Fixing Cybr Donut's pipeline crisis: proven strategies for rapid cybersecurity pipeline generation - Joseph Barringhaus, VP of Marketing, Sonrai Security

[00:00:00] Hey, it's Andrew. And just quickly before we start this episode, I want to tell you about one of my favorite podcasts. It's the Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax Podcast. Not only does it have a great name, it also has a really good format that's interesting. The two hosts are both named George. That's not what's interesting about it. It's that George K is on the vendor side and George A is a CISO on the customer side. And they have real conversations, sometimes with guests, about the world of vendor customer

[00:00:29] interactions. They're not afraid to call out bad behavior on both sides and talk about the weird and wonderful nature of this world of ours in cybersecurity. Recent favors of mine are the one about building trust called taking a flamethrower to FUD and buzzword mumbo jumbo, and also the one with someone who's a field CISO and advisor to startups called how security buyers think and go to market strategies for young companies. I'm not getting paid for this promo. I just really enjoy the show that two George's

[00:00:59] PUD on. Check it out. It's the Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax Podcast. Now on with this episode.

[00:01:05] Pipeline generation is a hot topic right now, mostly because it's so damn hard to do. There are a lot of sales teams out there right now in cyber operating on reasonably anemic pipelines. Cyber Donut, of course, is in their own perilous position. You know, they've got to get to that 10 million ARR number by the end of next year. And they certainly right now do not have the pipeline to even come close.

[00:01:29] Which is why I really wanted to get Joseph Baringhouse onto the podcast. Now, Joseph had an unusual start in cyber. So listen up for that. But he's now running marketing at Sonri Security, a cloud security company. And we asked him, how would he advise Bill Wallace, the Cyber Donut CEO, on things to do to rapidly build pipeline now. He talks about how he would do it, the campaigns he would run. He gives examples. He gives tips.

[00:01:58] He explains why he would do some things versus others. If you are wondering how to do pipeline better, some ideas about how to do pipeline generation better, you don't want to miss this one.

[00:02:11] I'm Andrew Monaghan, and this is the Cyber Security Go-To-Market Podcast, where we answer the question, how can Cyber Donut get to $10 million of ARR by the end of 2025?

[00:02:32] All right. Well, Joseph, on the podcast today, we're helping out Cyber Donut. Thanks for agreeing to come on as a special advisor.

[00:02:40] In your experience and your role as the VP of marketing at Sonri, you've done a lot of demand gen work over the last few years.

[00:02:48] And as we know, Cyber Donut is in a hole right now.

[00:02:52] For those that are new to Cyber Donut, you can go to CyberDonut.com.

[00:02:57] It's without the E, so C-Y-B-R-donut.com.

[00:03:01] And you'll see the numbers there.

[00:03:02] But the rallying cry is that Cyber Donut needs to go from nothing at the end of last year to $10 million in ARR by the end of 2025.

[00:03:12] And if you look at those numbers that are there right now, they're in a hole with pipeline.

[00:03:16] So we need to rapidly address that.

[00:03:20] So what we're doing today is getting your experience and your recommendations and working with earlier stage companies to say, what can we do to make a difference right now?

[00:03:31] So Joseph, you had a chance to look at the numbers right there on CyberDonut.com.

[00:03:35] What observations or questions do you have that are relevant for the conversation today?

[00:03:40] I think the first thing to call out is that a lot of marketers in general, maybe even regardless of your seniority, don't know the numbers.

[00:03:49] And so looking through this is super interesting and getting to see what your conversion rates are.

[00:03:55] And a lot of marketers don't know their conversion rate.

[00:03:57] And there's talk all over the town of, I'm going to be gold on revenue only.

[00:04:02] And it's like, okay, but you really, as a marketer, need to be aware of what's happening at the top of your funnel as well, not just the revenue number.

[00:04:08] Whether you're gold on it or not.

[00:04:10] And so it's interesting to look at this.

[00:04:11] So the first things to look at that I see, your first meeting to a true opportunity rate is pretty low, 29%.

[00:04:18] And we were doing some math ahead of time as well.

[00:04:21] If you had 100 opportunities or 100 first calls, they'd convert to about 30, about 30 opportunities.

[00:04:28] And then it converts to 41%.

[00:04:29] This is just based on Q2, 41%.

[00:04:31] Then you've got about 12.

[00:04:33] And then POV to close one is 50%.

[00:04:35] You get about six.

[00:04:35] So out of 100 first meetings in one quarter, you would close six deals.

[00:04:41] That works with the new customer goal.

[00:04:43] It's about four is what it looks like.

[00:04:44] But knowing those numbers is super important to know how much you have to put it at the top or how much you have to create that will then come out in a close one business.

[00:04:51] And a lot of marketers think about that.

[00:04:52] They just think, if I put this much money in, I'll get this much pipeline, which is a good number too.

[00:04:56] But you need to look at both sides of it, pipeline number and I'd say opportunity number, to know if you're driving the leading indicator and lagging indicator.

[00:05:03] Pipeline is not, I'm assuming, associated at a first meeting stage.

[00:05:07] And so you need to know how you need to get to that pipeline number.

[00:05:10] You need to know what your ACV is.

[00:05:11] You need to know, or ASP.

[00:05:13] You need to know what your total pipeline in stage right now that's open.

[00:05:17] So qualified pipeline versus just something you've created that's closed out.

[00:05:20] And that's, I'd say, pretty rare for a lot of marketers to know.

[00:05:23] So, yeah, I was actually on a call with a company recently.

[00:05:25] I was talking to the CRO and they brought in the CMO to talk about the numbers, the conversion rates.

[00:05:31] And this guy had it all nailed.

[00:05:33] He knew it all inside out and said, this is what we have to do next year, 2025 plan, the whole thing.

[00:05:37] So, yeah, I was super impressed by that.

[00:05:39] That's huge.

[00:05:40] I feel like you're seeing more of that.

[00:05:41] The problem I feel like historically has been that the CRO or the head of sales would know the numbers and the marketer would not.

[00:05:46] And I feel like marketing is starting to pull that number more.

[00:05:48] Maybe they own an ops team.

[00:05:50] Maybe they are at least aware of what the numbers need to look like for their team.

[00:05:54] And I know you've got a Q4 target of 10 million.

[00:05:56] So, to me, that says you need to build about, and that's by 2025, or an AR number of 10 million in 2025.

[00:06:02] You need to build a lot of pipeline to get to that number.

[00:06:05] A lot of pipeline.

[00:06:07] And so, you do the reverse, too.

[00:06:08] If I need 10 million ARR, I know my conversion rate is X.

[00:06:12] This many of closed one deals from each month, how do I get to that 10 million ARR?

[00:06:16] I need X number of customers.

[00:06:17] You work backwards to know the number of customers you need and if that's even achievable.

[00:06:21] That's a big part of it, too.

[00:06:22] Yeah.

[00:06:23] It feels like, just looking at the numbers, that once we get to the qualified opportunity, which says, let's say, second meeting is qualified at that point.

[00:06:32] What's that?

[00:06:32] We're converting it 20% from there.

[00:06:34] So, 30 out of 100, 30 turns into six customers.

[00:06:39] Yeah.

[00:06:39] So, I don't know.

[00:06:40] Does that feel high or low to you?

[00:06:42] I think it feels a little bit low.

[00:06:43] I'm not saying it's super off, but the math doesn't math in some scenarios.

[00:06:47] If you need to hit 10 million, the math doesn't math.

[00:06:51] So, that's the piece that you either need to get way more efficient or you need to put way more at the top.

[00:06:56] And those are two of the levers that people will try and pull.

