Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 87: John Mayhall Chief Revenue Officer at CyberGRX on what to do when you take on a new role, at a new company, in a new market

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87: John Mayhall Chief Revenue Officer at CyberGRX on what to do when you take on a new role, at a new company, in a new market · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Bite Size Sales Podcast, where we believe that sales at B2B startups should be easier than we often make it, and that it's plain wrong that sales teams at startups don't get the help to succeed like sales teams at their bigger and more well-known competitors do.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you are a seller or a sales leader at a B2B startup, especially if it's in the cybersecurity area, you are in the right place today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to episode 87.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is John Mayhal, who is the Chief Revenue Officer of Cyber GRX.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: John, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Andrew, it's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Good to talk to you again.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Today's sponsor is autobound.ai.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think we all know that it's so important these days when we're doing outreach, especially to the cybersecurity world where they're bombarded with lots of messages from vendors, that we do it with context, we do it in a personalized way, and we do it with value.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it's so hard to do when we're thinking about trying to do all that research so that we understand the information we need to be able to do the outreach in that manner.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where autobound.ai comes in.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're able to do the research for us to understand the big things going on in our target accounts and with our personas and help us craft outbound messages which have the context and the personalization that we need to stand at.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So autobound.ai is your friend if you're in the world of doing outreach to uh get leads and book meetings.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, John, let's look at your career summary.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to use LinkedIn appropriately enough as the way to look at your career.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you're kind of unique in the sales world in that you've only worked at four companies in 21 years.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to believe in this day and age, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Usually people have worked at four companies in about six years, it seems sometimes.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it's impressive uh staying power at uh some really big names.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I look down the list here, you started at Global Partners, which was an energy company in the Northeast as a product manager.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be interested to know what happened.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of had a pivot and left and did an MBA at Duke for a couple of years, and then came back into a sales operations role at Yahoo in 2006, and then after four years at Yahoo, moved to LinkedIn where you you grew your career there and moved into running sales teams for the last two-thirds to three-quarters of your time at uh LinkedIn, which was 11 years, and then just this year in April, you made the switch into the cybersecurity world to go to Cyber GRX as a CRO.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Have I got that broadly right or have I completely messed up some bits of that?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, you nailed it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: What I realized when I joined Cyber GRX is there's actually a theme across all those companies.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if this is something subconscious or what I always just seek out, but they're all marketplace business models.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they're two-sided exchanges.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The oil company was starting this online exchange for chartering oil tankers.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So companies like Exxon would log on, put their cargoes on, and find a ship to move from Nigeria to the Caribbean.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We were about 22 years ahead of our time and counting.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yahoo was working for it was an ad exchange, specifically search marketing, so that's the model that underlies it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: LinkedIn, it's an exchange, profiles on one side, customers on the other, and same with CyberGRX.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Security profiles on one end of the exchange, and then companies that want to pay money for that data on the other.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So who knew?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: You realized that along the way, but it wasn't an intentional move each time to it it was not.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm I the business model is a powerful one if you can get critical math.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it can be a real, if not winner takes all game, you know, that getting the exchange growing really sort of drives everything.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I was looking at CyberGRX, I knew uh very little about cybersecurity as an insider, but a lot about making that model work.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what drew me in.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And tell me about the the shift to Duke in the early 2000s to the MBA.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: What were you thinking there?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the startup didn't go as we wanted it to.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I moved into a bit more of a product management technical role developing software internally.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I think a lot of people, you know, mid-20s, still trying to figure out who they want to be when they grow up, are looking for an opportunity to make a career pivot.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, you know, if you have the means to do so, a great way to do that.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of broadens your network and helps you, you know, build new muscles.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you got from it then as a good network and you know, get your thinking going in different areas?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think one thing you learn about from business school is how to think like other people at a company.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I might be in sales, but the MBA helps me understand what a CFO needs to know or what accounting cares about or how marketing does its job.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think that makes you a better generalist, which can make you a better leader over time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, John, to find out about the real you, there is no better way to learn than by using one of these bullshit LinkedIn polls are out there right now.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got four of those to pull from that I found last night.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, first one is from Falguni Katira.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite way to consume content?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is it blogs, videos, audio, or other?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it sort of depends on where I am.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually don't like video as much as reading.