Why the Rep, Not the Product, Wins Cyber Sales; Fred Descloux @ Nu Skin

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00] This episode is brought to you by FastRamp2Revenue, the done-for-you new hire sales program built exclusively for cybersecurity companies. We bring the process, the frameworks, the training and the coaching, you bring your content, and we customize everything for your market and for your company and run the entire program for you. You don't have to pull a single person off your team to do it. Proven at over 15 cybersecurity companies? Get your new rep selling faster.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_00] Visit unstoppable.do to learn more. So if you really think about it, it's a little weird how we're taught to sell the products that we sell at a vendor. You know, your discovery questions were probably written by a seller or given to you by your boss. The objection handling document or bank was probably written by product management or product marketing. The deck you use was probably from marketing or maybe even from the founder.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_00] And everything that your company has taught you about why the product that you're selling is relevant to cybersecurity leaders was written by them. A little bit weird, right? Fred Descloux, who's joining us today, is a security buyer. And he's unique because he's been the seller. He's worked on the sales side. He's been the implementer, the operator, and the advisor working for one of the big four. And now he's leading security at Nu Skin.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_00] He's the one that's talking to sellers. He's the one that's taking the vendor meetings. And today he's talking to us. And we cover a lot of ground in this episode, but we talk about things like how important trust is and what a seller recently claimed about Fred's boss that killed all trust in a sentence. Another thing we talk about is why he'd send a more junior rep to have five meetings at an event rather than send them to have 20 or 30 meetings at an event.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00] And we talk about the question he asked vendors on purpose and the answer that gets you kicked out and nothing at all from that interaction. And we talk about a whole bunch more. Here's Fred. Well, Fred, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Andrew. I'm really looking forward to this episode.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00] We're going to cover a couple of important topics, all centered around the idea that you sit on the other side of the table, then many of the listeners that will be on this podcast, listening to this podcast, the audience that we have. So you're going to give us a perspective that we probably guess at, but we don't really know too much about. So it's going to be interesting as we get into this and get your opinions and your ideas about what you experience over there.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_00] However, Fred, before we get into that, we have an important thing to take on here. We are going to spin the cyber go-to-market talk podcast wheel. I don't know what I call it a wheel of fun or wheel of topics. I don't know. I have to get a more punchy name than that. We're going to spin the wheel. It's going to come up with one of these five topics. For those that are watching on YouTube, you'll see them. For those audio only, the five very quickly are overrated or underrated. The cyber donut hot seat. It's personal.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_00] Visionary or smoking crack. Or differentiation teardown. Easy for me to say. And we'll see what comes up and then tackle those questions with Fred towards the end of the podcast. You ready to go? I'm ready. All right. Here we go. All right. We got overrated or underrated.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00] So in this one, what I'll do later on, Fred, just so you know, is I will read three things. And you have to tell me whether you think each of those is underrated or overrated. And we'll dig into it if I think that your answers are kind of interesting and maybe not quite what I was expecting. So let's put that to one side for now and we'll revisit that later on in the episode. All right. So let's kick it off like this.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00] I think that there's a big change going on right now. Something that we talk about on the go-to-market side about how we're selling, especially in the age of AI. You know, many go-to-market teams are at least dabbling, but there are various stages, let's say, of adoption and success and things like that. And one of the things we talk about is, you know, you've got to do your research before you go and talk to your prospects. All right.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00] I'm interested in your site, though, because you get to use AI on your side of the table as well. Do you research the people used to use ChatGPT or Claude or whatever to say, OK, I'm meeting with this company that's due to it in an hour. You know, let's find out what we can about it. Is that something that you do? And how does that work out for you?

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02] Always. Always. I stalk them. No, I'm joking. But no, I always try to do my homework because I like to come prepared to conversations, even if it's a casual conversation with either a prospect or potentially a future vendor. Always coming prepared.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_02] And I think you mentioned earlier that I'm indeed sitting on the buyer side of the table, but I also used to sit on other sides of the table during my career so far. I was on the seller side. I've been on the implementer side, on the operator side, on the advisor side, and on the buyer side. I wish I had AI from when I was on the seller side, but I did not.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02] To your question, absolutely always look for information, even if it's on different levels. One, of course, you want to understand the company that the person you're meeting with is representing. You want to understand the product. You want to try to have a first impression on, or I want to have a first impression on whether or not this product could fit, how much it could fit my need. We know it's never going to be 100%, but that's fine.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_02] But how much are we talking about? And I like to do some light research, of course, on the person because I like to connect with the folks. LinkedIn is the gold of mine for that. So you just scroll down to centers of interest or personalities that they're following. And you're like, okay, great. We like the same person. So it's always good to have a good impression on the vibe that the conversation is going to have.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_02] And I think AI is helping a lot when it comes to, of course, gathering this information and having a conversation then with the person, the vendor that you're going to talk with. And have a conversation that is going to be symmetric as much as possible, right? So they did their research, hopefully. I hope they did their homework, but I did too. And so we can be, one, we can be more efficient because we can go straight to the point sometimes.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_02] We can have a conversation that is more personalized because we know a few things from each other as people. And yeah, that's the beauty of AI, I think.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_00] So what I've seen happen is, you know, on the buy side, people will show up more prepared, more detail, more info about the company, the product, things like that. The seller does a bunch of research, hopefully, on the same sort of thing, right? But then they'll come in and they'll basically kick the call off the same way and ask the same discovery questions that they've always asked. Does that feel okay to you or does it feel weird that they're still asking some of these basic questions?