[00:06:58] It's the two most common levers you pull is either get more efficient on your conversion or you put more at the top or both, just depending on your goals for the company.

[00:07:07] It feels like there's a ton of opportunity to get better on the conversion on the sales side here, right?

[00:07:11] You know, I look at these numbers.

[00:07:12] I think, you know, broadly speaking, they're pretty low.

[00:07:15] The idea that you only close 50% of your POVs is nuts because usually they're quite resource heavy to do.

[00:07:21] Pretty expensive.

[00:07:22] Team, company, product.

[00:07:24] Yeah, it's expensive.

[00:07:25] Yeah.

[00:07:25] You know it's not just the SE who's running that POV, right?

[00:07:28] Everyone in the company has rolled their sleeves up to make it work.

[00:07:30] So, that's an expensive way to get half of them to close.

[00:07:32] We need to tighten that up.

[00:07:33] And then the opportunity to POV seems kind of low as well at 40%.

[00:07:39] These all seem low to me, right?

[00:07:40] So, you know, there's no doubt on the sales side, they've got some work to do to try and improve how they're doing things.

[00:07:46] Really look at maybe the ICP tightening up a little bit of their own prospecting, make sure they're getting into the right companies at the right levels.

[00:07:53] But let's focus on the bit before that where we're looking at to say, okay, well, let's just, you know, look at these.

[00:07:59] It looks like the raw pipeline number coming in is low as you say, we've got a lot of work to do to get here.

[00:08:06] Let's kind of imagine that we're talking with the CEO now, Bill Wallace of Cyber Donut.

[00:08:13] How would you start to have a conversation with him about the things that he should be doing to start making a rapid difference in the pipeline?

[00:08:22] Yeah, I think there's, you know, we looked at even headcount too.

[00:08:25] You've got 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 salespeople, give or take.

[00:08:31] Zero customer access managers, depending on your average selling price.

[00:08:33] There's certainly some customers that need some love, I would assume, with only one CSM.

[00:08:38] You got a heavy sales team too with a couple marketers.

[00:08:41] I think there's potential to hire out.

[00:08:42] I'd look at what's working, what's not.

[00:08:43] You know, they're bringing in about a million in pipeline.

[00:08:46] It looks like a quarter.

[00:08:48] It's lower than it needs to be to hit a $10 million goal next year by a lot.

[00:08:52] You'd be closer to probably $5 million a quarter, $4 million a quarter to be at that $10 million ARR goal.

[00:08:58] So you got to, to your point, you got to build quick.

[00:09:00] I think headcount changes, it's hard.

[00:09:02] It's hard to make headcount changes because it takes time to hire headcounts, take time to build out.

[00:09:05] So if you have a team that you can work with or contractors you can work with that could bring on quick,

[00:09:09] that's certainly, I'd say, a quicker option to try and get quick build.

[00:09:13] But you've got a year as well.

[00:09:14] So I'm looking to see what tactics I want to go.

[00:09:16] But before you talk about headcount, you want to see where you're going to spend time, effort, and money.

[00:09:19] So what programs are you going to run?

[00:09:21] Do you, you know, we talked about me being a field marketer in the past.

[00:09:24] Are you going to do field events?

[00:09:25] Are you looking to do regional type events?

[00:09:27] Are you doing, you know, very localized things as well?

[00:09:29] Maybe you need a field marketer.

[00:09:30] Or maybe you're going to do a couple events.

[00:09:32] And so you should just have an event contractor instead of a field marketer.

[00:09:35] It certainly depends on the programs you're running.

[00:09:37] We need to go to the local church and find Joseph from 10 years ago.

[00:09:41] Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:42] Yep.

[00:09:43] Put on a mean barbecue cook-off.

[00:09:45] Don't you worry.

[00:09:47] Um, I think that's a big part of the headcount piece too.

[00:09:51] But the programs, there's opportunity here.

[00:09:54] Like first meeting to our, we just talked about it.

[00:09:56] First meeting to our opportunity number, it's low.

[00:09:59] So it's one of two reasons.

[00:10:00] One, we're bringing in the wrong people.

[00:10:02] Or two, we're just not good at following up on it.

[00:10:05] And that's okay too.

[00:10:06] But maybe we're not great at following up on it.

[00:10:07] I think one of my favorite programs is, some people call it like Back from the Dead.

[00:10:10] Some people call it just like a closed loss campaign.

[00:10:13] I love running closed loss campaigns.

[00:10:15] There's always diamonds in closed loss.

[00:10:18] People that we've already talked to that already know us.

[00:10:19] You've already put work to get them to come into your funnel.

[00:10:22] I'm a big fan of a closed loss campaign.

[00:10:24] I think there's a lot to come from those.

[00:10:25] And worst case scenario, if you don't get them back into your funnel, you know, train your

[00:10:30] team to be like, you know what?

[00:10:31] That's awesome.

[00:10:31] I understand.

[00:10:32] Would you mind talking with our team?

[00:10:34] Usually a product marker, which I see we have one.

[00:10:36] Would you mind talking with our product marketing team to explain, you know, why you're not interested

[00:10:39] in this?

[00:10:40] So you can build that into objection handling for your team, for campaigns you're going to

[00:10:43] run.

[00:10:43] I think there's a lot that you can pull out of that one little quick campaign.

[00:10:47] And there's usually some quick wins in there.

[00:10:49] And you've got plenty of pipeline that has lost at first stage.

[00:10:52] I was going to say that.

[00:10:53] I mean, I haven't worked the numbers, but I'm going to guess there's probably at least

[00:10:56] a couple hundred opportunities which are closed loss.

[00:10:59] Just even though it's a young company, probably taught to a whole bunch of people.

[00:11:01] And it could be for any reason why, you know, maybe they're too early.

[00:11:05] Maybe it wasn't the right timing.

[00:11:06] Product wasn't ready.

[00:11:08] Whatever the reason is.

[00:11:09] Now, would you just take the raw list of closed loss and just do that?

[00:11:13] Will you try and get smart based on maybe the reason why they were closed loss?

[00:11:17] Or do you trust the reason in Salesforce why they're closed loss?

[00:11:21] So I would assume from what I'm looking at here, I don't see an ops person on the team.

[00:11:26] I saw one enablement person in Q4 23, but not an ops person at all.

[00:11:29] My guess is that data is horrible.

[00:11:32] Myself right now, yeah, we'll look at closed loss reason.

[00:11:35] We'll look at even op notes.

[00:11:36] I really hope that those are in there from the sales team.

[00:11:38] If they're not, then yeah, we kind of just kind of got to go and hope.

[00:11:41] And I would then try and bucket by when the op was created.

[00:11:44] Because we have different processes.

[00:11:46] Sales teams change how they pitch.

[00:11:48] And so maybe the pitch is different or how we talked about it is different than how we're

[00:11:52] talking about it today because we've learned things.

[00:11:53] And so I'd bucket it based on when it was created.

[00:11:56] If I don't have a closed loss reason of budget.

[00:11:59] Okay, great.

[00:11:59] It's Q1 now.

[00:12:00] You have budget.

[00:12:01] Do you want to talk again?

[00:12:02] Are you interested in doing that POV that you closed loss because you didn't have

[00:12:06] budget at the time?

[00:12:07] Or a team, you know, feature wasn't there.

[00:12:10] Well, you know what?

[00:12:10] We've got a feature now.

[00:12:11] We've got a feature that I think will solve that problem before.

[00:12:13] So we'll bucket it based on what was happening there at that time.

[00:12:21] All right, Joseph.

[00:12:22] Let's take a break and to learn a little bit more about you personally.