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just I can go back and process a little bit more, but I'm pretty into podcasts.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm flying, even before going to bed, I'll throw a podcast in.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a a good way to consume content really passively.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know what was interesting was 45% said blog, 45% said video, 25% said audio, which I was surprised about.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: The explosion in podcasts in the last two or three years has been amazing.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Next one is Michael Tipper.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you could choose just one of these topic areas to be the main focus of a productivity training masterclass for John that would help you, which one would it be?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there's four options here.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Would you choose overcoming procrastination, juggling many projects, eliminating distractions, or how to prioritize what to do?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that all seems like four chapters of the same book.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where would I start?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's probably around the juggling various things at the same time and how to stay organized that way.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think procrastination is a result of not being able to do that well and having to overfocus on one thing at the expense of the other.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, procrastination got 36%.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think you're right.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: These are all chapters of the same book.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're variations on the theme, and they probably all feed off each other a little bit as well.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Ross P, here we go.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Which Australian luxury brand is your favorite?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is it Rip Curl, Billabong, Aussie Bum, or Foster's?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, it's a great question.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go with Billabong.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think I probably had some gear back in the day, back in the 90s.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: You'll have to work harder to convince me that's a great question.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was talking to a friend about how can we break, you know, who is from California.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I was a I used to want to be from California, and I loved all those brands like Vision Streetwear, the skate surf brands from back in the 80s and 90s, and we were trying to figure out if we could revive those somehow.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, it's a company that does that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: They bought them all up.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: We looked into it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's yeah, uh it's probably the case.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's some Uber brand above all these ones, right?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's California Envy.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then the final one from Tesla G, it's holiday season.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which holiday is your favorite?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Is it Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving, 100%.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, it's where we have the family ritual of just getting together and you know, laughing as a family that I have the best memories from.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think Christmas is Christmas is feel feels like we're doing something different every year, but there's something very ritualistic about Thanksgiving.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't have the pressure of gifts as well, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's yes, it doesn't have the pressure of gifts.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was the amazing LinkedIn polls.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Former employer.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: We should thank them profusely for the insight they're giving us these days.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make a switch though.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you did make this big move from LinkedIn, which you know we all know, to cybersecurity, third-party cybersecurity risk assessments with cyber GRX.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I would imagine with making that move, you had to educate yourself in a new market, a new world, new terminology, and maybe even your network didn't really reach too far into that world.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm wondering what you did to go down the path of acquainting yourself with cybersecurity.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it'd be really nerdy to say that all I do is work for two-sided exchanges.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I did not realize that until I joined Cyber DRX.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's a really good question that you ask because I'm someone who who I think I'm curious, but I I need to be passionate and invested in what I'm doing.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I care about sort of making a difference in an industry.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I still do feel like an outsider to the industry.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I still have a lot to learn and a lot of people to meet.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: A big part, especially in this talent market, is I had the opportunity to ask a lot of questions before jumping in.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage anyone who's looking for a job to really sort of pick the five variables that matter most to you.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Four variables, like who I work for, what are the people like, how much, how well positioned this company?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I try to do four or five calls to really vet those areas of uncertainty.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, the area of uncertainty was around cyber.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something I can wrap my head around?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something I'm really going to be passionate about?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know that everyone has this opportunity, but one of the reasons I really love Cyber GRX is because Fred, our CEO and the board, encouraged me to really dig in and take my time to understand.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they made introductions to CISOs, to other board members, to people in the industry.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that both got me really comfortable with the people I was going to work with, but helped me understand what's it like to walk a mile in the CISO shoes, what are they really solving, and how big is this problem on their agenda going forward?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you to do that right now if you're in the job and looking, because you also walk into the the door on day one, really knowing what you're solving for in your role.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important to being successful quickly.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's something that maybe as individual contributors or even first line managers, people probably don't feel like they can go and call up someone or ask someone who's not a fellow salesperson what that company's like or what their world is like.