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_02] Well, it depends how well they did their homework before. If someone did their homework really well and they know that, for example, someone else in their organization spoke with someone in mind, or if they did really well their investigation on the industry that we are operating in and they have some valuable insight, please bring it to the conversation, please absolutely.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, I would definitely not feel creeped out if someone is extremely detailed because they did some great due diligence. On the other side, so absolutely not weird. Quite the opposite. I'm straight to the point. If we can cut to the chase as much as we can, I'm all for it. I don't buy small talk, so just let's go straight to the point. On the other side of the coin, if you flip the coin though, if you don't come prepared to the meeting, that's fine. But don't fake it.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_02] Don't try to fake it because it's going to be so obvious at some point. And so, yeah, let's be direct. I mean, hey, Fred, I didn't take the time. We've been back-to-back meetings. I mean, it's been crazy this week. You didn't get to take the time to do some research. So I'm going to ask you a very basic question. That's fine too. But I like, you know, honesty, consistency, this kind of things. I think that's a good way to build trust, I think, with the buyer too, right?

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_02] Being honest, being direct, and being vulnerable sometimes. How often do they try and fake it? Too often. I'm smiling. I'm smiling. I'm even laughing inside because I had a great example two days ago. I was at a security summit in Atlanta. Great place to be.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02] I love going to this type of spaces, of setups, because it's the perfect opportunity to meet with a ton of vendors and ton of peers as well. And, you know, you have this psychological group effect where you can share all your problems and you realize that you're not alone on Earth. And that's fine. And then you meet with a bunch of vendors. Sometimes it's interesting. Sometimes it's just out of curiosity.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_02] But that always gives you a good insight on where the market is going and how it can help you on the inside, from a process perspective. Sometimes I go, well, wait a second. I've seen these three vendors offering this. Well, maybe that's the direction the industry is taking. So good to take a step back. So besides this context, I'm going to this, not a roundtable, but this one-on-one conversation with a vendor that I organized.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_02] And the guy is coming to me and saying, hey, Fred, oh, yeah, you know what? You work for us. So I work for a company called Nu Skin in the wellness and beauty space.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01] And so he's like, hey, Fred, I spoke with someone in the security space. I think it's your boss, actually. He said, oh, you talked with Jack. He said, yeah, yeah, Jack, exactly.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_02] Andrew, my boss's name is Vince. I don't know any Jack. So, no, no, don't fake it. And honestly, I took it as a joke at the beginning. I was not trying to trap the guy. It was very nice. And we actually had a good conversation. But it was, I mean, the trust, there was no trust. It was literally for me just a conversation he lost before even starting the game. Don't fake it. That's fine.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02] If you never spoke to anyone or if you don't remember the name, I mean, I'm very glad of remembering people's names. Just be honest, be direct. Don't fake it.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, that sounds like a... Well, I can imagine it comes from a standpoint of they probably don't have the confidence to be able to say, look, Fred, honestly, this is a last minute thing. I just brought, you know, whatever it might be, right? They feel like they look more silly. They try to fake it a little bit. They try to, what's the word? They kind of black their way through it. And that doesn't seem like a very authentic way or trustworthy way to conduct yourself.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. And I get it, right? But I think, you know, again, having spent some time to a certain extent on the seller's side, you want to display confidence. You want to show that you know yourself. You want to, and, you know, fake it until you make it is 100% true in many aspects of the workplace, on the sales side as well, of course. I understand. But I think at the end of the day, it's probably a gamble.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02] You want to try to play the short term. I think when you sell, you want to try to play the long term as well. You want to build trust. And I think, well, and maybe that's a very personal take, but being vulnerable in any type of relationship is helping to build trust, right? I mean, whether it's work relationship or, I don't know, friends, friendship, romantic relationship, whatever.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02] Being vulnerable is being honest, being, you know, you're a whole person, right?