[00:12:26] Now, I have about 49 questions here on my list.

[00:12:29] The good news is I won't ask you 49 questions.

[00:12:32] What we will do, though, is spin our wheel.

[00:12:35] Now, it's not just any old wheel.

[00:12:37] This is one that's completely random.

[00:12:39] I've used all sorts of entropy to get the randomization right.

[00:12:43] It's protected by this exemplific quantific encryption algorithm.

[00:12:48] So no one else can steal our randomness.

[00:12:50] And the whole thing is to get three questions that are completely picked at random for the 49.

[00:12:56] Let me spin the wheel and then we'll see what it comes up with.

[00:12:58] Let's do it.

[00:13:04] All right.

[00:13:04] All right, 41.

[00:13:06] How did you make money as a kid?

[00:13:08] As a kid, I made money as a dog walker and pet sitter.

[00:13:12] I'm a big pet guy.

[00:13:13] So I had a little dog walking business, hung up signs.

[00:13:17] I think I did like a long moving business one year too.

[00:13:20] Don't tell the IRS.

[00:13:22] You know, I made like $10.

[00:13:23] Yeah, made money as a kid in I'd say the most kid-like ways.

[00:13:27] Did you ever lose a dog in a walking expedition?

[00:13:29] No, no, no, no.

[00:13:31] But a rabbit died on my watch.

[00:13:32] What?

[00:13:33] And I know I did not watch that pet very well, but it was not my fault.

[00:13:38] So does that mean you're like Glenn Close and a bit of a bunny boiler?

[00:13:41] Is that what we're saying?

[00:13:41] Yeah.

[00:13:43] We made stew out of it.

[00:13:44] Just kidding.

[00:13:44] Sorry.

[00:13:47] All right.

[00:13:47] Let's go with the next question.

[00:13:54] All right.

[00:13:54] Number three, what's an embarrassing or memorable, funny moment that you've had in your work life?

[00:14:01] Oh, that's a good one.

[00:14:02] So one of my first jobs, we ran a campaign for customers at the end of the year around holidays.

[00:14:09] You always do like the holiday gift activity, right?

[00:14:12] Send out cookies or a swag or whatever to your customers at the end of the year.

[00:14:16] And I was in charge of it that year.

[00:14:17] And so we were trying to do it on a lower budget, though.

[00:14:19] So we went and bought the cookies at like a local place.

[00:14:21] We packaged them up ourselves.

[00:14:23] But in that package, we sent it out to our prospects.

[00:14:26] It was like this little plastic container that we like bought and made ourselves to slap the sticker on it.

[00:14:30] Did a low, low, low budget mode.

[00:14:33] Those cookies were powder, white powder cookies.

[00:14:36] And so we sent that to a government agency, a state government agency.

[00:14:41] And they opened the box and white powder came out and they had to evacuate the floor.

[00:14:45] We got a phone call from a that customer later that day laughing quite hard.

[00:14:50] And also like you can never do that again.

[00:14:52] And you're going to get a letter from our director on the gifting team as well.

[00:14:57] And so we got a letter.

[00:14:58] I actually have it from the state of New York.

[00:15:00] I urge you to whom it may concern.

[00:15:02] Thank you for the tin of cookies, but please do not send it again.

[00:15:05] And so I have that letter hanging up on my side over here.

[00:15:08] It's my favorite story to tell.

[00:15:10] And I kept that paper forever.

[00:15:11] I will never get rid of it.

[00:15:12] No, that's awesome.

[00:15:14] That's awesome.

[00:15:14] And when you're trying to get the gift under the radar a little bit, it doesn't really stay under the radar?

[00:15:18] Oh, yeah.

[00:15:19] No, did not work.

[00:15:21] Everyone knew about that gift.

[00:15:23] Yeah.

[00:15:23] Well, yeah.

[00:15:24] Was it no press is bad press they say?

[00:15:26] I don't know.

[00:15:27] Yeah, it didn't make the press luckily.

[00:15:29] But it did make a memorable conversation for me and my manager at the time.

[00:15:35] Yes.

[00:15:35] Awesome.

[00:15:36] All right.

[00:15:36] Last question.

[00:15:42] All right.

[00:15:42] Number 22.

[00:15:44] What is the story behind you getting your first job in cybersecurity?

[00:15:49] Man, I worked at a church before I worked in cyber.

[00:15:51] And I've been in cyber since, but I worked at a church.

[00:15:53] That's not your natural career progression from church to cyber.

[00:15:57] No, no, no.

[00:15:58] It's not a normal jump.

[00:15:59] Not a normal jump.

[00:16:00] And so I kind of got a lucky break.

[00:16:02] I went and met with the team in Dallas.

[00:16:04] And I remember showing up in person.

[00:16:06] And I was like, it's an interview.

[00:16:08] You know, I showed up in a suit.

[00:16:09] It was back when we were all in person for interviews, too.

[00:16:12] I walked into this office with a bunch of, you know, our team was wearing shorts and t-shirts and stuff.

[00:16:16] And I interviewed with the head of marketing who was in a shirt as well.

[00:16:20] Awesome, awesome guy.

[00:16:21] And I ended up meeting him, the CEO and the head of product marketing that day.

[00:16:25] And I was like, it's like a first round.

[00:16:27] And I was this guy that, you know, worked at a church and I was going to manage some events for him.

[00:16:30] And I got a lucky break.

[00:16:33] Learned a ton from that manager.

[00:16:35] And honestly, why I'm here today.

[00:16:36] So you went into field marketing first, it sounds like.

[00:16:39] Is that right?

[00:16:40] I did.

[00:16:40] Yeah.

[00:16:40] I started in field marketing.

[00:16:42] And actually, it was, I wouldn't even know if I would call it field marketing.

[00:16:45] It was more event marketing at the time.

[00:16:47] And then it became field marketing, doing regional activities, regional events, regional campaigns.

[00:16:51] And then it progressed into, you know, a little bit more virtual and digital platforms as well.

[00:16:59] The other, I'd say, opportunity-related one that I've run, we love, I love doing open opportunity campaigns.

[00:17:06] You got to get sales bought in on it.

[00:17:08] And it's not an easy thing always.

[00:17:10] But if you got a good relationship with your team, you can make it happen.

[00:17:12] And those can look like a couple of things.

[00:17:14] One, it can be, you know, paid advertisement.

[00:17:15] You're not going to see any, any attribution for it.

[00:17:18] So please set that expectation up front.

[00:17:20] Like the ops already open.

[00:17:22] We're spending money on things that are already opened.

[00:17:24] But any sort of like customer testimonials that you have, any sort of customer social

[00:17:28] proof that you have, or even just social proof of like ROI reports, ROI calculators, things

[00:17:33] like that, where you can show the value that you'd bring.

[00:17:36] Something like that for open opportunities is worth its weight in gold.

[00:17:40] And that can help you increase your win rates.

[00:17:42] It can help you increase things.

[00:17:43] And the way I would track that is then see, is our win rate going up quarter over quarter.

[00:17:48] You wouldn't see an attribution at all, but you could see quarter over quarter.

[00:17:52] And as part of that too, we'll do one where, I've done one before where if an opportunity

[00:17:57] is open, any contact that is not on the opportunity that we've not talked to, but we know who it

[00:18:01] is, we'll have an automation just go out one time that says, hey, you're, you know,

[00:18:05] we met with a member of your team.

[00:18:07] This is super early stage, not late.

[00:18:08] We met with a member of your team, was wanting to make sure that it was the right person to

[00:18:12] talk to.

