What's working in cybersecurity sales in 1H 2024 with Patrick Sheehan, Founder and CRO at RevelUp Partners

[00:00:00] Hey, it's Andrew. Just quickly before we start this episode, I want to tell you about one of my

[00:00:04] favorite podcasts, the Breaking Through in Cybersecurity Marketing podcast. Now,

[00:00:10] I don't need to explain what it's all about because the name of it is so good,

[00:00:13] but here's why I like it. Firstly, the hosts not only know what they're talking about

[00:00:17] because they've been in the cybersecurity marketing role for so long, but also Jen and

[00:00:22] Maria make it fun. They have personalities that come out of the podcast and it draws you in.

[00:00:27] Secondly, they get great guests and together they make super useful episodes. My recent favorites

[00:00:34] were the one with Ross Halleylook who is a marketer but also just published the book

[00:00:38] Cyber for Builders all about how to start a cybersecurity company or the one with Joe

[00:00:43] Evangelisto, the CISO at NetSpy or even the one all about telling stories in cybersecurity

[00:00:50] with Mitch Main. I could go on with quite a few more. By the way, I'm not getting paid

[00:00:55] for this. I just really enjoyed Jen and Maria's show. Check it out. It's the Breaking Through

[00:01:00] in Cybersecurity Marketing podcast. Now on with this episode. The need for effective

[00:01:06] qualification, customer-centric messaging, and what we can expect from and do with SDRs

[00:01:13] in 2024. Just three of the topics I chat about with Patrick Sheehan,

[00:01:17] a multiple time passionate sales leader at cybersecurity companies. Don't go away.

[00:01:25] Welcome to the Cybersecurity Go-To-Market podcast where we tackle the question,

[00:01:37] how can cybersecurity companies grow sales faster? I am your host, Andrew Monahan.

[00:01:43] Our guest today is Patrick Sheehan, CRO at Network to Code. Patrick, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:50] Thanks for having me. Delighted to be here, Andrew. Thank you.

[00:01:52] Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation, Patrick. You are a long-time sales leader.

[00:01:57] You started off, I go back and you're linked in. You're at one time on the partner side

[00:02:02] at companies I recognize such as Fishnet and then Optiv. Then on the vendor side as well,

[00:02:07] you've been a full-time CRO and also as a fractional. I think this gives you a wide view

[00:02:12] into different things going on as you're leading sales teams at different companies.

[00:02:17] Now after trying before you buy, you used to be the fractional CRO for Network to Code,

[00:02:24] but now you're the full-time sales leader at Network to Code. I think you've got a great

[00:02:28] perspective on what's happening in our world right now and what it means as a CRO.

[00:02:34] In fact, you posted on LinkedIn recently, actually just a couple of weeks ago,

[00:02:39] something that was titled CRO Lessons from Q1 2024. That's what we're going to talk

[00:02:46] about today. I'm looking forward to our discussion about all that stuff, Patrick.

[00:02:49] All right. Well, stay tuned for later in this episode when we get to Patrick's personal

[00:02:54] questions and he's going to reveal how he used RazorBlaze to help him make money

[00:02:59] and how he had to do the walk of shame through the office after a Vegas trip.

[00:03:03] More for that coming later on. Now let's get into the business end of this, Patrick. As I

[00:03:08] said, you did this post on LinkedIn. There's a few things in there about what's working

[00:03:13] in Q1 2024 for a CRO. I want to pick up on two or three of the things, the topics that you

[00:03:19] mentioned. Let me read out what you said and then we can have a discussion. Number one that

[00:03:24] I want to talk about is around pipeline management. You said, consistent sales hygiene

[00:03:29] and proper deal qualification are mandatory to provide an accurate health of the business

[00:03:35] to refine strategies and resource allocations to meet 24 goals.

[00:03:40] Now, of course the idea of good deal qualification being important is not new. Are you seeing this

[00:03:46] especially important right now given the buying environment we've been in for the last year or

[00:03:50] so? Yeah, I think it's always been important from the very, even the early 2000s when I

[00:03:55] started my sales career at Cisco was kind of in my DNA, so to speak, or at least my muscle

[00:04:00] memory having it been repeated over time. But I think now more than ever being in a CRO role

[00:04:05] where you have full go-to-market responsibility, the pipeline management and really understanding

[00:04:11] where we are, right? Understanding that scoreboard informs the strategy. So I don't

[00:04:16] think it's anything new. And my post was really to reiterate the fundamental importance

[00:04:21] of these types of behaviors that have been around forever. But to your point,

[00:04:26] I do think now more than ever as we look at marshaling resources to either identify gaps in

[00:04:31] pipeline or to be spending time with the right customers, it's even more important.