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_00] So you're being a human when you're like that, right? There you go. Exactly. Every human has fears and frustrations, hopes and dreams, you know, the whole thing, right? Let me go back to, let's take your guy at the summit that you try to fake a little bit. What if he went to the other extreme? What if he'd walked up to you and he'd start the conversation with the most amazing research you've ever heard in your life, Fred? Right?

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_00] He just said, look, here's what I've, here's the ideas I've had. Here's what I've learned. I thought it would be valuable for conversations just to put them out there. What could he tell you that you would go, wow, this guy has got his stuff together?

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_02] So I think understanding the business. So I work in a security and privacy space, right? Which you could think is very technical. So you don't need necessarily to know the business to sell a, you know, a security solution or privacy solution. Well, pretty much the opposite. So showing that you've done some research on the industry and Nuskin happens to work on a very specific industry.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_02] We don't sell so much in retail. We sell, we are multi-level marketing companies. So our sales force is very specific to this type of, to this industry. And of course, business model, operating model that is different means there's going to be different variations or a difference in the way that we approach security or we approach privacy.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_02] So only by showing that you've done some research, I think the number one thing is doing some research on the business side, on the business, on the industry that the person that you're meeting with is operating. And also because, of course, personally, because we work with this very specific operating model, understanding it. Again, AI is amazing at this, right? I mean, explain to me how a multi-level marketing company works.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02] You get the answer in five minutes and you're in, you should get it.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_00] And then explain to me what might be the unique challenges for someone who runs privacy, GRC and security, a company like that, right?

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02] Exactly, exactly. So you have the information is at your fingertips, right? It's literally a question of going online and trying to understand this. So I think the number one thing that would impress me is coming as someone who would be coming to me and say, Hey, I know you're working at Newskin, I understand. But also, you know, be confident, but be conservative. I understand that. Don't say, you do this. Okay, hold on a second.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02] I understand that you in the MLM space. This is how you, is that right? Is that right? You do some cues from time to time. You get the person to connect and be like, yes, yes, yes. And there's confidence for you as well because you know as a vendor that you're on the right track. Or you get corrected and then you can be agile and, of course, correct your approach. But coming like this with an understanding of the business, even more than an understanding of the, to your point,

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_02] the privacy and security implications in this specific business, that goes very far. I can't expect anyone outside of an organization to know what type of system I'm using for security, for privacy. Of course, this information is not, should not be public. It's not public, I hope. And I'm not going to, and they should then come with questions. Okay, what's your challenges? What's your, what's the system that you're using today? Oh, I know them. So, I think this goes a long way.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_02] This shows that, it displays seriousness in the approach. It shows that the person really wants to talk to you, to sell to you because that's the purpose. And they come right there. They do their homework.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_00] It's interesting. The way that we, as sellers, sometimes can make educated guesses what you use for products is in your job descriptions. Because you'll say, I want, I don't know, a sysadmin for with knowledge off, and it'll list that vendor names, part names, stuff like that. Okay, well, they probably have that already, right? So, anyway, it's just, if you ever wonder why, how our salesperson might know that, it's because they've got some sort of insight into your job descriptions on the website.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_00] You said something that was really important there. So, I find that sellers often do this. And I call it lecturing, right? They lecture at you. You need to, you have to. This is happening, this is happening, this is happening, right? And I think, I don't know of a security leader who thinks it's awesome to be lectured by a salesperson. Right? Right? So, tone matters, right? To your point, tone matters. We've observed some things.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_00] I'd like to share them with you, get your input, see if you're seeing the same things as we've seen in other places. I'd be really interested to know about my opinion I've had about something. That's, to me, that's a much more inclusive and thoughtful way to engage rather than say, this is happening, you need to do these three things.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, a thousand percent. I think it's, I mean, if you look at the psychological aspects of a conversation like this, right? There's, as a seller, you want to convince, you want to engage, you want to connect. But you're coming from a place where the buyer maybe does not want so much to talk with you in the first place. So, you're trying to get to this equal level, at least put yourself at the same level.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_02] And sometimes you're going to overplay, you're going to... I've spent a decent amount of time in the consulting industry with Ernst & Young. And so, Ernst & Young is very good at telling other companies what to do. This type of top track, of sales top track, I've seen them. I'm sick of them too, very quickly.