[00:18:12] We're talking about X, would you like to be on the next call?

[00:18:15] Super simple.

[00:18:16] Sometimes sales teams will do it.

[00:18:18] If they're not, marketing can automate it for them as well.

[00:18:20] And that's what we did at past companies as well.

[00:18:22] I think that brings more people into the buying team or you at least can identify more

[00:18:25] of the buying team and it helps get you to that next stage as well.

[00:18:28] So again, like just little progression things that can help you get from 29% to 36%.

[00:18:33] Do you get pushback from sales about, hey, don't touch my opportunities, you know,

[00:18:38] don't be emailing people on my behalf without me approving it.

[00:18:41] They get that sort of pushback.

[00:18:42] And that's, that's the piece that I was talking about.

[00:18:44] I think you really have to have good alignment with the sales team.

[00:18:46] There are ways for them to opt out of that without a doubt.

[00:18:49] So when they open the opportunity, there's a way for them to say like, this is do not

[00:18:52] touch it.

[00:18:52] Like I'm talking with the CISO.

[00:18:54] I do not need you to find anyone else.

[00:18:56] I know who I found, but more often than not, like they have buy-in and all that.

[00:19:00] We don't do it without their, you know, okay.

[00:19:02] We didn't create that campaign without their okay.

[00:19:04] I'd say the digital ones are a little bit easier.

[00:19:07] Not many people are that concerned.

[00:19:08] They know they're going to get ads when they go on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever.

[00:19:11] Like that's normal.

[00:19:13] But when you're doing an email like that, where it's like, I'm talking with your friend,

[00:19:16] definitely get the okay.

[00:19:18] We'll do other ones too, or, you know, an open opportunity email campaign or an open opportunity,

[00:19:23] you know, even call campaign and try and break things out around opportunities that

[00:19:26] may be stalled before you close them.

[00:19:28] The one thing that I think we didn't talk about before, I'm actually okay with first

[00:19:32] meetings being closed early as well.

[00:19:34] I would prefer them be closed in an early stage than make it the opportunity and close.

[00:19:38] Like just qualify them out, get it out.

[00:19:40] If it's bad, great.

[00:19:41] I want to go look at why the leads we're bringing in are bad, but I do want them to close it

[00:19:45] out early.

[00:19:45] I don't want to waste time.

[00:19:46] You mentioned a second ago, like resources of a salesperson are expensive.

[00:19:49] Resources of an SE is expensive.

[00:19:51] A product is expensive.

[00:19:53] Like if we don't need to go to POV because it's not the right fit, kill it, kill it early.

[00:19:56] Yeah, it's a tough one.

[00:19:58] You know, I get into these conversations quite a bit with either potential clients or clients

[00:20:01] of mine.

[00:20:02] It's like, you know, what's a good or bad conversion rate?

[00:20:05] Well, it depends what comes in.

[00:20:07] It depends, you know, what your criterias are coming out a little bit, right?

[00:20:10] It's not as black and white as it's good or bad at this amount.

[00:20:14] It's tough when you get people who want to benchmark, right?

[00:20:16] I understand why you'd want to do that.

[00:20:18] So they look at the industries at 30% and we're at 20%.

[00:20:20] You know, these are data points to consider, but I wouldn't rip up my whole process that's

[00:20:25] trying to get a higher first meeting conversion rate on that.

[00:20:29] One class thing on this whole area that you talked about win-loss or close-loss, but you

[00:20:35] also said win-loss analysis.

[00:20:37] Have you had any experience on success rate doing that where the PMM is the one that has

[00:20:42] a conversation versus someone outside like a third party, engaging a third party to do it?

[00:20:46] I have not done it with a third party.

[00:20:48] It's been in-house when we've done it.

[00:20:51] Our VP of product marketing managed it before.

[00:20:53] And I think you asked maybe more tailored questions when it's internal because you know the product

[00:20:58] better.

[00:20:58] I also think it depends on your product too.

[00:21:00] Like how technical is the space?

[00:21:02] Does the third party know what a Lambda function is?

[00:21:04] Probably not.

[00:21:05] So probably don't ask a third party to ask any technical questions that you may get.

[00:21:09] You'll get different answers depending on who does it is how I'd phrase it.

[00:21:12] And so it just depends on what you're trying to get out of that win-loss analysis as to

[00:21:15] if you should use a third party or not.

[00:21:17] There's a lot.

[00:21:18] I think there's a lot that goes into it.

[00:21:19] All right.

[00:21:19] So that's the first campaign we're going to run.

[00:21:21] We're going to look at the closed loss and put something around that.

[00:21:24] What's another recommendation you'd make to get to this pipeline number?

[00:21:28] My guess is you've got 11 customers in one CSM that you don't have a ton of social proof.

[00:21:32] I'm just, it's a guess.

[00:21:33] I don't know.

[00:21:33] You're an advisor too, Andrew.

[00:21:34] Is that seem fair?

[00:21:36] Yeah.

[00:21:36] Yeah.

[00:21:36] Yeah.

[00:21:37] I'd spend some effort getting social proof into the story.

[00:21:39] You're new.

[00:21:40] No one knows you.

[00:21:41] No one believes you.

[00:21:43] And you're probably asking them to connect you to something.

[00:21:46] And so bring social proof into the equation, customer case studies, video testimonials,

[00:21:51] any way you can get them, even just a quote.

[00:21:54] Although I'd say a lot of people are getting less and less trusting of just random quotes

[00:21:57] on websites.

[00:21:58] Put a name and a face by it.

[00:21:59] Or like you made that up.

[00:22:01] Everyone knows the game now, which is why you like show, show the person, bring, bring

[00:22:06] people into it.

[00:22:07] It's still a people business, even if you're selling to a company.

[00:22:09] So we try and bring the person into it.

[00:22:11] I think that's a really big one.

[00:22:12] Again, I would use those videos, those testimonials in that open op campaign.

[00:22:16] Your sales reps will use that in a quote slide of this person did this type of ROI because

[00:22:21] they used our product.

[00:22:22] And it's like, do you want to talk with them too?

[00:22:24] Like you can just go talk with them.

[00:22:25] I'll intro you.

[00:22:26] And so I'd make sure that the customers are super happy.

[00:22:27] I'd bring some social proof into it.

[00:22:29] And I think that's a big, big first need helps with conversion rates as well.

[00:22:33] And even can bring in some pipeline too.

[00:22:34] People love some of the best cyber companies out there.

[00:22:38] You and I talk about all the time, Andrew.

[00:22:39] They love social proof.

[00:22:41] There's a FOMO for sure about like, if I don't have that tool, my company is not going to

[00:22:46] succeed.

[00:22:47] I think that's true.

[00:22:49] And I think you definitely need to spend effort in getting that set up and getting that working.

[00:22:52] There's also, I'd say, an added benefit of that too.

[00:22:55] Whether it's an official referral program or not, you bring referrals in when you make

[00:22:59] customers happy.

[00:23:00] They talk about you.

[00:23:01] Best marketing is word of mouth.

[00:23:02] Make them happy.

[00:23:03] Get them interested and open to doing social proof as well.

[00:23:06] Make it worth their while too.

[00:23:07] So let's try to think of examples of social proof.

[00:23:11] I remember, I think it's one of the things that Island did actually very well early on.

[00:23:14] If you looked at their website, even just after launch, they had pretty big name sisters

[00:23:19] on there on video talking about why they were so compelled to buy Island.

[00:23:25] I remember RSA, not this year, not 24, but 23.

[00:23:29] I wish I remember the name of the company.

[00:23:31] They had a booth and they had a big booth, but the whole of one wall down the side was

[00:23:37] photos, names, and quotes of customers.