[00:04:36] So where do you see people going wrong with this?

[00:04:39] One of the biggest factors is commit to your goal, right? I hearken back to a manager who

[00:04:47] I learned more from not to do, frankly, than I learned what to do. And he would always say,

[00:04:51] you need to commit to your target. Aren't you going to hit your target? And I was like,

[00:04:54] well, I'm at 70% of my target, but I'm coming to you early in the year.

[00:04:58] I have a 30% gap. So I need to identify how I can go bridge that gap for the right pipeline

[00:05:05] coverage in order for me to be successful here. And I think what we find is it's a

[00:05:10] cascading effect. No one wants to have a difficult conversation about underperformance.

[00:05:14] So what I see is there's a lot of fluff that remains in the CRM and in the pipeline that

[00:05:20] should be qualified out. And that's really predicated on not wanting to have that

[00:05:25] conversation about performance. It falls back to sales leaders, in my opinion,

[00:05:30] where sales reps or anybody for that matter, respect what you inspect.

[00:05:35] So if you're not really inspecting deals and really not looking for a high qualification,

[00:05:40] you just got things that are fluffing your numbers. You don't really understand the

[00:05:44] reality of where you are. And I think that ultimately detriments your strategy.

[00:05:49] And it's something that you're going to have to address later in the year. So for me,

[00:05:53] I'd rather know the score at all times. That way, I know how to run the right offense. Am I up by

[00:05:59] 10 and I can play prevent defense? Right? That analogy. Or am I down 10 and I need a

[00:06:04] full court press? There's a difference. And as a CRO, if you don't or any sales leader,

[00:06:10] if you really don't know what's going on, you don't really know what strategy to execute on.

[00:06:16] Soterios Johnson You know, essentially, as you were talking there,

[00:06:18] one of the things that came to my mind was how important it is for the sales leader to create a

[00:06:23] culture of it being okay to talk about gaps. You know, I've definitely worked in places where

[00:06:28] people didn't want to know, right? They just said, do you got to do your number or else?

[00:06:32] And you're sitting there as maybe a junior rep and you're going, well, I can see 50%,

[00:06:36] but I've got a huge gap here. And you feel you can't bring it up. You can't go and ask

[00:06:41] for help because that's the last thing you feel like you'll want to do. Where, you know,

[00:06:44] if I'm in your shoes as a CRO, I want to understand where things lie so we can actually

[00:06:48] do something about it. If we got a gap and go and allocate resources or do something different.

[00:06:52] Jeff Sarris 100%. There was this notion of my early days at Cisco was don't lose alone.

[00:06:58] And for me, I never wanted to lose anyways. So we've kind of shifted that

[00:07:02] culture here. We're trying to do that. And I think we're doing a good job of a win together,

[00:07:06] right? It's okay. You need help. Everybody needs help. But at the end of the day,

[00:07:10] if you don't ask for it, if you don't marshal the resources, this is an enterprise sale

[00:07:14] where we are now too with very large customers and there's multiple stakeholders on their side. So

[00:07:19] we're trying to create this culture of winning together. And it starts really with pipeline

[00:07:23] hygiene, knowing where we are. And then the other piece is just qualification. I always talk

[00:07:28] about being selfish with your time because it's one of those resources that we can't get any

[00:07:33] back and you can't make more of. So for me, it's like driving the narrative to the sales

[00:07:38] team of I want you to be really selfish with your time because it's important. So there's

[00:07:42] this old adage, there's two winners in every deal. The first one to qualify out and the one

[00:07:46] that gets the contract. I believe that you're not going to win. It's not a fit move on. It's okay

[00:07:52] because your opportunity cost of time is too high. And are you a medic, a med pick or

[00:07:56] something else advocate? Yeah, I believe it's case dependent on the organization.

[00:08:02] I think I've been part of force management and Sandler and spin selling and value selling

[00:08:07] and different qualification metrics. I like them all. For me, it's more about consistency

[00:08:12] of using them. Pick one and just do it. Whether that's medic or med pick or bant,

[00:08:18] whatever the qualification metrics are. We have a little hybrid of something. We do a little

[00:08:22] bit some, we do a little different approach here so far, which is really more customer centric

[00:08:27] type qualification, but we're rolling it out. We're using it and it seems to be working.

[00:08:32] Tell me more about customer centric qualification methods.