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I thought about that.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you how do you get a little bit deeper?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be afraid to ask.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think, especially in this talent market, if you're evaluating the options, help the person hiring you understand what's most important to you.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if the place you want to work, they should be offering you, hey, let me help you close these gaps in understanding.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's other ways to do there, though, if you don't want to ask that directly.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're going to work for a big company, it should be easy to find one of their customers in your network.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so dig around, see if you can get a customer on the phone, ask about the product, ask about the experience.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: That can tell you a lot about what their prospects are going forward, what their team is like to work with, what the reputation is beyond just looking at the glass doors and the sort of the more uh external-facing sources, though those are things that can be cultivated.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's good to sort of uh hear it for yourself.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you came to Cyber GRX, what were the big things you started working on when you got there?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were hitting this inflection point where all credit to those that built a company, there's a lot of experimentation to find fit, to find that sort of magic.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we got to that point and we needed to move from experimentation to scale.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I needed to really figure out is where are we placing our bets?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do we need to focus on?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then also some of the more what I'd call strategy aspects of sales is what does our ideal customer look like?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do they need to hear from us?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what are our sales motions to sell to this buyer?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And spent a lot of my time asking questions to really sort of solve for those three big meaty areas.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then how did you balance all that?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you there's so much to do in your first two or three months of the company.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have a way to try and figure out where the time should be focused on each of those?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a good I think a book that's been around a while that I cracked open was the first 90 days, and a lot of it is about expectation setting, getting on the same page with your boss, your peers, you know, figuring out who your allies are to make sure that you don't feel crushed up front, which I think is a result of misset expectations.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then I think it's being intentional about how you're doing your discovery.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so this goes back to some sales disciplines of if I'm gonna sell a big deal or figure out where I'm making my investments, I'm gonna go and talk to people around the organization, but I'm also gonna set goals for myself because distractions can get in the way.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, more specifically, I'm gonna talk to these five people in the first 10 days.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try to get in front of 20 customers in the first 60.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Setting goals is really important.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that I did that to hold myself accountable was I went to my boss and said, here's what I'm going to do, and I'm gonna report back to you every week.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I made work for myself, but in doing so, I just created this sort of accountability system because I knew it was important.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I could get distracted, and so that was one way of sort of ensuring that I didn't fail.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you created your own accountability, use your boss as the person to help you stay accountable.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Any insights about what you set yourself inside the company versus outside the company, who you would talk to and engage with?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was the trickiest part of where do I spend my time doing my discovery?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it depends again on what you're solving for.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's you're gonna need some direction from the people that have been here before.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I have the open conversation with my boss of hey, here's the order that I'm gonna sort of diagnose things.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Does this feel right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do these feel like the most urgent things?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly you could course correct.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's any one, you know, answer there.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's one where you need to sort of read the tea leaves coming in and figure out what do you think we need to solve for?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine also you realize that there's some things that are very tactical to work on.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's probably you know bigger things in terms of the go-to-market strategy at a higher level, but at the same time, you're trying to keep all these pieces moving in the right direction, right?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's easy to get overwhelmed because everyone has an opinion on the areas of low-hanging fruit.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we should improve the forecast, we should get tighter in our call preparation, we should work on our first call messaging.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone has seen what excellence looks like before.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you come in and you're expected to, all right, the new shiny CRO is going to make all this stuff work tomorrow.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so the expression that I used up front is we need to figure out our launch trajectory before we sort of tighten the screws, meaning that we have some big meaty questions we need to answer before we put the process in the place to, you know, sort of run a playbook or, you know, drive a more repeatable process.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, however you want to articulate it, I think it's important to help people understand what's the most important thing to get right versus the easiest thing to get right.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And expectation setting is a lot about sequencing those things in a way that everyone is on board with.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested to know if you can share what those launch trajectory items you were thinking about were.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm always looking for frameworks to break things things down and make them more approachable.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd worked with Alexander Group before, so I just Googled Alexander Group, I think go-to-market model or strategy model.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they have a nine-box way of breaking out or sort of deconstructing how to create a go-to-market strategy.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the first three buckets that I really focused on, and I remember well, so I'll share is number one is figure out who your ideal customers are.