[00:23:40] And that was their hero, wall of heroes or whatever it was.

[00:23:43] And he was like, okay, well, they're not made up quotes if you got someone's name and

[00:23:47] all the rest of it against it, especially RSA.

[00:23:49] Imagine you're walking by and you see your name up there and go, well, that's bullshit, right?

[00:23:52] Yeah.

[00:23:53] So things like that.

[00:23:54] But how would you put it into a campaign though?

[00:23:57] If you've got an email campaign or you've got, I don't know, something else.

[00:24:00] I get salespeople will do it all the time, but what about on the demand gen site?

[00:24:04] What's the best way to use these things?

[00:24:06] My preference is to always record on video like we're doing right now.

[00:24:09] Record in video because I can take this transcript.

[00:24:12] I can turn it into a written case study.

[00:24:13] I can take this transcript and get quotes on a site.

[00:24:15] I can take this and use it in 10 different ways.

[00:24:18] That's my preference if somebody is open to it is to get them to do a video testimonial.

[00:24:22] Even if you're not going to use the video or they're against using the video,

[00:24:26] you still have so much that you can pull from one conversation instead of just,

[00:24:31] hey, can I use a quote of you?

[00:24:33] Get them to talk about why they bought it.

[00:24:34] And you can turn that into ROI stats as well.

[00:24:36] I like it in case study pages and open opportunity campaigns like we talked about.

[00:24:40] But even at top of funnel, people want to see other people using the product

[00:24:43] and how they're using the product.

[00:24:44] So get them talking about like the pain I had before I bought this product.

[00:24:47] And then I bought this product and my life is way better because of X.

[00:24:50] Just get them to tell their story of why they decided to buy it.

[00:24:53] It's also super helpful for your own unique point of view.

[00:24:55] So if they bought you because the competitor was terrible,

[00:24:59] let's go do a competitor takeout campaign of this competitor is terrible.

[00:25:02] Here's a person that switched.

[00:25:04] Not terrible.

[00:25:05] This competitor.

[00:25:06] You get what I mean, though?

[00:25:07] Or this is the pain and here's the solution to it.

[00:25:10] It's, of course, us.

[00:25:11] But here's the pain that that person was solving.

[00:25:13] And so we're going to do a campaign around that pain.

[00:25:15] Email ads, webinars, third-party activities,

[00:25:18] even in-person RSA events where you're hosting a session or a talk.

[00:25:21] Let's talk about just that pain.

[00:25:23] Yeah.

[00:25:24] I feel like for Cyberdonut, 11 customers right now,

[00:25:27] I mean, imagine the first two or three are friends and family.

[00:25:29] But after that, they've got some real live pain customers.

[00:25:33] And it's like in the sales side, you get hammered about trying to get a deal done

[00:25:36] and you end up discounting, negotiating the whole thing.

[00:25:38] To me, it should be something that you hold a lot of stock in

[00:25:42] is getting in the contract that they'll do a video testimonial

[00:25:46] or a video interview or something like that with you.

[00:25:48] Now, not everyone per their company rules can do that sort of stuff.

[00:25:50] But if you go to 11, I bet you should be able to get four, five, six of them

[00:25:54] to get on video.

[00:25:56] And this is so far in Cyberdonut.com is a big miss, right?

[00:25:58] There's not anything on there about their customers.

[00:26:01] So I'm with you on that one for sure.

[00:26:03] And you're talking about advising CEO, advising marketing team.

[00:26:07] That's a sales marketing leadership decision that needs to be taken from the top down.

[00:26:11] Like we are not taking logo usage out of our contracts.

[00:26:14] It's the easiest thing to pull because everyone wants to push back on it.

[00:26:16] Everyone, every company ever is like, nope, or like, yes, with my permission.

[00:26:20] I like doing it.

[00:26:21] And I've learned this from even my sales counterparts.

[00:26:24] It's your logo and your name can be used in conjunction with other customers,

[00:26:28] but you can request to have it removed.

[00:26:30] And it's like a little bit easier that way.

[00:26:32] So they have to request it in writing.

[00:26:34] And like, you still have the ability to opt out,

[00:26:36] but we're not going to do it in the contract.

[00:26:37] Um, so it gives you like a yes, but I think that's a good way to do it.

[00:26:41] But again, like if your leadership team, if your sales team,

[00:26:44] they're the ones that choose that, not the marketing team,

[00:26:46] even though the marketing team may be the one to use it.

[00:26:48] You got to get that with your sales team, make sure they're on the same page,

[00:26:51] make sure they understand how important that is.

[00:26:52] And usually I'd say sales teams do.

[00:26:54] Um, there's the mixed pressure that, like you said, I've like,

[00:26:57] I need to close the deal and they want to strike the logo line.

[00:26:59] It's like, okay, what are we as a company standing for?

[00:27:02] Do we need that as a company?

[00:27:04] How valuable is that to us?

[00:27:05] Is it worth slipping into Q4 instead of Q3?

[00:27:09] It's a company leadership decision that has to get made.

[00:27:11] That's a great point.

[00:27:12] I think it's a, it's almost like a culture you need to build.

[00:27:14] I know, I know one CRO does this very well.

[00:27:16] He, even early, you know, 11 customers might be the time to start.

[00:27:20] He runs, I think he calls them champion.

[00:27:24] I wish I could remember.

[00:27:25] It's not champion dinners.

[00:27:26] It's not champion events, but I don't know, champions conference.

[00:27:29] Like a cab?

[00:27:30] Well, this is the thing.

[00:27:31] He doesn't say cab.

[00:27:32] He doesn't say join our customer advisory board.

[00:27:34] He goes, join the champions thing, right?

[00:27:36] And he gets the champions together and they, they round table stuff.

[00:27:40] And then he's got sections where they videotape and sections where they don't.

[00:27:44] Right.

[00:27:44] And then he uses that as part of this.

[00:27:46] I think it's a great way to do it because they feel like, you know, to be invited onto the, the customer advisory board or the, you know, early adopter board or whatever is cool and all.

[00:27:55] But when you start making a bit more than that, making a thing, uh, inside the company where you're the champions, just almost like the wall of heroes thing, you know, it strokes the ego a little bit more than just saying we're going to have a cab meeting next week.

[00:28:06] There's that FOMO again.

[00:28:08] You're bringing more people in.

[00:28:09] Yep.

[00:28:09] For sure.

[00:28:10] For sure.

[00:28:11] All right.

[00:28:11] So we're going to do the, uh, the clothes lost.

[00:28:13] Uh, we're going to figure out the, the social proof.

[00:28:17] Now I guess with social proof, does that kind of leak into like story narrative type stuff as well?

[00:28:23] Or are you thinking, yeah, we want to, we're using this for very specific reasons in there.

[00:28:27] No, I think as you're having those conversations, regardless of who they are, you learn why they bought.

[00:28:31] Like if you're having a case study conversation, ask your sales team why they bought as well.

[00:28:34] That's like the first, I'd say the first line that people skip is, you know, again, like the favorite fun thing for everyone to talk about is just go talk to your customers and you'll figure everything out.

[00:28:43] It's like, well, also ask your sales team.

[00:28:44] Like they were the first ones to talk with the person, ask them why they bought, ask them what they, you know, what pain they heard when they were doing discovery.

[00:28:52] Talk with your teams.

[00:28:53] Um, and it's so crazy how few people like just go talk with the rep that sold them the product.

[00:28:57] Like, why did they buy?

[00:28:59] It's like, there was a reason you're not that good.