[00:08:37] Good question. One of the challenges that I see in cybersecurity and really any tech sales is

[00:08:43] we've had such tremendous growth that we've hired people from other industries to bridge

[00:08:48] the gap. That's great. They come with different perspectives, diversity of thought, different

[00:08:51] skill sets. Great. But typically where I see it fall down is we give product training and

[00:08:57] sales enablement training. And I know this is right up your alley, probably speak better than

[00:09:01] I do on this topic. But when we training sellers, it's mostly on the product functionality.

[00:09:06] It does this, it does that. It bakes bread, it's AI. That's not why someone's buying it.

[00:09:11] But the challenge is the team's getting the training from the people who built it. And

[00:09:16] they're so excited to tell you what they built. We're failing the sales leaders and

[00:09:20] the sales enablement team and ultimately the sales professionals to translate that into why

[00:09:25] something would, why someone would buy it. And so for me, I just see this systemic issue of

[00:09:30] people talking about speeds and feeds and features, not about client outcomes. And I

[00:09:35] know that's a full of this term, client outcomes, but it happens all the time. So we're really

[00:09:39] taking a concerted effort to put ourselves in the lens of the customer in talking in terms

[00:09:45] that resonate to them versus the things that matter to us. And this is in line with the

[00:09:50] second thing you said in your post, right? Client-centric messaging. Clients don't buy

[00:09:54] products. They solve business problems and achieve outcomes. Look at your market message

[00:09:59] and ensure you're highlighting client outcomes, not features and functionality.

[00:10:05] I'm with you on this. This is something that I think plagues tech in general,

[00:10:08] but especially cyber. You go look at some websites and you can see their orientation.

[00:10:13] And I understand it, right? They're doing some cool stuff. They're building

[00:10:16] amazing products. But I talk to people how products are four letter word when it comes

[00:10:21] to sales. It's like everything else in the company is all about product, but some other

[00:10:24] salesperson has to go out and translate that into, as you say, client-centric messaging.

[00:10:29] And having a framework to do it is probably quite important as opposed to just having

[00:10:34] everyone guess on their own. Why don't you think the companies, even though intuitively when you

[00:10:40] remind them they go, oh yeah, you're right. Why do you think they still make this mistake?

[00:10:44] I don't know. I've been trying to solve that hypothesis, test that hypothesis myself,

[00:10:49] solve the equation rather. I mean this with all due respect, I love engineers. I am not

[00:10:54] technically orientated. I've started businesses and relied upon technologists to help me get

[00:11:00] there. I just think it's really for most engineers, it's zeros and ones and ones and

[00:11:05] zeros. And so unfortunately, I think it goes back to the gap between product management

[00:11:11] and sales sometimes is that gap, right? And I think it's just systemic. I think there's

[00:11:18] good change coming. I think the ones that do figure it out win, right? The ones that have a

[00:11:22] really clear value proposition that's customer-centric tend to have more success because it resonates,

[00:11:28] right? And it really facilitates something. It's not the sales process. You're enabling buying

[00:11:34] journey. There's a difference there, right? And so if you can tap into where that customer is

[00:11:38] from the buying journey and the challenges they're facing on from their perspective,

[00:11:43] I just feel like you have way more success resonating with that prospect who doesn't

[00:11:49] really know you or maybe knows read your website, but they're coming to you. You're

[00:11:53] coming to them. And if you talk in their language, you're able to accelerate trust faster.

[00:11:58] So I just think it's really comes back to we have a lot of engineering-centric

[00:12:01] organizations and founders, which are great. I hope it continues, but it just comes down to

[00:12:05] at the go-to-market and product management level, just translating those really valuable

[00:12:11] features into more customer-centric, either challenge remediations or outcomes that they

[00:12:16] can drive. And I think that's really what needs to happen.

[00:12:20] Let's say there's a head of sales listening to this right now and he's sitting there,

[00:12:23] he or she is sitting there going, that's the situation I'm in. I'm at this company

[00:12:27] and I'm surrounded by all this me-us-centric stuff. Any tips for that person how they would

[00:12:33] start making a change? Yeah. Go ask your customers why they bought it. They're not

[00:12:38] buying it for the features. Right? We oftentimes see that this value realization phase,

[00:12:44] that information around derived value that happens at the customer level very infrequently gets

[00:12:50] back to the sales and marketing team. But I think if there's the fastest way to do it is

[00:12:55] go ask your customers why they bought your product and what value have they derived from your

[00:13:00] solution. And you'll know exactly how you should be talking to the next customer and how

[00:13:05] your market message should shift to those outcomes. I love that. It's interesting.

