I'll take a look at your cool tool.
You know who I'm talking about, actually, because this is a live example.
And I get in there and it's like, well, I'll take a look at it.
I'm probably not going to buy it.
In fact, I can almost guarantee you I won't.
But I'm also a reseller, or I'm on the board for a reseller.
And I regularly recommend products to them.
So if you want to still sit down and talk about this, that might be an avenue where I can get you some help.
And you'd be amazed.
A lot of times they do.
Sometimes they're like, I'm not really interested in channel partnerships.
Which, if they say that, well, one, that's a really dumb comment.
Because that's not necessarily what I was suggesting.
But two, like, why wouldn't you still have a conversation?
But, so name it.
Whether you have that opportunity or not, you do have the opportunity of your peers.
Like, hey, you know what?
I might take a look at this.
We're not going to be buying, but this sounds really interesting.
And I have a few peers who might have some interest in it if I think this looks good.
No, I'm not going to give you their names or contact information to contact directly.
But show me your product, and if I think they would be interested, I'll tell them about it and have them call you.
Because that, again, that's where... now, too, you'll also start to figure out who the smart account reps are and who the, you know, ones are that are just pounding the pavement, so to speak.
Alyssa, I think we have ten minutes left.
I know some people got some questions, so let's...
Over here?
Okay, then we'll get over here.
This is a fascinating point, and it's very, very, very true.
The lack of... hang on, I want to restate it really quick.
I'll come right back to you, because they're also recording.
So the point that's being made up here is that, you know, a lot of times you go to these...
the websites for these vendors, and the information you can find is honestly insulting, I would call it, as a CISO, because it's at such a high level with all sorts of cool animations and whatever.
Yeah , it's... none of it's technical.
So...
So you had a second point, though, you were going to make.
Yeah, you know...
Yeah, so ultimately, I mean, that becomes the proponent for what we would call a loss leader, right?
Like, what are you going to put out there?
And loss leaders can be freebie giveaways, they can be, you know, seriously discounted things, whatever.
But that is a valuable way, and yes, Apple did do that really well with students, with giving away devices, or highly discounted devices, either directly to students, or they also did it back in my young days, which feels like way too long ago.
You know, it was even the box tops for kids, if any of you remember that?
Like, my school built an entire Apple lab on that thing.
So, those are great points.
Let's go over here, you had another one, and then we'll get to you.
So, the question is, do I ever give up to my vendors, kind of the details of my budget cycle?
When are we setting budgets, etc., etc., etc.?
Two questions here.
The other question is, what could a vendor do to ask for that information?
So, first of all, yes, I do.
I have no problem with letting them know.
Why wouldn't I want them to know?
Because they're going to do one of two things.
The smart sales people will slow their roll a little bit, but work on building a relationship and having conversations and figuring out, how do I solidify this, so that when they start talking budget, I'm top of mind in her head.
They love that word, top of mind.
That's the top of mind you want.
So, I'm not shy about it, because there's no reason for me to be cagey.
And I can be very direct and say, you know what?
We're budgeting in October.
I don't know that this is going to make it into that budget this year coming up, either.
Like, this is just, I've got a couple other priorities I've got to focus on.
I don't have a problem telling them that, because as you tell them that, yeah, you might get some who kind of keep pushing a little bit, but then that tells me something.
That tells me how often do I want to keep returning their phone calls or their emails, or how quickly do I move them to my spam bin and block them, right?
I mean, those are the types of things.
That's where I will personally, because I'm a bit of a jerk, I will have a very direct conversation with them first.
Like, hey, you know what?
You need to stop, because I'm just going to be done with you.
Yeah, they're gone.
You know, I think the other thing that I think about when I hear that is, first off, that's what a good reseller partner is for as well.
And if they're not giving that information to you, you need to find a new one.
And then secondly... Say that from the perspective of who needs to find a new reseller?
The buyer.
Yeah .
And then secondly is, you know, if maybe you're a direct company, if they're not giving that information to you, that's not a real opportunity.
I feel like somebody like Alyssa, they know what they want, they need it, it's part of their budget, it's part of their metrics for the year.
They should know that stuff.
So if they're not going to give you that information, it's not a real opportunity.
I would just move on to the next one.
Yeah, I mean, and it's my opinion from a salesperson perspective.
And this actually annoys some people on the buyer side too, like my peers, and I don't understand why.
They'll ask about, you know, if it's a project or something, are you thinking, you can literally just say, are you thinking this is going to be like in the next year?
Or is this just something you're looking to discover more about?
You can, as a seller , have that conversation.
I wouldn't go to them and say, so when do you guys set your budget for the year?
They'll do it.
Leading questions are great.
And that's how you won't get it.
That's how I won't tell you is if you come out with that.
But no, I mean, I'll be honest with them and just because, again, I want them to know.
And sometimes that is a nice easy way to get them to kind of slow their roll a little bit too.
Alright, we had a question over here.
Thank you for the conversation.
How should they maybe approach
potential customers?
Yeah.
So, from my perspective, being a boutique firm, we help startups find architecture partners.
So you should find a boutique firm that knows about organizations that do that, is my first thing.
And then just looking for organizations that are pretty innovative across your... and some of them might not be here in the Midwest.
I don't want to say that companies here in the Midwest aren't as innovative, but I found that West Coast based accounts like, I mean, I have a customer right now that I know that they've done like over a hundred architecture partnerships.
But they're like one of the only ones that I know, right?
So those are things that I would look for, but that's just my opinion.
Alyssa, what do you think?
Yeah, I mean, the design partnership idea is definitely expanding grossly.
To the point that I now have people like Splunk coming to me and say they want me to sign up for a design partnership.
Pardon my French, fucking Splunk, what are you talking about?
But, I'm sorry, I had to pick on Splunk because it was them and I have a colleague who knows them very well.