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_02] But at the end of the day, the relationship that I value with a sales representative or any type of vendor that I'm going to end up engaging with is when you don't feel like you're talking to a salesperson. When you have this kind of peer-to-peer conversation where the person is not trying to pretend they know better than you, they're not lacking confidence either.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_02] It's subtle, but it's just a human conversation. And I think, I imagine that sales teams will likely try to, in some organization at least, will likely try to push their guys to... And by being pushy, it's going to generate a behavior that is not the one that you use when you want to build long-term relationships with vendors. And I think, I mean, long-term, we all change jobs. We all change companies.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02] We will cross paths again. So, if you don't make a good impression, it's going to last. If you make a good impression, this is also going to last. And that can go far. I mean, I have relationships with some guys that, I mean, at this point of not realizing that you talked with a salesperson, that we go far. And I know I'm not doing business with them right now because we changed, for example, our privacy operation system a few years ago.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02] This guy, Marco, if you watch this, will work again together later. I know this, this will happen wherever he works, wherever I work in the future, just because he was always making me feel that we were having a peer-to-peer conversation. He was extremely responsive. He said, I don't know when I don't know. He was vulnerable. He was putting the right person when he needed the right person to answer a question.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_02] But saying, I don't know, there's this Greek, I should have prepared before coming to this, but this Greek thinker that was saying, all I know is that I don't know. Is it Socrates? I don't know. I can't remember exactly. But I think showing that you don't know, it's extremely helpful at building trust with whoever you're working with. Again, vulnerability.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_00] If I'm a 28-year-old on the earlier stages of my career, I might not have the confidence or the experiences. I might feel like that, right? To play the long game like that or try and build credibility about what I know or what I've learned along the way. So how would you, any tips for that person? Like, so that they actually are useful and valuable and someone you want to interact with, but they don't get too far, what I would call over their skis.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00] You know, trying to claim too much, be too much, say they do too much, things like that.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_02] I'm going to repeat something I said earlier, but do your homework, I think, before. And that means you may, I don't know, in a summit or in the way you reach out to your prospects, you may not speak to as many people as you'd like to, or as many people as your objective is to speak to. But maybe you're going to spend more time preparing instead of speaking to 20 folks during the day, you're going to speak to five people during the day.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_02] But these five meetings that you have, you will have had time to prepare them and come to these meetings with understanding of what the industry is. I think being curious is absolutely a skill. And it's a skill that you can work on. It's still some type of soft skills, and sometimes soft skills are not easy to make progress on. But I think curiosity is the number one quality that you want to have as a young salesperson.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_02] And yes, I mean, doing your research before going to the meeting, understanding, asking around, I mean, if you're lucky enough to have a team, of course, trying to gather some intel on the industry or what direction the industry is taking, what direction the company is taking.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, if you're coming, I mean, for example, New Skin again, the company I'm working on for my day job. We have revenue that is declining because we are trying to change our operating model to come back to an increase of revenue. Well, if that's public information, you know I'm not going to buy a $1 million solution tomorrow.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_02] So if you do this research on the economics of the organization, on the industry that your prospect is working in, and display this curiosity. And it's fine to come as I was in the security summit I was at this week. There were a lot of young folks, young folks. And because myself, I was coming there and saying, well, I'm not here to buy something like right now. I don't have necessarily the budget before likely next year.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_02] I think they were matching me with the young guys to just to have them, you know, grow and get some reps and get some repetition on the job. A lot of them were doing a good job at actually being vulnerable and saying, well, hey, I've been here for one year. But what I understand is blah, blah, blah. And then I connect with these guys. I connect because, again, you showed curiosity, you showed vulnerability, and you did your homework.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_02] I think that's kind of this trifecta of things that you want to have as a young sales threat.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00] I like that a lot because I don't need to have 15 years experience to build a bit of curiosity in my habits, right? And how I think about things. I don't need to have 15 years experience to know here's some interesting questions to ask or ways to dig into some key parts of a conversation. Right. And I don't need 15 years of experience to research, to figure it out, especially these days. Right. It should be relatively easy.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_00] So there's a way for people who are less experienced to actually be maybe even more valuable than someone who's been doing for 15 years because they've done this work to be ready for these conversations. I really love that as an approach.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_02] Absolutely. I think experience is one thing, but experience is probably a combination of information, of data, and how to interpret this data and make it make sense. But the data, to your point, you have access to the data. It's crazy. And I'm in this context of I can't buy anything this year. I know it. But I was working for a startup last year.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02] We were at some point, we were ready to start with vendors very quickly. We had a very specific need. I went to this conversation with a vendor. We wanted some synthetic data. We had a product that we were trying to launch in the healthcare space. And we were like, okay, now we need to test it. Well, you're not testing it with actual patient's data because that would be very bad. So you want synthetic data.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_02] And so we reached out to a few and literally sent 16 emails and see who is going to respond the first. And I remember staying with this guy and they came prepared super quickly. And we signed with them. So very quickly too, because we were extremely in a rush. So when you come prepared, you shorten the sales cycle as well.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_02] So it's a win-win on every area. It's a win-win. It's a win because you connect with the person you're meeting with. You engage better. And if that works well, it's extremely efficient sales cycle. Because you skip hours of me explaining to you what exactly I need, what type of format of data I need. Say, well, yeah, we know you need the EDI format, blah, blah, blah, blah. Great. Okay, good. Let's do it.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Have you ever been in a situation where you've ended up working with a company, even though they might have been more expensive than other ones, but because you believed in the experience they were going to give you or the partnership you were going to create over time?