[00:13:09] One of the things that I hear is, well, our prospects need to know what we do. And I get

[00:13:16] it. Right? They do at some level. But I think what people don't realize is there's an unsaid

[00:13:21] part of that question, which is they want to know what we do for them. And every time working

[00:13:28] with PMMs or PMs, the orientation has to be for them at the end of all these statements

[00:13:35] or questions we're asking internally. And as you say, if you can go get the evidence

[00:13:40] and have that ready to go and say, look, I talked to 15 customers and here's what they're

[00:13:44] telling us, we need to figure out how we use this as part of our go-to-market

[00:13:48] as opposed to all the stuff about ourselves. It feels like that might be quite impactful,

[00:13:51] actually, in a lot of companies. Yeah. You learn a lot. You learn a lot.

[00:13:55] With all due respect to sales and marketing professionals, I'm one of them. In large

[00:14:00] organizations, depending upon where they rank, some leaders haven't talked to customers in years.

[00:14:06] They haven't carried a bag in years. And so while they're driving strategy,

[00:14:11] my best ask is go talk to your customers. Go talk to the people in the field because

[00:14:16] that's where you really learn the insights of what's going on to help inform your strategy.

[00:14:20] It's not a knock on people that get promoted and it's fantastic and it's great. But I think

[00:14:25] you've got to have an ear to the ground. You've got to really understand why your customers

[00:14:30] are buying and how they're deriving value from your customer to set the strategy at the top.

[00:14:34] Yeah. I think you're dead on with that.

[00:14:40] Patrick, let's learn a little bit more about you. I've got my incredibly sophisticated random

[00:14:46] number generator here. It's all based on AI. Of course, it's next generation. It's using

[00:14:51] advanced encryption to protect the algorithm that we created over many months to make sure

[00:14:56] that we get completely random questions from the generators. I'm going to spin the wheel here

[00:15:01] and then whatever it comes up with, we're going to ask that question. Are you ready to go?

[00:15:05] Fire away.

[00:15:11] All right. Question number 17. How did you make money as a kid?

[00:15:15] I made it a lot of different ways. There's one that sticks out in my mind. I was about 10 years

[00:15:21] old and I realized that at the time, there were these number two pencils. We all took

[00:15:27] standardized testings and you had these number two pencils that were yellow. At the time,

[00:15:31] these wooden pencils without any paint on them were kind of in vogue. I realized pretty

[00:15:36] quickly that if I saved my lunch money, I could buy these yellow pencils at the school

[00:15:42] store. Then what I would do is I would shave off, literally just scrape off the yellow paint,

[00:15:48] sell it to my colleagues or my classmates for a lot more money. I'll never forget it. I could

[00:15:53] call to the principal's office. My parents came in and they found razor blades in my desk.

[00:15:58] That being kind of an interesting thing to find in a 10-year-old's desk. I remember being

[00:16:03] in the principal's office and my parents came in and they go, what's going on? Is

[00:16:06] there something wrong? I'll never forget this day in my moment in my life. My dad's like,

[00:16:11] what's going on? Is there something you need to tell me about? I said, yeah, there is that. I'm

[00:16:15] really sorry. I showed him not only the pencil box full of shavings, but I showed him the other

[00:16:21] pencil box probably about 50 bucks. Thinking that I was going to get in trouble, he looked at

[00:16:25] me dead in the face and he said, if you had 50 bucks, why do you keep asking me for lunch

[00:16:29] money? I knew at that point I had the entrepreneurial spirit and never looked back.

[00:16:34] I love that story. I've never heard anything like that before, but that's awesome. You're

[00:16:39] just basically trying to serve the market. You know what they're after and you've got a way

[00:16:44] to serve them. It saves them having to go to the store or beg for their parents for

[00:16:47] some new pencils. That's awesome. All right, let's spin the wheel again.

[00:16:57] Question number 34. What's the most embarrassing moment in your career so far?

[00:17:04] Probably the most embarrassing moment was with my first job out of college and I

[00:17:08] learned my lesson early, so I'm glad I made my mistakes at an early age. I had a

[00:17:13] fortunate pleasure of working for a large bank in Los Angeles that was part of the

[00:17:17] gaming and leisure group. Our clients were the Native American tribes, the public gaming

[00:17:21] companies, so we'd go to Vegas all the time. I remember on my first trip, my boss said,

[00:17:26] do yourself a favor. Do not get stuck and sucked into the vortex in Vegas.