[00:29:01] Like why you're great, but like, why did they buy this expensive tool?

[00:29:05] Yeah.

[00:29:06] You didn't turn water into wine on your own.

[00:29:08] There was a reason why they wanted to.

[00:29:10] I think there's another one too.

[00:29:11] You know, we're going to talk about what I think what programs I hope in a minute too, but the ask your customers, what events they go to, what, you know, agencies they listen to, what social platforms are on, what channels they're in.

[00:29:21] Are they in like secret Reddit threads or secret Slack channels?

[00:29:24] Like what, where are they and where are they learning about other tools?

[00:29:28] You know, again, it's another favorite one.

[00:29:30] Like put, how did you hear us on your, on your form?

[00:29:32] Yeah, you should, you should do that.

[00:29:34] I think that's a good rule of thumb for marketers.

[00:29:36] I don't require it, but it's a good rule of thumb.

[00:29:38] Still just ask them and ask your sales team to set it up on a call.

[00:29:42] Ask them like, Hey, you know, how'd you hear about us?

[00:29:44] Who'd you hear from?

[00:29:45] And we got a demo request the other day that came in and it was like, Oh, that person actually heard about us from this event.

[00:29:49] Would have never known regardless of what they put in the form, if they didn't ask again on the call.

[00:29:54] And I've got a little gong, you know, snippet set up for how did you hear about us or where'd you hear about us?

[00:29:59] And so when those trigger, I get an email and it says, this is how they heard about us.

[00:30:03] I think those are just little quick ways to figure out where you should invest.

[00:30:05] And so, you know, if you've got one demand gen person, one product marketer and a bunch of salespeople, what is working so far?

[00:30:11] Where are these people finding us?

[00:30:13] Where are these people hearing about us?

[00:30:14] And that I think then drives into the programs that we should or shouldn't run.

[00:30:17] Well, let's talk about the next thing then.

[00:30:19] What about events?

[00:30:20] What role has events have a close to your heart, I guess?

[00:30:25] How would you think about running events for Cyberdonut?

[00:30:29] Man, I think the biggest risk with events in general is how expensive they are.

[00:30:34] So you're going to go in, you want to go to RSA, you're dropping a couple hundred thousand, at least a hundred thousand if you're going to do it well.

[00:30:40] All in, right?

[00:30:40] Booth, rental, accommodation, dinner.

[00:30:44] Booth, T&E.

[00:30:45] Yeah, it's not cheap at all.

[00:30:48] In major conferences, you can spend even more, half a million, a million at some of these events.

[00:30:52] Small company doesn't have that kind of money.

[00:30:53] So you got to get scrappy.

[00:30:54] You got to think outside the box if you're going to do events.

[00:30:56] And I personally think you pick a couple.

[00:30:58] If you're in your first year and you've never done events, you don't do 12.

[00:31:01] You pick one or two and you do that based on where your customers will be so that you could do a customer dinner like you just talked about or a champion dinner.

[00:31:07] So you could do a prospect happy hour where, of course, our customers are just going to be there talking about us.

[00:31:13] Do it where you know your people will be.

[00:31:15] Maybe RSA is not the right fit.

[00:31:17] Cyberdonut is in the sock space.

[00:31:20] So we're maybe going to do RSA.

[00:31:22] Or maybe you're in the cloud space and you're like, I'm staying away from RSA and I'm going to go to Google Cloud Next or AWS Reinvent or whatever.

[00:31:29] Pick your event that works for your audience.

[00:31:32] I think that's the one risk with events.

[00:31:34] I do love events.

[00:31:35] You mentioned it.

[00:31:36] Like my past.

[00:31:37] I love events.

[00:31:38] I think they're great.

[00:31:38] I think they're great to get personal interaction.

[00:31:40] I think you have way better relationships when you meet someone face to face.

[00:31:44] That's why salespeople love to go meet on site with customers or in prospects too.

[00:31:47] I love that.

[00:31:48] So I think it's great for that.

[00:31:50] The biggest risk...

[00:31:51] Chili Piper did actually a really cool thing at one of their booths a couple days ago.

[00:31:55] It's a marketing tool.

[00:31:57] I don't know if everyone knows.

[00:31:58] It's a marketing calendar booking tool.

[00:31:59] And at their event, they had on their booth a screenshot or a live track of how many meetings they set in the booth.

[00:32:06] I think the biggest miss for every event company and every company that goes to events is they go to an event.

[00:32:12] They talk to the person.

[00:32:13] They write their little note down in the scanner.

[00:32:14] And they say, we'll follow up with you in two weeks.

[00:32:16] Never again will you hear from that person.

[00:32:18] And so we actually made a very, very deliberate shift.

[00:32:21] We did training on it ahead of time before an event previously this year.

[00:32:24] And it was, I don't care who you are.

[00:32:25] You're the SDR.

[00:32:26] You're the SE.

[00:32:27] You're the CEO.

[00:32:28] It doesn't matter who you are.

[00:32:29] If you have a good meeting with a person, just like on a disco call, any salesperson on a disco call is going to do.

[00:32:34] They're going to say, you know what?

[00:32:35] This is a great meeting.

[00:32:36] I'd love to do this again and bring someone more technical in.

[00:32:39] Or I'd love to do this again and bring X person in.

[00:32:42] Can we set some time up while we're right here?

[00:32:43] You got your phone.

[00:32:44] I got mine.

[00:32:44] And pull your phone out and book the meeting.

[00:32:46] And I heard it.

[00:32:47] I've heard it every time.

[00:32:48] And it's like, well, that meeting is going to be with the wrong person.

[00:32:50] I don't care.

[00:32:51] We will solve it afterwards.

[00:32:53] We'll solve out getting the right person on the call afterward.

[00:32:56] Just book the meeting at whatever time they say.

[00:32:58] And we will find somebody available to take it.

[00:33:00] And we had an incredible event because of that mentality.

[00:33:04] I think whatever event you do, you've got to go that way.

[00:33:06] The other piece, go all out.

[00:33:08] If you're going to do one or two events as a small company, make sure they're your best

[00:33:11] events.

[00:33:12] I'm a big fan.

[00:33:13] This is a risky one of out-of-home advertisement when you do a sort of event like that.

[00:33:17] We had two box trucks with massive LED signs at one of our events earlier this year.

[00:33:22] And I loved it.

[00:33:23] Loved every minute of it.

[00:33:24] And they drove around the convention space for 12 hours a day for three days straight.

[00:33:28] A box truck playing music with our brand, our message, our position.

[00:33:31] And we at our happy hour, we're like, how'd you get here?

[00:33:34] Again, just like walking around talking to people.

[00:33:36] How'd you find out about the happy hour?

[00:33:37] Oh, we saw your truck and scan the QR code.

[00:33:39] Security people scan the QR code on a digital truck.

[00:33:43] And then came to our happy hour.

[00:33:45] I'm not kidding.

[00:33:46] And it was just like, okay, great.

[00:33:47] I would have never gotten that attribution ever.

[00:33:50] But we just ask people.

[00:33:51] I love doing stuff like that.

[00:33:52] I think that's a good one.

[00:33:54] You know, ClickUp did at Dreamforce last week.

[00:33:56] They held that strike at Dreamforce.

[00:33:59] Loved it.

[00:33:59] So terrible.

[00:34:00] They're never going to go to Dreamforce again.

[00:34:02] I loved it so much.

[00:34:03] And it's, I'm arguably one of their personas.

[00:34:06] Like marketing is one of their personas.

[00:34:08] I thought it was incredible.

[00:34:09] So for those that don't know, so Slack is owned by Salesforce, right?