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So sort of segment your market and make sure that you're focused on them.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was the first thing that I did is what does a good customer look like?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the customers that we're struggling to support, or there's misset expectations, what are some of the key signals there so we can do a better job, both servicing but also setting expectations with those types of customers up front?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Second is what are the value props that your best customers respond to most?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And are we highlighting those the most in our messaging and our sales process?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is our product team most focused on those things?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's where I think it's important to have massive alignment around the company.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then third is what are the revenue motions you need to support aligning the value props to your ideal customers?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, are you talking to them in a way that they expect to be engaged?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so is the team engaging in the right way with the right message and right levels?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you mean?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, on the revenue motions, I'll give you an example.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is you know, we are a very enterprise-based sale.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're trying to get alignment with the CISO and get an introduction to the third-party risk management team.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with teams before where you don't need to go in from the top, you can groundswell from the end user.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to make sure that we're intentional in terms of who we're talking to and how we get to those people.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: We also the the land and expand or hunter farmer model has become really predominant in SaaS.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we were maybe halfway in on that.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I wanted to do is go all the way in.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's make sure that hunters are really focused on momentum and driving execution of new logos to build the company, and that we build a great customer value and customer expansion motion.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm working on right now, sort of that third stool of the go-to-market strategy.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, going back to what you said about the ideal customer profile segments, I think this is one of these areas that we're probably quick to judgment without really taking the time to look at this pretty carefully.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know as you know, sellers or first-line managers, you know, where you spend your time, you gotta make sure it's gonna be potentially high impact.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be low impact, right?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think of that whole area probably a bit more simplistically than the Alexander group.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think a good, bad, ugly, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what does a good customer look like?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's a bad, and what's ones that we just shouldn't be even really engaging up to.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know if it came and knocked on our door, would we would we even spend any time just because we know that we're probably not gonna be a good fit?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's how deep do you go on this?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how much because you can really boil the ocean on your segmentation.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm with you.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think we started at the what's the the sort of 80% version that we all believe in, and then we can refine that over time to get more and more precise.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we picked was three verticals that we believe we you know can and should win in.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that distinguished what put someone in that category versus out was their readiness to change.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we're selling change versus solving sort of a current problem.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what we had been selling to before was a little bit more how much money did they have?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that didn't already always correlate with how likely were they to change.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that distinction has helped us get tighter in our value propositions.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Our prioritization, like you mentioned, because I'm with you, is when you're starting a company, it's all about focus.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the tough thing is you get a pick.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because and that feels super risky, because what if you pick wrong?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I think a bigger risk is not picking it all and being spread super thin.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Did you use the challenger mobilizer model for you know willingness to change or ability to change?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think about that as something that we're trying to apply to personas, you know, the mobilizer.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can we find someone in an organization who's a change agent?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that characteristic also applies to the broader organization itself.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a new up-and-coming tech company is going to be very open to change because it's actually for them, it's not even change.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're starting from scratch versus industries that are we see are investing in transformation.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a quick story.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I was at a company a few years back, pre-product, actually.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were two or three of us got there before the company launched, and we were salespeople.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have anything to sell.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that we clued in very quickly was that whole thing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So is the company a company that will relish the idea of working with an early stage company or or not?
• 21:57