But by the same token, so I do think that that's effective.
And I'll be honest with you, I've done it now in my organization, we as an organization have done it with some reasonable players.
You see Kribble out here, I don't think Axonius is out there, but those are two names.
Axonius is huge now.
We were in very early with them and a lot of the features you're going to find in Axonius, and this is not an endorsement, I'm just sharing this as a case study.
A lot of the features, if you go and buy Axonius today, you're going to find features in there because Epic Global told Axonius we need this.
And the great thing about architecture partnerships too is you get everything that you want and you get it for about half the price.
Usually.
If not, more.
But it's going to take time, it's going to take energy, you have to have resources in order to do those things, but it can be a pretty good idea.
The other thing I would say from the startup side is obviously the big thing you're up against is the uncertainty, right?
No one knows who you are, they don't know how good your product is actually going to turn out to be, they don't know how strong your business is going to turn out to be.
No one wants to get too deep involved with a startup that's going to hit series A and then fall on their face and they disappear and now this thing that I was well embedded with is no longer supported and that becomes a problem.
And especially in today's, we used to, the risk management factor for that back in the day was we had the escrow clauses for the code, right?
If nothing else, we knew we would at least get the code for it so we can take it on ourselves.
Well, now everything's SaaS so we don't even get that.
So to that end, where I'm going with that is I would say being more flexible in
offering...
I don't want to call it bake-off because it's more of a production, more of a side-by-side production kind of runoff POC, getting... the more flexible you can be with that, the better chance you have to build early trust.
If I go to a, pardon me for saying it, but they're the big behemoth Cisco of the world and try to get a POV with them fucking nightmare, okay?
It's bad.
And I say that as someone who's got insider knowledge of them because I know people that work there and I was at... oh, I almost said it... the big red people who are a huge strategic partner of Cisco so I know how to play that game and I still can't get it with them,
right?
So that's where you have some ability to be very agile that gives you the opportunity to do two things and this is the benefit to you beyond just a sale.
Even if that sale goes nowhere, you're going to get some really cool things you're not going to get any other way.
You're going to get tried, proven, real-world feedback because they're not going to hold back.
They're going to tell you why they don't want to buy your product and they've just run it in a real-world environment.
It wasn't just some POC where they had test cases.
No, you let them work with them on something where we can actually run this in a state side-by-side with something else I mean obviously a lot of this depends on what your product is or is but it gets you that and it also sets you up again now where your name is out there.
Someone remembers your name, oh yeah, they're talking to a colleague.
One of my CISO buddies comes up and says, hey we're looking at this new thing.
Have you ever heard of it?
Yeah, actually I have.
We didn't buy it but it was actually a really cool tool.
I've seen that work out well.
I know freemium approaches are another thing.
I think that's kind of lost favor now a bit and for good reason.
It was an interesting idea but it's proven I think in most cases not to work out so I would stay away from it at this point.
Last thing I would say is you should be on stage educating people on cool things you're doing.
That's why I dragged his ass up here.
Yes, sir.
Distinguished gentleman in the front row.
It seems to me like the common issue here on both sides of this is actually marketing.
It's not a purchaser versus sales person but the intersection with where marketing sets expectations you mentioned the quarterly goals.
A lot of times I try to be like you mentioned open about my budget is set for the year.
My tactical plan, my strategic plan.
You're in my strategic plan but you're not in it this year.
But I'm almost always not getting an SVP or hire in sales in that original talk and that person I'm talking to is a junior just looking to meet their numbers so they don't get laid off.
So how do we just like get the marketing team here and like just beat them with pillows filled with nickels to understand that they're not helping us.
Carl has chosen violence today.
I do think a lot of, to your point, so first of all, yeah, marketing is at the heart of a lot of this but also I think some of the things you said marketing is not at the heart of.
Marketing is not the one measuring, at least in my experience, is not the one measuring those metrics.
That is absolutely the sales team.
Sales team is there.
They've got goals.
They set them at the beginning of the year.
They do their big SKOs which marketing may or may not be invited to and they're going to set numbers and they're going to set quarterly goals based off of that and then they're going to set their milestones and all the things that they do.
That whole rat race there is a very sales org driven item.
But yes, there are a lot of things and I think part of it is I'll have you repeat that in a second.
I think some of it is we do need, ultimately sales is the interface to the marketing and so for us as cyber security practitioners who are buying, you know, that's our vehicle to get that information back to the sales person.
So to ask your question about how do we do it without dragging marketing and beating them to death which is, I'm paraphrasing, but kind of what you just said.
I don't know.
Well, it's like beating them with a pillowcase full of nickels.
A little selfish plug here.
You've also got to find a boutique firm like mine.
Like my business, well seriously, like literally this happened to Melissa.
Some annoying sales person kept on reaching out to her that I knew, so I called the founder and I was like, stop.
And then it stopped.
You know, so... Can I talk about it?
No.
Dammit.
Let's not.
But anyways, that's like part of some of my strategic alignment is we know the CEO, we know the VCs, we know all the top level executives because that way we can have strategic alignment to make sure that we don't piss off the community, right?
So, I mean, with that, I think we're probably good unless you have any...
No, I think we've got to wrap up because I think we're at 4 o'clock and there's like people outside the signs.
I think we're getting protested.
We appreciate it.
I do have to ask really quick.
How do you like this format as opposed to a regular talk?
Was this cool or was this like just too informal?
Very different mindsets rather than similar.
Yes, it was definitely two different opposed mindsets, so...
Yeah?
Okay.
I only ask because this is the first time we've ever done this.
It was just an idea we had and I figured, what the hell, let's give it a shot at CypherCon.
They'll listen to anything.
Love you all, seriously.
Take care, you guys.
Yeah, thank you so much.