[00:17:31] You're there for work, not pleasure. Keep a low profile, he kept telling me. Well,

[00:17:37] I didn't keep a low profile and I enjoy the fruits and the things that people do in Vegas

[00:17:44] and I'll never forget missing the morning meeting. I woke up and my hotel room red

[00:17:51] light was flashing and I missed the meeting. I had to fly back immediately to Los Angeles.

[00:17:56] The most embarrassing moment of my life was walking back through the office

[00:18:00] and everybody in the office had heard that I missed the meeting. Having the walk of shame,

[00:18:04] going back to my boss's office and he said, I told you so. So as a punishment for that,

[00:18:09] the next day I was on a red eye flight to New York. I had to do a site survey of a casino up

[00:18:15] in upstate New York in the middle of January and I had to fly right back. So my penance was

[00:18:21] red eye flight, same die flight back and I can assure you I have never missed a meeting

[00:18:27] after that moment. So it was a valuable lesson that I learned early in my career

[00:18:30] and I've never duplicated it and I'm glad I have it.

[00:18:32] Pete Slauson I think that's a lesson that many people

[00:18:34] listen to this money have learned at kickoffs in the past as well.

[00:18:39] We've all got stories of different kickoffs where someone misses the start of the meeting,

[00:18:42] gets fined out and even some people do stuff so stupid they get let go. So

[00:18:47] yeah, that walk of shame, I can feel your pain as you're going through that for sure.

[00:18:51] Jeff Slauson Yep, young and he said,

[00:18:54] I told you so. And I was like, you were right. So I took my penance and I learned

[00:18:58] and it was a valuable lesson from that day forward.

[00:19:00] Pete Slauson Awesome, right. Last question. Let me spin

[00:19:02] the wheel again. All right, number six. What is the story behind you getting your first job

[00:19:12] in cybersecurity? Jeff Slauson

[00:19:14] First job in cyber? Oh, that's a good one. It was a really interesting run. I was,

[00:19:19] again, I started my career in banking and then I had the fortunate pleasure of joining

[00:19:22] Cisco systems for a while. And while they had security products at that point,

[00:19:26] my real first foray exclusively in the cyber was when Fishnet Security acquired a company

[00:19:31] called Tori Point. Tori Point was a really interesting company was similar to what I'm

[00:19:36] doing now. And they were kind of a thought leader as it relates to large service provider

[00:19:40] networks and doing some kind of software to find networking stuff. And that company got

[00:19:44] bought by Fishnet. And I'll never forget going out there you had two really different cultures,

[00:19:50] San Francisco based company in the Kansas City based company, we sat down,

[00:19:54] and we consummated the relationship. And I said, wow, this is gonna be a really

[00:19:58] interesting run. And I wasn't totally certain that cyber security was the right place for me.

[00:20:03] And the more I looked around at that impressive facility and what they had built and the client

[00:20:07] deck that they have, I said, wow, I'm going to give this a run. And fortunately for me,

[00:20:10] it was the right decision. It was a great run in cyber learned a ton. So that was really

[00:20:15] 20, 2011, 2012 timeframe. So it's been about a decade or, you know,

[00:20:21] Baker's dozen plus years in the space and been a wild ride. So very fortunate

[00:20:25] to have that experience. And that was before the Fishnet-AcuVent merger, right?

[00:20:30] Correct. Yeah, that was when Fishnet was just a sole entity. And then about a year and a half later,

[00:20:37] the AcuVent merger happened. The Optiv run was a good run. So yeah, it was a fun experience.

[00:20:43] It was a series of multiple roll ups, a lot of M&A, a lot of activity which suits my

[00:20:48] background. It's never a dull moment. I kind of like it that way. So very fortunate to

[00:20:52] have that occur at that time. And one more area in your LinkedIn post I want to talk about,

[00:21:01] you put it like this, outbound evolution. The role and effectiveness of the SDR slash BDR has

[00:21:09] evolved. If you're still running the same playbook you were in 2020, you're wasting

[00:21:15] time and money. Tell me more about that statement, Patrick.

[00:21:18] Yeah, this is a fairly controversial topic, I think. But everybody's trying to figure this out.

[00:21:24] The game has changed. The buying journey has changed. The buying process has changed. I think

[00:21:29] we all can recognize that. Pre-pandemic even to where we are now, a lot of it's virtual.

[00:21:34] We find that customers come into the buying cycle more informed than they were previously.