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_02] Yes, I think that's where the product is one thing. But the vibe you get with the team that you interact with is what makes the difference.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_02] The product, I mean, of course, if I have a conversation with a vendor and it becomes serious, that means I know for a fact that you crossed the threshold, I don't know, 60 or 80% threshold of how your product is feeding my need. I also know that now with all the vibe coding solution that we have available. I don't care if your system is not matching my process exactly.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02] If you match the 60% and I know I can build the 40% myself with an automation or something on the side, it's perfect. I like putting some person in a conversation, in an exchange. I like building a connection.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02] I'm an introvert, but I prefer having a few very, very distinctive conversations and very, I would say, deep exchanges rather than collecting a bunch of business cards. We don't have business cards anymore now, but a bunch of business cards from 50 folks.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_02] So I would value, and I think a lot of buyers do value the connection with the salesperson. And it's not that the product doesn't matter. Product matters 100%. But at some point, maybe three or four products are going to matter. How do you differentiate yourself? Product is not going to be the differentiator. The quality of the interaction with the salesperson is going to, I believe, at least for me and for a lot of people that I've seen in the industry, make the difference.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_00] I've seen that from some of my clients. You think about what's happening with AI. It's raising the tide. It's definitely helping a whole bunch of sellers be more effective in their jobs. Behind the scenes, maybe. In front of prospects, maybe. But it's being more effective. When that happens, then how do you stand out?

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_00] How do you, as a seller, keep advancing yourself to be someone that Fred or anyone else wants to do business with? And it's going to, probably a lot of it's going to come down to the human factor. Are you someone that I can trust? Are you someone that gets the right resources from the company to come and work with me? Do you deliver on your promise? All these types of things are going to build up. I feel like that is going to be a very important factor going forward. I believe so.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_02] I agree 100% with you. I also believe that there are mediocre actors on each side of the table. And I've seen buyers that don't know what they want to buy too. Right? So it feels like all I'm saying is vendors should do this, vendors should do that. Sales person should act like this, not like that. But look on the other side of the table. A lot of persons have no idea what they're doing either, what they're buying.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_02] You don't know why they're buying. Sometimes they're buying just to save their position. I've seen a project. I've taken over projects at some point in a previous experience that absolutely had drifted from the contract just because the buyer, which was us, had no idea what we wanted. Actually, we purchased a solution thinking that we wanted to do something.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_02] And then the contract was loose. The project was poorly managed. It drifted because everyone was trying to figure out their way. That was a total failure. I ended up being in a meeting at the end that was actually a fight between the company I was working for and the vendor. And when you start putting the contract during a meeting like this, it's never a good sign.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02] And then I was like, I was with my boss. I was like, I have to be loyal to my boss. That's right. He's the one paying the, sending the money every two weeks. So I got to be loyal. But I was like, no, it's against my values because we just did a poor job. And that's another aspect as well that, you know, that I'm going from many different directions, right, Andrew? So feel free to stop me at some point.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_02] But I think another aspect of what makes an amazing relationship between a buyer and a seller is when the seller can tell you, hey, Fred, you're wrong here. And be brutally honest with me and say, no, no, you're wrong about this or your need is absolutely not going to work. No one knows how to do this. So are you sure about this?

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_02] Of course, it takes, you don't do this at the very beginning of the relationship, right? But as soon as you install the good relationship, I value someone who is going to challenge me. And because, of course, we're not always right, right? Sometimes we're trying to find our way to through everything. So I can't remember what your question was in the first place. But yeah, I just thought about a new aspect of what I think makes a relationship between a buyer and a seller really durable, you know?

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, the way I was directing the conversation where I was going to get to was around this idea of trust, right? That human interaction, you know, human to human still, engaging with each other, building that up, that knowledge, the familiarity, the rapport, things like that. But to me, the ultimate is when you really trust each other, right? There's trust there. Off the top of your head, what do you think builds trust?