  unknown: Right.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we wanted to understand that pretty early on.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then second thing we'd ask about is the person we're working with.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Are you someone that relishes the idea of working with early stage company?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's not for everyone.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we we gave them out all on the way to say, not for us, not for us.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And some of them, you know, stayed in.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Yep, the company is, and I am.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we were able to zero in quite quickly on those people.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we believe we have an industrial strength product, but it's one that to get the most out of, you need to be thinking differently about sort of how to run a program.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's selling.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: That idea is really important.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And receptiveness to the need to change is, you know, when we have that going in, that's where we know we're going to have a much smoother process throughout.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my belief is that great sellers can take someone who's very stuck in their ways and help them, you know, see the world differently.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: It might take a little bit longer.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: But while we believe we're hiring great sellers, we're also hiring people that are new to cyber and they're going to need a ramp.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we want to make sure that we're finding those areas where we're just most likely to win.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we can we can start there.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh it's something that it's much easier if you find someone who's either ready to change or is already thinking about the future that you're thinking about, right?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: As opposed to the person who's who's died in the wool, you know, this is how it should be, and isn't even open to having a discussion about it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I mean, I guess it goes back to the whole crossing the chasm idea and and something I recently heard from a colleague as, you know, when you're selling to that sort of those early adopters and those innovators, you want to try to capture 80% of the innovators and 50% of the early adopters, which I'd never heard that sort of sizing before.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: So as someone who likes to break things down big to smaller parts, that that was helpful.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Were you able to network with any peers outside the company, other uh heads of sales and cyber?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: On my journey of becoming a uh cybersecurity expert in my role, one of the things I wanted to talk to practitioners or the CISOs, but also peers, people selling to CISOs.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was sort of my my next stop.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's how we met, I believe, is an intro to someone who said, Hey, this guy, Andrew, who's amazing at sales effectiveness enablement when it comes to cybersecurity sales reps.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really enlightening.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what that served to do is, you know, I was trying to go in and not be the guy who just copies and pastes everything he knows from his previous job.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I was, I saw so many areas where I could, you know, port over what I knew.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when I spoke to other leaders in the space, in the cyberspace, there was some new learnings, but a lot of it was validation of my instincts.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that confidence helped me move so much more quickly.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd encourage that if you're joining a new space.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm seeing.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Am I crazy or should I sort of follow my nose on this?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is there something specific that you brought from your previous lives that actually is a good way of working at uh in cyber?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think it's just really betting on uh the core competencies and skills of the people, not the knowledge.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So one of my proudest hires of all time was a high school math teacher.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was a result of me sitting with other sales leaders and saying, what are the what are the characteristics of a great seller that sort of show up in the wild and we could find in anyone?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And where might we find those people?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the one that we really sort of latched on to.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, great communicators, they're they have to challenge, they're good at teaching.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I inmailed someone, I remembered I was on a plane, I came across this profile, she said she was into social media, I said, this might be coming out of left field, but what do you think about moving into sales?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the rest was history.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is, I guess, a value I'll bring to any role where I think if you have great people with all the core competencies and skills to sell, then we can teach the specific subject matter.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those core skills is curiosity and willingness to learn that adaptability.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you need you need those ingredients.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if we combine all those things, then you have sort of that supercharged sales force.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I also do value the expertise and the experience, and I will be bringing that, but I want to complement it with other things.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's you know, sort of the core of having a diverse team.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is that assumption played out for you well then?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: If if you've hired non-cybersecurity people?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's early stage.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you the time we invested with you in onboarding people and putting them through a rigorous education and cybersecurity and then role-playing as if you're talking to a CISO, has given them a lot of confidence.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so the new leader I hired said, I've never been through my onboarding like that, and I'm seeing these new hires really just go into calls feeling like they can own them.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so that gives me optimism, I would say.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, ask me into this quarter how it's going.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you said the key word there, right, which is confidence.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I almost think about people like there's lots of things that we don't know anyway, joining a new company.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't know the world that new company's in, it's one more thing that you're thinking, gosh, it's just gonna work out for me.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and what I don't even know what I don't know right now.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I need to get there faster.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So in the advice at Career Advice, I always remember and pay forward is don't try to change too many variables at once.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, in this sense, what I'm hiring for is people who are great at selling SaaS, people who are amazing enterprise sellers, but the new variable will be the cyber part.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can layer that on, then you know, I think that's that's not too much for them to learn, or at least that's a bet.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And really, this is in service to our customers.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're bringing them new perspectives, new ways of thinking.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I want my ref to be able to relate to them, have enough expertise, but also be really experts on where things are going.