[00:21:40] I mean, I harken back to my days at Cisco and we were the ones that were giving

[00:21:45] product presentations. So we were the gatekeeper of information. Well,

[00:21:48] information's everywhere now. So I think the buying journey has shifted. And while the SDR,

[00:21:53] BDR of the 90s and of the early 2000s in this industrial complex of BDR, AE,

[00:22:00] account manager type stuff was really good, I think it's shifted. So it can apply. I've seen

[00:22:06] it apply and be very successful in certain areas. Maybe it's early, it's SMB getting to a

[00:22:11] cyber buyer, especially if your CISO is your buyer for an SDR or BDR. Very difficult. At the

[00:22:18] same time as the SDR and BDR are your first line. And what tends to be difficult is,

[00:22:24] do you really want, with all due respect to SDRs and BDRs, they're probably the most junior

[00:22:29] on your team, but it's a function that's out there. Do you really want them to be the person

[00:22:33] making the first impression for your organization? So there's a question that needs to be addressed

[00:22:37] there. The second piece is outbound is really hard. The technology has shifted where spam filters

[00:22:44] are going through the roof, LinkedIn, and you and I both know it, we probably get 40 to 50

[00:22:50] solicitations a week. It's just unattainable. So I'm more of the lens of there is really good

[00:22:58] information that an SDR or BDR can do. I think the first thing you need to do is you need to

[00:23:03] give them better lists. And I'm not saying that Apollo and the Zoom infos of the world aren't good

[00:23:09] lists, but I'd rather see us work on do you have a close loss list or do you have people

[00:23:14] that have already engaged with you? So how do you tee them up for more warm leads?

[00:23:19] And then the second piece is I would also like to see folks really recognize that while the BDR

[00:23:25] is typically compensated on meetings, there's a lot of market intelligence that they can get.

[00:23:31] So if we follow the rules that the 3% of your addressable markets in the buying cycle with

[00:23:36] another 7% being influenced and then all the other percentages that follow thereafter that,

[00:23:42] very hard to think that you're just going to find that 3 to 10% of individuals at the right

[00:23:49] time with your crafty email. It's very hard, but at the same time as they do connect and they

[00:23:55] do get information. So where we've seen this evolution is it actually helps our nurturing

[00:24:00] campaign and some of our marketing efforts by understanding where certain customers or customer

[00:24:05] segments are in their buying journey, which influence a lot of our kind of inbound creation

[00:24:11] around marketing. So what I'm hearing you say is be a lot more intelligent and targeted

[00:24:16] on what you have people doing so that their chance of succeeding is higher, right?

[00:24:21] Unless people would still do it these days, but you don't give someone a list of thousand names

[00:24:25] and have at it, right? You want to say, okay, here are they closed loss? Here's the ones

[00:24:29] that disengage. Here's these types of people. Let's have a very focused campaign. There might be

[00:24:34] a lot more than just someone making calls or sending emails, right? There might be more

[00:24:38] around it than just that to have a chance of success. What else is, you know, people are

[00:24:43] looking for pipeline right now. Any specific recommendations or tips or tactics that you've

[00:24:50] seen the last year that you would recommend people at least look at or experiment with to

[00:24:54] say, go try a couple of these things because it might well work for you as it has for me.

[00:24:59] Yes, certainly. Good question. I think in the cyber space specifically, we're seeing this

[00:25:04] platform technology rationalization. It's been coming for a while. There's too many tools.

[00:25:09] There's too many problems to solve. You got workforce labor shortages, all these headwinds

[00:25:16] that just cause complexity. So one of the things I worked for early stage companies that have

[00:25:20] really good technology, but at the same time as some of the objections are, I just can't

[00:25:26] operationalize this in my tech stack. So I think there's two things there that you can take a look

[00:25:31] at. One is what's your better together story with those platform vendors if you can create that,

[00:25:36] right? How do you create OEM alliances? How do you augment something that you know as a market

[00:25:41] player? There's a lot of big names out there, the Palos, the CrowdStrikes, the Ciscos,

[00:25:45] the RSAs, et cetera. So if you are creating a product, what's that story look like? What's

[00:25:50] that better together story that you could actually accompany with because they've already

[00:25:55] got the brand recognition. So one, you can draft off of them. Two, they already have the customer

[00:26:00] base. So there's your leads. And then three, those folks are looking for additional use cases

[00:26:07] to sell. So if you somehow can figure out a way to get on their global price list or

[00:26:12] create some sort of revenue share, it's easier said than done. But if you can do that,

[00:26:17] I think that's your fastest path to revenue and your fastest path to scale.