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_00] What can a seller do, think about how they interact that says, like, these are trust building things that they should be thinking about in all their engagements?

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_02] I think as a buyer, you always accept to sit at the table with a seller when you have a problem. And you want to solve this problem. And if you're talking with a vendor, that means you know that you're not going to, you know, build versus buy, that you're not going to build, so you're ready to buy. But if I'm ready to buy, that means in my mind, I already know the problem. I have a problem statement. I make the decision to go to someone else who helped me. So I need help.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_02] So I think as a seller, you need to find a way to get to the root of this problem. What is the problem? And so it's going to be, I'm going to trust someone who tries to help me identify what my, either help me identify my problem, if I don't know what my problem is, that happens.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_02] Or, or it's going to get me, understand what my problem is, and then bring a solution that is reasonable, that is not magical. So I know there's no magic wand anywhere. You're going to help me. But I'm going to trust them when they get it. And when, and then, then of course, we're going to sign.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_02] And if we, if we, if we, if we end up signing a contract and start working the solution, then please don't disappear. I want to keep this. And always not. No, yeah. You want to, of course, you're as, once you're, once the deal is signed, that's your job is done. But please don't disappear completely. Because again, you never know what happens five or 10 years from now.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02] But, but I think from a, from a, from a trust standpoint, if you make this extra effort that is maybe not in the job description of the, of the, of the sales, of the salesperson, that's what is going to, to, to build this trusted relationship. And then also giving me, you know, as I said earlier, right, I like to go to, to security summit or any type of conferences and meet with vendors because I like to know what's going on out there.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_02] And so giving me, I'm not asking for the, the white paper every, every three weeks in my mailbox, but tell me, hey, Fred, by the way, I, I, I thought about this. I saw this article, it reminded me of some conversation we had. You think that makes sense? How does it resonate? Like, you know, bounce ideas and yeah, continue to nurture this, this relationship.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_02] And then little by little, if I, of course, if we like each other, if there is this, this, the feeling that you're just not, you're not trying to just sell something, but you're trying to find a solution. And, and I think that's what makes a buyer at the end of the day, or a buyer like me, at least sign is, is, is be like, okay, this guy or this, or this girl, they were trying to help me solve my problem. And that makes the solution that they're bringing makes sense.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_02] We've discussed along the way, they brought different perspectives to the game. They, they, maybe they helped me course correctly a little bit, my, my, my, my thinking. They, they shed a different light on a, on, on the problem and told me how some of their customers, their customers are solving this problem too. Because we, we, we, we are heads down in our, our environment, in our context. We don't have time sometimes, or we don't have the capacity to, to see what's going on on other. And so that's sometimes, that's what I do.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_02] And that's the question I was asked a lot before when I was in the consulting space. And that's what I do now as well with, with vendors is, is asking them on purpose. Just give me, give me examples of your other customers. How do they solve this? What do they do? What do you see on the market? The quality and the detail of the response matters a lot there. Because if you tell me, oh yeah, you know, most, everyone has the same problem. I know. Thank you. That's exactly why I'm asking the question. Give me, I don't need their names.

[00:37:19] [SPEAKER_02] I don't need, but hey, there is this very, very specific company that has a blue logo. I can't tell you the name, but, and this is how they, they, they dealt with this, with this issue. This, this is a, it's a collection of little things. It's that gets trust at the end and, and trust is, I think, yeah, earned. It's, it's not, you know, it's, it's earned. It's a hard labor between, between two, and it's a two way, it's a two way conversation too. So, so yeah, I think that's, that's, that's how I think about it.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_00] If I was to try and summarize that and, you know, bring it up to one thing, it would seem to me that a big part of it is the mindset that the seller brings to the discussions, the engagement, the interactions that you have. If their mindset is take, take, deal, deal, close, quarter end, year end, things like that, right? And that's all they think about.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_00] They, they want to be harder for them to be in the mode of, you know, let's build long term. Let's give value, give ideas, even though it's not a deal anytime soon, let's do this in a certain way, right? If I'm either myself or my company, I'm kind of forced into a take, take mindset. I'm not going to be doing off that stuff, right? I'll probably just move on, which seems a very short term way of thinking about things.