[00:34:14] And they went to Dreamforce and they were holding a little like protest.

[00:34:19] Like they're picketing it almost saying, you know, what was the slogan they had against Slack?

[00:34:24] I can't remember.

[00:34:25] But it was all the idea that Slack no more or get rid of Slack or something like that.

[00:34:29] And they were almost like strikers outside the picket line kind of thing.

[00:34:32] And they got a whole bunch of social media on the back of it.

[00:34:35] Yeah.

[00:34:35] They got so much press from it, so much money in social media from it.

[00:34:39] Those were all actors, in my understanding.

[00:34:41] All actors.

[00:34:42] It's amazing.

[00:34:43] And that probably cost them a tenth of what a Dreamforce booth would have cost.

[00:34:47] Not saying you shouldn't do the Dreamforce booth too.

[00:34:49] But like think outside of just like, I'm going to get a booth.

[00:34:52] Because you just get a booth.

[00:34:53] You're hoping someone walks by.

[00:34:54] You're hoping someone sees you.

[00:34:56] You're going to miss big.

[00:34:57] So if you're going to do an event, I think you do it well.

[00:35:00] So you're hitting on one of my hot buttons, which is getting creative and trying to do things out the box.

[00:35:05] Vanilla, well, we go to these 10 things that everyone else does, right?

[00:35:08] What other interesting ideas or things come to mind as you think about that?

[00:35:12] Man, I think so.

[00:35:14] It depends on if I'm advising versus if you're like in the role.

[00:35:17] I feel like when people are in the role, they're way more cautious.

[00:35:20] Because like, if I spend this money and I don't, I'm going to get axed.

[00:35:22] And so people are more concerned, I would say, to do that.

[00:35:24] My biggest recommendation, I think, is find one repeatable program.

[00:35:28] Whatever that one thing is.

[00:35:30] It could be digital.

[00:35:31] Maybe you're like, we're in a heavy Google ad space.

[00:35:33] Like Google, everyone searches for us.

[00:35:35] We have insane search volumes.

[00:35:36] Maybe you Google a ton.

[00:35:37] That's your repeatable, consistent program where you're driving revenue.

[00:35:41] Maybe you have a webinar program that just kills.

[00:35:43] And so you consistently do webinars.

[00:35:44] Whatever that thing is that's repeatable, find it.

[00:35:47] And then test two more.

[00:35:48] And then I always like to save a little bit of budget as well for out-of-the-box ideas,

[00:35:52] creative thinking, fun things that just it's going to happen.

[00:35:55] And we may get nothing from it.

[00:35:57] But we're going to accept that this is potential lost risk.

[00:36:00] You've got 1,000 events in Vegas.

[00:36:02] Treat it like gambling.

[00:36:02] You're going to gamble a little bit of money to hope it pays off.

[00:36:05] And if it does, we're going to do it 10 times more.

[00:36:07] And you want your CEO and CFO to be okay with that, right?

[00:36:10] Agreed.

[00:36:10] You get upfront agreement.

[00:36:12] Like we have our repeatable.

[00:36:13] We're spending on things that we think are going to work, that we feel good about.

[00:36:16] And then we've got this that we're going to use for an out-of-the-box idea.

[00:36:19] Those box trucks, we set upfront expectations.

[00:36:22] I don't know if it's going to work.

[00:36:23] I have no clue.

[00:36:24] I want to do it.

[00:36:25] We've never done it at this company's history.

[00:36:26] I want to do it because we think it can drive.

[00:36:29] And we know that's our audience.

[00:36:31] That's a big one.

[00:36:32] Do you know your audience is there?

[00:36:33] Great.

[00:36:33] Then you can do crazy things.

[00:36:37] You're like you said, Slack was at Dreamforce.

[00:36:39] Slack is owned by Salesforce.

[00:36:40] You know your audience is there.

[00:36:42] ClickUp launched a product that was competing with Slack.

[00:36:44] Go all in.

[00:36:45] Your audience is there.

[00:36:46] Go crazy.

[00:36:47] I think there's creativity there.

[00:36:49] If I was making a big risky bet, I'd probably push for creating a community of some kind,

[00:36:54] like a Slack community, a Discord community, something like that.

[00:36:56] If I was in a cyber space, Discord, I think our audience loves Discord.

[00:37:00] I really don't know why I like Slack way better.

[00:37:02] Sorry, ClickUp.

[00:37:03] I'd hire maybe an evangelist or a field CISO is often the title they get.

[00:37:09] Where they are, just their job is to talk.

[00:37:11] Their job is to help you make content.

[00:37:12] Their job is to bring you what people in the market are hearing about and just to talk with

[00:37:17] prospects so you can get word from that.

[00:37:19] I think there's huge, huge value in the companies that have already done that.

[00:37:22] They're seeing awesome content created from those people.

[00:37:25] And it helps drive your demand in programs.

[00:37:27] Everyone talks about content is needed to drive a good demand in program.

[00:37:30] You're right.

[00:37:31] Like research teams, any of the companies that have major research teams, awesome, awesome places.

[00:37:36] I'd push for one of those.

[00:37:38] I'd say it's less of like a program bet, but it's like a funding of the company bet.

[00:37:42] We're spending money on something that is maybe a little bit harder to achieve normally.

[00:37:46] I would go as far as saying if you're the CRO or CMO is take one of your headcount and hire

[00:37:50] the field evangelist or the CISO person, right?

[00:37:52] And I don't know if you want to give them a quota or not, but I think their impact,

[00:37:57] the right person will have more of an impact than adding your fifth AE into the mix, right?

[00:38:02] The right person who's got the connections and the gravitas and the experience,

[00:38:08] that's the person you want to wheel out and mine their network as well.

[00:38:11] Man, I tell you, one of my favorite ad types, and it could be a customer, by the way.

[00:38:14] I've seen good field evangelists that were previously customers, so they know the product

[00:38:17] really well and the pain.

[00:38:18] Love that.

[00:38:19] Assuming you don't have that in your contract, you can't do that.

[00:38:22] I think there's huge value in that.

[00:38:24] One of my favorite ad types on LinkedIn right now is the Thought Leader ad post.

[00:38:28] I change my favorite ad type all the time.

[00:38:30] But that's my favorite ad type right now.

[00:38:32] And it's so good because it just looks like it's a person.

[00:38:35] Again, you've had that field evangelist, you have that researcher, you have that person

[00:38:38] that's talking about a pain and problem from a position of authority.

[00:38:41] You're building trust immediately.

[00:38:43] And then it's your sales team, your SDR.

[00:38:45] It's like, hey, you want to meet with Jack, my field CISO?

[00:38:49] It's not a sales meeting.

[00:38:50] You want to talk with Jack, my field CISO, about just talk and shop around this problem?

[00:38:54] It's a way to have that conversation.

[00:38:56] I think just keep building trust.

[00:38:58] I think everyone knows now when they see field CISO, it's like kind of a salesperson too.

[00:39:02] And that's okay.

[00:39:02] But it's again, the person that has some trust building.

[00:39:06] That's all we're trying to do here is build trust.

[00:39:07] I love a podcast too.

[00:39:09] If I was going to make a risky bet, I'd go create a podcast, 100% video.

[00:39:13] Do not do an audio-only podcast.

[00:39:15] Refuse to do that.

[00:39:16] Video podcast because then you get snippets from recordings.

[00:39:19] You get content that you can then turn around into something else.

[00:39:21] It's like a consistent content engine there too.

[00:39:24] Again, really expensive.

[00:39:26] Sorry, Andrew.

[00:39:26] Thank you.