[00:26:21] You know, it's funny you bring up this. I mean, obviously the last couple of months,

[00:26:24] Palos getting a bit of news about their CEO saying, look, we want to be the platform for

[00:26:30] cyber, right? Now, whether that really comes to light or not, I don't know. But it does remind

[00:26:35] me, so 10, 15 years ago at McAfee, we had a platform and we had what we call the Security

[00:26:40] Innovation Alliance, the SIA. And what that was was essentially third parties, smaller vendors,

[00:26:47] usually, but some big ones as well, would integrate into the platform that McAfee was

[00:26:52] building. And for some of the different levels of partners inside the SIA, but some of them

[00:26:57] would be on our price list. So me as someone who's trying to sell that stuff, I would get

[00:27:00] paid on it in some shape or form. Some were more referral partners, but there's a lot in

[00:27:05] that, right? And the company wanted us to go and help our clients solve problems with

[00:27:11] partners as well as our own stuff because it just strengthened the whole ecosystem.

[00:27:15] And I'm wondering, if you look at the Palos and Zscalers and all the big companies out

[00:27:19] there vying for those credit strikes, they all have these programs and what it would take for

[00:27:25] a small company or a company that's not one of those big ones to say, look, let's go,

[00:27:30] as you say, let's go be better together, as opposed to try and plow our own furrow in this

[00:27:34] pretty tough field out there. Yeah. And you can't be everything to everybody too.

[00:27:38] So the other thing is, if you're not able to be strategic with those said vendors to either

[00:27:43] price list, a lot of them have marketplaces. So you can create your own narrative without

[00:27:48] really their approval, right? And then be able to be facilitated through their marketplaces.

[00:27:53] So I think that's the other piece that if you're not able to get their attention because

[00:27:57] you're as small and maybe they just can't be everything everybody like I mentioned,

[00:28:02] there's that marketplace play. So it's the same concept that you talked about at McAfee. Now

[00:28:06] it's just, you have a different consumption model of which these ELAs and credits and

[00:28:11] tech credits that are sitting on that are already prepaid, you can accelerate procurement deals

[00:28:16] really quickly. Like I said, it's not as simple as that. But if you look at strategies versus

[00:28:23] thinking that you're going to hire a BDR first time salesperson on a vendor you've never

[00:28:27] heard of potentially a product or use case that you don't even know of anybody solving yet,

[00:28:33] it's very hard. And I think there's our avenues of where people have been really effective

[00:28:38] in those tech alliances, in addition to their marketplace strategy that allowed them to get

[00:28:43] from A to B rounds faster or B to C or hit their growth objectives that they've outlawned

[00:28:47] as an organization. Yeah, I would just add on one tip if people are doing the alliances

[00:28:53] play is that signing the deal or getting part of the marketplace at the alliance is one

[00:28:58] thing getting traction is another. And having sat on the platform side of this,

[00:29:03] I remember we had 125 companies in the SIA. I would say there's probably about 10 of them who

[00:29:09] are all over us as sellers. They knew that actually what mattered was what happened at

[00:29:14] the coal face, right? And there was an R90 who you never heard of but you somehow

[00:29:20] could have a list one day and realize, well, they might help me in this account.

[00:29:22] But there was always five to 10, 15, something like that. Everything we're at,

[00:29:27] we want to come to QBRs, they were at the conferences with us alongside us,

[00:29:31] the whole thing. And they were the one that got the real traction out of the relationships,

[00:29:34] I'm sure. Yeah, you got to work it. Yeah, I think there's,

[00:29:38] it's easier said than does deals make partnerships, right? I can't, just on that,

[00:29:43] for anybody that's listening, I can't tell you how many times either on the vendor side or

[00:29:47] even at Optiv or the places that I've been on the partner side where you draft up these

[00:29:52] world domination strategies and how we're going to go conquer the world and deal reg and gross

[00:29:57] margin percent and profitability. And you're like, yeah, well, go start with one because

[00:30:01] inevitably, you're going to learn a lot on those first couple of deals. So I always say,

[00:30:06] you know, think big, start small, move fast, right? Because you're going to iterate anyways.

[00:30:11] So while we can go have this world domination strategy together and take all this market

[00:30:14] share, if we don't actually mobilize a strategy at pace, we'll never get there.

[00:30:19] So I think that's the other thing is be realistic with your goals and expectations

[00:30:25] and go get quick wins that allow you to build momentum and further investment.

[00:30:29] One last question, looking forward into maybe 25 even, as we think about building pipeline,

[00:30:36] we think about outbound evolution, the role of the SDR BDR. How do you think things are going

[00:30:40] to play out maybe in years time? Will we have SDRs? Will all be AI driven? Any thoughts on

[00:30:47] that Patrick? Yeah, I think there will be an evolution. I think AI will impact things.