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_02] I like you said, is that take, take that there is this, this book that I read one day, I think Adam Grant wrote it, you know, this workspace organizations, psychologist, I think. And he, he talked about givers and takers. And that's something that I, that I, that I, even myself on the, on the, on the personal side and friendships and all that, that's something that I look at very, very thoroughly

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_02] these, these days is who is the giver, who is the taker. And, and if you, if you're a giver, if you're more a person that is, that is, that has, that naturally is going to give more than take, you want to surround yourself by, by people who are going to be givers too. And you're going to reject people who are going to be, to be, to be takers. So I think there is a, when you start a, a conversation and that applies of course to

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_02] the buyer versus seller relationship and conversations, but understanding the other person, trying to have a, and that may be back to your questions earlier in the, in the episode when you, when you asked what makes a young, a young salesperson good. There is one thing as well, try to understand who you're talking with. What's, what's the driver, what is driving, what is driving the, you know, I'm talking with you Andrew, okay, what's, what's your driver? What, what, what is going to, to click for you?

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_02] What the type of things that, that, that you, and there's a, you know, you, of course, when you're in person, that's easier than, than when you're behind a, behind a camera, but there's a ton of little weak signals that you can, that you can, that you can capture when you, when you interact with someone and you know what, was where, how the person interacts with you, understanding person, if the person is a, is a giver, display that you're a, that, that you're a giver as well.

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_02] I think that's, that's, yeah, that's, I loved it. I jumped on it because you said take, take, and that made me think about, about this. At the end of the day, a, a, a commercial conversation is a human interaction, as you, as you said earlier. So you want to treat it as such, I think.

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. So you're, you're in a situation where you're building up your boutique advisory companies, your drama security. So you're in the mode of talking to prospects and talking to people in your, in your network about things. How do you approach that first conversation where you're, you feel like, okay, I, I know John at wherever, or I, we interacted, I think it might be a fit. How do you kind of use your network to, to, to drive those conversations?

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_02] I like to find, I like to find the problems. I like to find solutions to the, to the, to the problem. And there is a, in the, in the security space, there is a, something that is clear is that you, you're not, if you're trying to sell services, and I'm not talking necessarily a solution or a tool, but mostly services, which is what I do at Zero Drama Security. I'm not going to try, I want my goal to be reasonable.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_02] And my goal is not going to, to tell, hey, your company is going to be more secure after, after I come in, after I, after we do this engagement. Because one, it's something you can't commit on. It's too many variables and too many, and you can control only some of, some of them, if, if any. And so I, I'm, I'm going to more focus on the, on the person. I'm going to focus on, okay, hey, you're not confident with your risks.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_02] You're not confident with what's, what's going on in your company because you, there is too much noise and you don't, you don't, you don't know what matters. I'm going to help you cut through the noise. I'm going to help you be confident with which risks matter and which risks you're going to tackle first. How are you going to tackle them? And which ones you set either on the side or your exit? And the outcome of the engagement is not, well, we went from a score of security score that

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_02] it would make up for 85 to 92. No, I'm going to make sure that the, the person that the buyer that I'm, that I'm speaking with becomes more confident with what his or she is dealing with on a, on a, on a daily basis.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_00] Why'd you pick confidence?

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_02] Well, because, because we are in security, we, someone who tells you that they know exactly what's going on and that, and that they are perfectly comfortable with everything and confident. Okay. Maybe 5% of them are not liars, but the majority of the other folks, they're making that up. They're pretending. Don't pretend. We, we, especially now in the security space, that's again, with all the AI models that are,

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_02] that are coming into, into the space that are making, making the, the security challenges bigger and bigger and bigger. Pretending that you're, that you're, that you're fine and you're confident with everything. I, I, I don't, I don't buy it. So it's, it's a fact that confidence is what is missing. And as a leader, you want to be able, as a security leader, you want to be able to advise your senior leadership or your CEO. If you're not comfortable, confident and comfortable with what you're dealing with,

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_02] how can you get them confident and comfortable? So I think that's, that's the number one thing. And, and they will, they will, I don't know if they will call me back. And, and my job is not necessarily to sell something. And then, you know, hopefully a hinge, there, there, there might be a sequel or something, you know, like, like all these movies or one, two, three, four, five, I'm not trying to get to the next, to the next, the next engagement. But this person, I would have built a trusted relationship with them.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_02] Hopefully if I did my job well, and if we were able to, to boost their, their, the confidence that they would remember. And maybe five years from now, they would thread, Hey, I planned my job. And I remember we, we worked well last time together. Notice the week, right? It's not like, Hey, you did something great. No, we worked well together. Okay. I have other challenges. Do you mind if we jump on a call and see what's going on? Absolutely. Let's do that.

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I picked up on that. I'll just wrap this up and then we'll go back to the wheel. So one of the things I work on with, with my clients is we get very logical very quickly. So, you know, when we talk about, let's take your example, right? We talk about the problems that one of our customers had, right? We say that John Smith, who was at Mirror Company, they could not see their AI usage in the company.