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that will, I think that will help our customers uh move more quickly if we put people with those talents in front of them.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of curious then.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're in uh a situation where you're bringing in fresh talent, you've got existing talent there.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: The company's it sounds like it's making a bit of a switch from experiment to it's found its fit and now it needs to scale.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm wondering how you bring the team together under some sort of shared goal or shared vision for the the go-to-market team into the next year or two.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that's the most important thing to get right.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Getting everyone on the same page with just this shared purpose.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to do when you're coming in new as someone, you know.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think my default state is I'm questioning and I don't trust myself until I sort of until I gain full conviction.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes me a lot of searching to get there.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't want to be the guy who's in trying to figure things out mode for three months or six months.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where it that just would take too long.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that I did, and I drew on this from my past, is the way to gain, I think, shared vision is to bring in everyone to everyone into the room and sort of crowdsource the direction.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is dangerous because it can go all over the place, but everyone has a legitimate story playing out in their head about how the feature is gonna go in both a good and a bad way.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you can get those stories out on the table, find the common themes, then you can bring a group of people together on what's most important to get right.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the early exercises that I went through, which helped me because I could get 20 perspectives out on the table at once, but helped the team feel like they were an author in sort of this new book that we were writing.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: What was the exercise that you took them through?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have this exercise called boom and doom.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you were expecting a specific answer, but this I think it was six or seven years ago, where it all stemmed from this realization that as a leader, what you need to get is out from someone is what's the story you're telling yourself?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're down or if you're inspired, like what are you telling?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's a story that's going on in your head about the future?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's that self-talk saying?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so we thought of sort of unique way of getting this out in a manageable way.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: We get into a room, let's just say it's 15 people, divide them up into groups, and say you have five groups of three.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Each group writes out two stories the doom story, which is everything goes wrong.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine those four chapters to the Doom story, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: What goes wrong in Q1?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: What do we miss and how does that compound over time?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then have them write the boom story.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: What do we get right in Q1 and how does that compound over time?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where you get all this fears and dreams out on the table.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if the economy collapses, or a product team doesn't come through, or we fail to hire?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is all this stream of consciousness, but when you put it all on one whiteboard, you're like, man, we are all sort of telling ourselves the same like two or three stories.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's surprised me about that is the thing that's most actionable is what you take from the doom.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: The two or three things you cannot afford to fail at.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And typically those two or three things are things you're probably taken for granted.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hiring is always on there.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot afford to hire because look at the compounding impacts of hiring.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you ask yourself, are we investing enough time here?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what always comes from that exercise is you figure out more that you can be doing to secure, you know, secure your feature.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: On the boom side, it's more about prioritization because there's a hundred different good ideas out there.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's the one that has the most compounding effects over time?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because that can help you figure out what's below that line.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we did this, it went well, but does this as the story plays out, is that that important right now for us?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: You put this all together, you tease out the three or five ideas, everyone's like, yeah, that's our story, and the rest is history.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd highly encourage that.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've done it a few times.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you get it right, having people actually, the I I guess maybe a theory I have is you can't get it wrong if everyone's bought in.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning the path you pick, if you have full commitment to it, you are going to succeed going down that path.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, two years down the line, you might have realized you made a strategic error, but you're sort of less likely to do so if you really think things out.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the important part is committing to the two or three things that you really need to do well in the horizon that you can see clearly.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I imagine in earlier stage companies, then you know you can't afford for three to six months to decide these things, right?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it sounds like a good catalyst to bring everyone together quickly to learn something.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, maybe part of it's wrong, but you've got to do something.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And right then it was the best we could do in terms of deciding which way to go, right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll I haven't done this at the executive team level.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, want to do this with my peers.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things you need to make sure you do, however, going in is providing broader context for the situation that we're operating in.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if our boom scenario required me to go back to the product leader and say, hey, my team says we should do this, and he's like, that's nowhere on the roadmap.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's going to be a miss.