Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 200: standout episodes from the previous 199

Transcript

200: standout episodes from the previous 199 · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sales Bluebird Podcast, where we help cybersecurity startups grow sales faster.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and today we are talking about learnings from the previous 199 episodes of the Sales Bluebird Podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're recording this uh March 22nd, 2023, and this is episode number 200 of the podcast.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that, it kind of blows my mind a little bit that we've got this far to episode 200.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I started this podcast, I don't know, three or four years ago now, and it was really one where I thought, you know, there seems to be some podcasts out there.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: It would be good to do one myself.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it would help me with various things in my business and uh and getting interviews with people and things like that.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a thing in podcast world called Podphage, uh, Podfade.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what that is, is basically where you know the average length of podcasts when they start is seven episodes.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: People get into it, they start off with a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, after a few episodes, they go, I don't know if this is really for me.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they just quit doing it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you search through your podcast player and look for various, especially niche type podcasts, you'll find that there's a whole bunch that have got a few episodes and then stop.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's those abandoned in 2018 or 16 or even before then.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: They still got some episodes out there, but uh they don't they haven't had done they haven't done a podcast episode for quite a while.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when I start this off back in the day, I uh my philosophy with it and with many things is the idea of ready fire aim, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just like to get going on things, thinking it's the right thing to do, doing a little bit of research to make sure it's the right thing to do, but not doing so much prep and research that it becomes paralyzing and slows everything way too much.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so when I started getting going with it, I said, you know, I'm just gonna start doing something and then see where it takes me.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what I was doing in my first 10 or 20 episodes is nowhere near the same as how I'm doing the episodes these days.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I like to think they've got better, they got more interesting.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I've got guests coming on back in the day.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have any guests, it was just me.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, the whole evolution of the topics in the podcast is kind of interesting to look back on.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I thought I would do would be to pull out my memories, my thoughts about the episodes and the themes I've had from the episodes that I think would be valuable looking at my perspective, but also looking at uh the stats to see where it downloads, which episodes have been downloaded most, which ones I've heard also anecdotally from people that they really enjoyed, and uh taking some learnings and some summaries from those and packaged that up into this episode, episodes number 200.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let me start off.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if you've been listening to the recent episodes, one of the things you've noticed is I've been interviewing a bunch of CEOs who are founders of earlier stage cybersecurity companies, especially those that had signed up to be in the early stage expo at RSA.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these are companies that which are in early stages, right?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they've got employees, they've probably got some customers, their product is is working, but you know, maybe not full full feature yet.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're in those early stages.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And also they remember what it was like to find their company in the last two or three years, usually.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, looking back at these episodes, one of the big inspirations I get from them is their founders who recently made the change, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: They took, they changed their lives, they changed their work lives, their personal lives, everything to say, I'm gonna go and do a startup.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them left something really solid uh to go and and start their own company.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, thinking back recently, episode 196, Liette Hayon, the CEO and co-founder at Eureka, Liette was the VP of product at uh Palo Alto, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the bigger players.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And episode 197, Jory Van Antwerp, um, he's a first-time founder as well at SinSaber.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he would work for a number of different vendors, uh, predominantly in pre-sales type roles or or uh partner type roles as well.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he decided now is the time to go and be a founder for the first time.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pori White as well, episode 196 at Cyvatar.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Pori's got a long history of being a consultant, a pen tester or assessment kind of guy, uh working for vendors, implementation, and expert services.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's being his world.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in the last few years, he decided to stop doing that and become the founder at Cyvatar.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Episode 150, Weiss Issa again left big well-known brand name companies to go and start UBIC security.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the one on my list here, and there's a lot more, the one on my list is 121, Theo Nasser, the CEO at Right Hand Cybersecurity, you know, left companies such as Sonic Wall and and um and FireEye to go and found and start right-hand cybersecurity.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all five of the ones I mentioned were first-time founders, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: They they had a career at bigger companies, if not some at startups, uh, but this was the first time that they left the safety of the paycheck, the benefits, all that all that type of stuff to go and uh you know, live their dream, go and try and change the the one aspect of cybersecurity that they're playing in, make a difference and do things in a way that could have an impact or industry.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was interviewing these people, I was inspired by what they're doing, the decisions they make to go and do that, the genesis moments when they're saying, you know, we're gonna do a startup.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna found a company, usually with co-founders, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they find people on the way.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lyatt had uh worked with um her co-founder for many years, and they'd always said, you know, we'll probably do a startup at some point.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And finally it just came together for them both.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was the right time to do it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, often with co-founders and you know, uh what they're doing is going out there, changing their lives to go and do something to change how things are done in cybersecurity.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I just found that whole group of episodes, and they're still getting released.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's more coming up.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, right now I'm recording, starting to record the uh interviews with CEOs of the companies that got selected for the innovation sandbox at RSA this year at the end of April.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So more of that type of interview coming.