[00:30:51] It already is. We're seeing more efficiency, but I go back to the authenticity. I just think we're

[00:30:58] people at the end of the day that buy from people, even if it's an AI generated message,

[00:31:02] we can read kind of right through that. And so I always go back to know me, like me,

[00:31:07] trust me, pay me, right? These concepts because at the end of the day, we are making a

[00:31:12] transaction and I've got to trust you as the individual in your organization that I'm

[00:31:17] investing into because there are human elements that matter. So yeah, you can facilitate through AI

[00:31:24] a lot of market research, but when push comes to sub, we're making a bet on someone and something

[00:31:31] to do what's required. So I still think that when you take a look at building pipeline,

[00:31:36] content is still key. And then the authenticity of it, you can't just dabble in certain

[00:31:42] things and then you either do it and you believe in it and you stay the course,

[00:31:47] because you can be read right through if it's just a fly by night scheme. But if you are authentic

[00:31:52] with your market value, you're authentic with your market message and you continue to execute

[00:31:59] with authenticity, I think people ultimately want to be around you. That's the first thing.

[00:32:04] The second thing is we've found that through my research doing consulting,

[00:32:09] that CEOs and co-founders as evangelists matter, right? Yes, I buy a company, but I'm

[00:32:14] really also buying the leader of that company, right? Elon Musk's, Steve Jobs, etc. We're

[00:32:21] attracted to these individuals of who they are for what they stand for, right or wrong.

[00:32:25] And so I think that also helps smaller companies. Your founder needs or your executive

[00:32:30] staff need to be the evangelist, need to be out there. And that really helps folks

[00:32:36] determine where there might be multiple options. I like this person or I like what they stand

[00:32:41] for and that authentic evaluation of the individuals, I still think will reign true.

[00:32:46] Despite the technology advances that will help us identify those types of things,

[00:32:50] I'm still very bullish on the personal connections and authenticity of leadership.

[00:32:55] Yeah, if I was going to join a company right now, that's one of the things I would look

[00:32:59] very carefully at. I've been on both sides of this. I've been somewhere where the founder

[00:33:04] just charismatic, when he talked people listened. If you never knew the guy,

[00:33:10] within five, 10 seconds you'd see people starting to lean forward a little bit and

[00:33:14] how you would captivate them. And I've been places where the CEO would talk and

[00:33:18] not even employees would listen. And I'd rather be at the place where the charismatic person

[00:33:24] who commands some attention. I think about Kevin Mandia in our world, right? He named

[00:33:30] the company after himself, but when Kevin Mandia talked 10 years ago, people stopped

[00:33:34] to listen. He was very engaging. He was compelling with what he talked about. He made

[00:33:39] a whole ton of sense and he just seemed to have that ability as well. I'd be looking for that

[00:33:44] if I was thinking about where I'm at and how we're going to succeed. It must be so difficult

[00:33:49] if you don't have that in place. I couldn't agree more. Yeah,

[00:33:52] I couldn't agree more. It starts at the top in the culture from the belief system.

[00:33:56] And I just think now more than ever, there's a lot of options out there and there's a lot

[00:34:00] of technology companies out there. And I think I would echo your sentiments.

[00:34:05] Well, Patrick, I'm going to put your LinkedIn into the show notes in this episode. If someone

[00:34:10] wants to get in touch with you, is that the best way or would you have them do something else?

[00:34:14] Yeah, that'd be great. I'm pretty active on the platform. The best way to probably get me is

[00:34:18] through LinkedIn. So if I can spend some time and anybody has any additional questions who

[00:34:23] wants to talk further about the concepts, I'm happy to chat.

[00:34:26] That's awesome. Well, listen, I wish you the best for 2024 and into 25.

[00:34:29] Thank you very much. Likewise. Thanks again.

[00:34:44] It will mean a lot to me and to the continued growth of the show. It could help get the word out.

[00:34:49] So how do you do that easily? There are two ways. Firstly, just simply send a link to a friend,

[00:34:56] send a link to the show, to this episode. You can email it, text it, slack it, whatever works

[00:35:01] for you and is easy for you. The second way is to leave a super quick rating. And sometimes

[00:35:07] that can seem complicated. So I've made it as easy for you as I can. You simply have to go

[00:35:12] to rate this podcast.com slash cyber that's rate this podcast.com slash cyber and explains

[00:35:21] exactly how to do it. Either of these ways will take you less than 30 seconds to do,

[00:35:26] and it will mean the world to me. So thank you.