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's also important to, you know, that the it's not the first thing you can do.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have to bring context to the team to do this exercise.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, here are the things that we need to accomplish that are in our control.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about all the variables that you know determine how this how the story plays out.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, are these workshops something you like to do when you get the team together?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or you get a few that you use?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I've learned a lot from executive coaches, actually, because I think, especially ones that work with teams, what you find about a great executive coach is that's how they draw people out, that's how they give coaching and feedback is they workshop stuff.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: They put people in these like little sort of you know managed moments, and it's a great area to observe, give feedback, those types of things.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I like to do is, and I learned this from Scotty Mandy Kelly, Google Desert Survival Game.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where it started, but essentially it's the exercise you can give to a team, say it's eight people, they have to prioritize the items that they're going to use to survive a plane crash in a desert.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a fun game, but really what you're trying to do as a leader when you put people in the situation is look how they're interacting.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do they make decisions?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do they choose a leader?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do they agree on a strategy?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Are they talking over each other?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think those are the sort of rich moments that you can really come together and look at look at yourself as a team in an off site.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like spending time together now that we're very familiar with what we can do with Zoom.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not spend time together being lectured on PowerPoints.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's something we can do in the comfort of our own home.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's spend time together truly interacting as you know, human beings and being really sort of exploratory in our thinking, work through the dirty, hard stuff.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what I've realized, especially through COVID, is the richness of the in-person experience.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really value that at the end, especially as I thought you were going to tell me, you drop people in the middle of the desert to see if they can survive.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would have been uh that would be an interesting thing to do.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can do that too.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's uh taking it to the next level.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's some people you could pay some money for to help on that.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this exercise is purely uh a thought exercise.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you can do it around the table.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, John, I've enjoyed the conversation.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you are hiring if someone wants to get hold of you.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Where would you send them to do that?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say go to cybergrx.com.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: GRX is Global Risk Exchange.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh you know careers page, and so you can learn a little bit more about the roles and apply there.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then reach out to me on LinkedIn.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to my profile, let me know that you listened to this podcast, what you enjoyed about it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we're looking for great sellers.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: We love people with a cybersecurity expertise, but that's not required.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so just on that, so that's not required.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: What are you looking for?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Enterprise sellers.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: So people who have experience in large deal cycles, largely because that's the cycle that we run.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: SaaS sales background, so you've sold software before and know all the ins and outs of how to move from first call to demo, how to work with procurement.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like I mentioned, I think that curiosity is a big part of what we're looking for.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you look, you know, I would say we're sort of a late-stage startup where we have a lot of momentum.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is not purely experimental.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is we are we are writing the playbook for scale.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you want to have your fingerprints all over a company and be part of, you know, sort of the team that's taking the next level, I think it's a really thrilling job that can have massive career trajectory change potential if we get it right when we get it right.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it sounds sounds like it, right?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh it's a great stage in the growth of Cyber GRX now as you're you're putting the foot down and growing fast.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fun place to be.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Final question for you Is there a sales question or a sales saying that you've heard too much and you don't like that you just want to dispatch into the far reaches of outer space never to hear again?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it has it sounds something like this customer doesn't know what they're talking about.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: When someone blames the customer, it's uh the ultimate victim move.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I would like to take sort of ownership and rather have that be said as I failed to help the customer understand why this is such a good solution.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: So don't blame the customer.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't blame the customer.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think why here's oh, they didn't get it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: They don't get it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get it.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you're right.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I kind of feel like there's you gotta look at the person who's trying to help them get it.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and ask yourselves why what were you doing or saying that caused them not to get it?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is this moment trying to what is this customer trying to teach me about my ability to communicate value?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, John, I enjoyed the conversation.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for your time and uh best of luck with your hiring and the end of the year and into next year.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's been awesome.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, Andrew.