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_00] And they didn't know what models were doing, what things and all the rest of it, right? That to me is a very logical explanation of what it was. But if you said John Smith at Mirror Company was feeling really uncomfortable with the lack of detail on what was going on, such that he was getting asked by the exec team or the board, and he wasn't confident at all he could answer these questions with much clarity. That's a very different way of saying something, which is essentially the same,

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_00] but it probably taps more into the real emotional side of that person, of why they're really probably going to do something.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_02] Emotions, exactly. Human connection, emotions, that's where it matters at the end.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_00] I love that. Let's go back, Fred, to the wheel. And let's see what we learn from the wheel of something. Wheel of fun? All right. So I ended up on overrated or underrated. So let me reveal what these are. And there's going to be three things that you're going to tell me whether you think they're underrated or overrated. The first one, a sales rep with a CISSP qualification, is that overrated or underrated?

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, nice.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_02] I like that you put some security into it. It's underrated. It's underrated, but that makes a difference. You want me to elaborate a bit more or just...

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I do. I do.

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_02] That's not the first thing that a sales rep would think about. Hey, let's go do the CISSP. The behavior, what it shows, it shows that they're trying to be relevant. And it's not just this comma CISSP that you're going to add on LinkedIn next to your name to show that you're relevant in security. It's the learning and the very broad learning that you're going to have in the security space.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_02] That is going to make you able to connect dots. Understand if your prospect is using some weird acronyms that have very security just because they're trying to trap you a little bit and talk about EDR and XDR and all that. You're like, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Again, that's underrated, but I didn't think about it when you asked me what can a young salesperson do in the security space. That's 100% something that I could recommend.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_02] Again, not just for the five letters, but for this layer of knowledge that is going to go a long way.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_00] You know, it's funny. I don't think I've ever seen a job description for any sales role. Sales role, not SEs, but sales role that said even CISP preferred. You know, it's just not something that people do. It seems like, I know they're not easy to get. You don't just study for a weekend and you get it, right? I guess it's better work. But if you're going to commit to an industry, it seems like it might not be a bad idea. All right, let's go to number two. Chat GPT for account research.

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_00] Overrated or underrated?

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_01] You need it. Underrated, I guess.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02] You need it. I think account research. Okay, you should have a lot of information in your Salesforce or whatever sales system that you have. Zoom info, whatever, all the systems that you have access to as a salesperson. It is and it was underrated. I think more and more is going to become the expectation.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_02] And today you can make the difference by spending the right amount of time researching information on the industry, as we said earlier, right? On the industry and the company, on the economics of the company. If the stock price is taking a hit, maybe not the right moment to propose a $3 million package on your contract. But it's going to become the norm very, very quickly. But you can still make the difference right now until it becomes the norm. So maybe underrated right now.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_00] Okay, number three for the overrated or underrated. Sellers being likable.

[00:49:16] [SPEAKER_02] Underrated because unfortunately, unfortunately, that's, I don't know, maybe. I'm trying to think about my previous interactions. Not everyone is making themselves likable. Not everyone is making the effort to understand who they're speaking with. What is, you know, the drivers of the person they're talking to.

[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_02] And so underrated, but that's what makes the difference. Again, everything that is underrated makes a difference, I guess, you know, in a way. But no, yeah, you likable. Yes, of course. Because would you trust someone that you that is that is not likable? No, right? You need to build trust at the end of the day. That's your that's your endgame. I think as a as the as the as the sales leader.

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_02] So be likable, understand who you speak with and and make the effort to to give to give as much as as you as much as you can, rather than just take the signature and disappear after signing the contract.

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, I feel like I've known some sellers over the years that are very high performers that are not all that likable. But they have to really make up for it in other places. Right. So it's, you know, by being the opposite of that, you're introducing friction into your chances of success, in my opinion. And you better be very good at a whole bunch of other things to make up for it. Well, Fred, listen, I've really enjoyed having you on the podcast. They cover some interesting ground for the audience out there. Anything you want to finish off with before we say goodbye?

[00:50:46] [SPEAKER_02] No, thank you, Andrew, for the opportunity. I'd like to I'd like to to to bring a something a bit something a bit different in the in the conversations that we had. I'm glad that you that's where you were open to to having at least a current buyer on your podcast. So thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks, Fred. Hey, Andrew here. One last thing. If you enjoyed this episode, will you do me one small quick favor? And that's just send it to a friend. Simple as that. Your podcast player will have a share button somewhere.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_00] Click that and then text it, slack it, email it, whatever is easiest for you to someone, you know, who you think might want to listen. That's the best way you can support this show. And I really appreciate you for doing this.