[00:39:27] But potentially a good outcome too.

[00:39:30] And good content from it too.

[00:39:31] I think digital is a good short-term program too.

[00:39:35] If you're looking for really quick wins to see some traction, depending on your space,

[00:39:39] there's a thousand ifs to that.

[00:39:41] But if it's a good space, Google, maybe LinkedIn, maybe.

[00:39:45] Everyone thinks security people aren't LinkedIn.

[00:39:47] Promise you they are.

[00:39:48] You know, virtual webinar or event.

[00:39:51] Create your own thing.

[00:39:52] We did that at our company as well.

[00:39:55] We created our own virtual event last year.

[00:39:57] Over 1,200 people registered.

[00:40:00] Like 600 or so attended.

[00:40:02] It's a lot of work.

[00:40:03] Don't get me wrong.

[00:40:03] But great.

[00:40:04] Both 2 things.

[00:40:05] Thought leadership.

[00:40:06] Building trust.

[00:40:07] Talking about the problem that we're solving.

[00:40:09] And then of course, we expect there to be some deals that come from this as well.

[00:40:13] But it's a great way to build that trust with your audience.

[00:40:16] And to make noise.

[00:40:18] I think partnering is big on that too if you do something like that.

[00:40:20] Well, Joseph, we've talked a lot here.

[00:40:22] We talked about the closed loss campaign.

[00:40:25] We talked about focusing in on just maybe a couple of events rather than trying to do everything.

[00:40:30] And make sure you're not just going because of the big event, but they're actually where your audience is.

[00:40:34] You know, really understand that.

[00:40:35] Maybe in the cloud space, you might go to cloud events rather than RSA, for example.

[00:40:39] Try to make a big impact.

[00:40:40] You know, use the ClickUp example as one as well.

[00:40:43] Cloud Community, maybe.

[00:40:45] Might be a way to go.

[00:40:46] I really, you know, I was a sales guy trying to tell Martha how to market, right?

[00:40:50] But I feel like the field CISO is such an undervalued.

[00:40:55] I know there's a lot more now than there were like five years ago.

[00:40:58] But, you know, for the right person, I feel like there's a lot of impact.

[00:41:01] When you're in a very noisy space and there's 4,000 vendors clamoring for their fair share, it's a lot better when you have someone who's one of them, one of the prospect customers who's helping you get the message out.

[00:41:14] So a lot of good stuff here.

[00:41:16] I want to maybe pick you on the spot a little bit and say, okay, so let's say we said, Joseph, love all these ideas.

[00:41:23] We're going to run with two or three of them.

[00:41:25] And then in three months' time, the CFO goes, well, we can't do that anymore.

[00:41:29] What's one thing that you would not give up if the CFO is like, yeah, we need to cut back some on your budget, Joseph?

[00:41:36] My favorite answering as a marketer is it depends.

[00:41:39] I would want to go pull the data that we have of what's working or what's not.

[00:41:43] And if we don't have the data, for example, like out of home didn't work or, you know, we hired a field evangelist CISO, I'd go look at what calls were they on and what was our close rate when the calls that they were on.

[00:41:53] Or if it's a researcher, right?

[00:41:54] Like replace CISO with researcher instead of research team.

[00:41:58] I'd want to go pull, you know, the stats of the companies that visited the pages of the research that we put out as a team.

[00:42:05] Like, okay, well, I'm not getting rid of the researcher.

[00:42:07] Like, I'm sorry, that's not happening.

[00:42:08] Look at the, you know, the people that visited.

[00:42:09] They're also the same people that bought.

[00:42:11] So I'd want to go look into the data and close loss campaign.

[00:42:13] Like, I think it's relatively inexpensive.

[00:42:15] That's why I love that one too.

[00:42:16] It's you've already got, you've done the hard work already.

[00:42:19] I don't know.

[00:42:19] I'd want to look at the data to see what is or isn't working.

[00:42:23] You know, where are we seeing most of our top of funnel, you know, opportunities, meetings coming from?

[00:42:27] And if, you know, maybe it's different from the, how did you hear about us?

[00:42:32] You know, I heard about you from the truck.

[00:42:33] Okay, great.

[00:42:34] I want to bring that to the table in that conversation.

[00:42:37] And you're always going to have that, right?

[00:42:38] You're always going to have trade-offs.

[00:42:39] Like I said, I want one consistent, then I want two or three that are tests.

[00:42:43] And so I'm going to kill one of the two or three that aren't working.

[00:42:45] And we're going to go find a different one.

[00:42:46] And we do that, you know, throughout the year as things change as well.

[00:42:49] I think the easiest way to get CFO, CEO, whatever, whoever that, you know, C is to buy into a campaign, have your sales team talk about it.

[00:43:00] I have a sales rep that loves one of the campaigns we're doing.

[00:43:04] She talks about it all the time.

[00:43:05] I don't.

[00:43:06] But she does, she does too.

[00:43:08] And so her, you know, goes back to social proof.

[00:43:11] Her social proof of I want 10 more of these is like, I'm not killing that program.

[00:43:15] Like, did you just hear that?

[00:43:16] Like, I'm not going to get rid of that.

[00:43:17] Now when they hate it or when it's not working or when I have data that says they loved it, but like they're still closing like terrible, different story.

[00:43:24] But, you know, don't fall in love with your campaigns.

[00:43:26] That's the hardest thing as a marketer is like, I spent so much time on this landing page.

[00:43:29] It looks gorgeous.

[00:43:30] It's the best design ever.

[00:43:32] The strike was amazing.

[00:43:33] Like if ClickUp sees zero traffic to their site and like see zero deals come in and zero PLG starts, like it didn't work.

[00:43:40] Sorry.

[00:43:40] It was cool.

[00:43:41] It didn't work unless that was your goal, right?

[00:43:43] Like brand maybe was their goal for that one.

[00:43:44] So make sure you set goals up front.

[00:43:47] Make sure you set expectations too.

[00:43:48] I think it gets you out of the, well, you've got to kill one and I want to kill that one conversation.

[00:43:52] Well, on behalf of Bill Wallace, the CEO of Cyberdonut, thanks for the advice today.

[00:43:58] I am wearing my Save Cyberdonut t-shirt right now.

[00:44:02] So we're creating a movement to make sure that Cyberdonut is around and flourishing and getting more funding by the end of next year.

[00:44:10] Joseph, if someone wants to get in touch with you, where is the best place to do that?

[00:44:13] Hit me up on LinkedIn.

[00:44:14] Send me a connection request chat there.

[00:44:17] Awesome.

[00:44:17] Well, thanks for joining us today.

[00:44:18] I look forward to staying in touch and keeping you updated on how Cyberdonut is doing, especially in their pipeline generation stuff after your recommendations.

[00:44:26] Thanks, Andrew.

[00:44:39] It would mean a lot to me and to the continued growth of the show if you'd help get the word at.

[00:44:44] So how do you do that easily?

[00:44:46] There are two ways.

[00:44:47] Firstly, just simply send a link to a friend.

[00:44:51] Send a link to the show, to this episode.

[00:44:54] You can email it, text it, Slack it, whatever works for you and is easy for you.

[00:44:59] The second way is to leave a super quick rating.

[00:45:02] And sometimes that can seem complicated.

[00:45:03] So I've made it as easy for you as I can.

[00:45:06] You simply have to go to ratethispodcast.com slash cyber.

[00:45:12] That's ratethispodcast.com slash cyber.

[00:45:15] And it explains exactly how to do it.

[00:45:17] Either of these ways will take you less than 30 seconds to do and it will mean the world to me.

[00:45:22] So thank you.