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: One that I really enjoyed was a hot topic right now is product-led growth.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think people have latched onto it as a thing uh without necessarily really understanding what it is, and perhaps over believing what it might do for them.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think there is this kind of idea that, oh yeah, if we just figure out PLG, we won't need to hire a sales team, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do this, this, uh, you know, get the product out, then people start using it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: They'll have to use it more, and we can start charging them.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, there's this whole kind of Nirvana will happen where our cost of sale is going to be so low.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in what episode 105, I had a great conversation with Jay Wallace at Run Zero.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Run Zero was an interesting spot.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they founded with a reasonably well-known name in the in the white hat community in HD Moore.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they had that easier access and his network and the people that knew him to start becoming customers, uh, brought in a CEO, and the CEO knew it was time to hire sales because he was overrun with people who are inbounding, saying, I started using your product in my home or in my small office or in a lab, and now I want to use it a much bigger way, and brought in Jay to start building out a team.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly enough, he's building out a sales team, right?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, these people, even though it's PLG, they still need to have sales teams that know how to handle the conversations and bring people who are already interested in becoming bigger customers, don't screw it up by trying to do too much qualification and things like that, but just you know, make it easier for them to buy at that point.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that whole conversation with Jay in episode 105, I thought was really interesting.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Another hot topic has been, and it's changed a lot, but it has been in the last few years, is hiring, especially of sales teams.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, up to a year ago, it was really hard to find great talent.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then suddenly everything just turned around, and we're in an environment right now where there's been so many layoffs that there's just great talent out there everywhere.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: But uh the same token, whether there's a dearth of great talent or you've got too many, you've got to be really thoughtful about the type of people you're bringing in to represent your company out there in the marketplace.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: In episode 107, I had a great conversation with Chris Smith, who's the chief revenue officer, the CRO at Aqua Security.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris came prepared to that interview.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he one of his hot buttons was the amount of effort that he puts into attracting uh and hiring and keeping great talent in his sales team.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he led us through in that episode the things that he looks out for, the things that he does, uh the questions he asks in the whole process.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was fascinating.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who's very intentional about how he goes about attiring great talent, because Chris knows that uh in any sales team, but also especially a sales team with the stage that Aqua are at, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't remember the exact number of people, but he's probably got you know 20, 30, 40 salespeople.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not a whole lot, but not a small number either, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the type of people he attracts is gonna determine his own success, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your life as a CRO is just a whole ton easier if one of the things you'd be able to do is attract unbelievably good talent who are smart, who conduct themselves well, know how to sell, and could go out there in the market and make a difference.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: So episode 107 with Chris, I thought was a really standout episode for me.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another one is an interesting one.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, not everyone gets to hit a home run in their first one or two or three at-bats as a CRO.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, it's it's mostly the case that people don't, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, in those situations, it's all about what do you learn?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, going back over the the companies you've been at and why didn't that one work out?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was it me?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the team?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the product?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the market?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what of all of that in combination of all of that meant that that one company was not as successful as we thought it would be.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in episode 111, I talked to Mike Rogers, who's the CRO at Noetic Cyber.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Mike and I had a shared experience at a company called Ionic Security back in, I think like 2014 through 17 or 18 for Mike as a CRO over there at Ionic.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a company which was a high flyer, right?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: We attracted a lot of money.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: We attracted great, great VCs and even better early adopting customers.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: The first few customers that we got at Ionic were unbelievable names that you recognize as CISOs, but also as companies in the marketplace.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, you know, Ionic Security was not a raging success.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in our minds, it was sold off on with pennies on the dollar to Twilio a couple of years back.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in this episode, Mike and I looked back at our time at Ionic to figure out, well, what happened?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why do we think it didn't just didn't hit?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't it take off?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what we would do differently.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And Mike's now the CRO at Noetic, where he's taking all those learnings and figuring out how to do things differently, better, more effectively at Noetic to help Noetic be the success that perhaps Ionic was not.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, a raging success in the in our world in cybersecurity for the last few years has been Sentinel One.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a company that if you look back, you know, you might have thought, you know, it's a it's not really much of a player, right?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You had the old endpoint world, you had the new endpoint world.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: A few years back was led by Silance and CrowdStrike, and Sentinel One was formed, and you you kind of wondered how they're going to find their way.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they did, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just look at what's happened and say there is an absolute raging success.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in episode 115, I talked with Mark Perinello, who is a CRO at uh at Sentinel One, about him joining Sentinel One to help the company get ready to IPO and ultimately IPO when he was there.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was the CRO as the IPO.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was fascinating for me in the episode hearing what Mark was working on when he got there to put the foundations in place to have a have a sales team that would operate in a way that was repeatable, that could be trusted to um, not trusted in terms of people, but it was a process that was trusted, that they knew that if they went out and had the the uh bright lights of Wall Street shining on their performance, you know, they knew what they were doing and had a model that they could just keep working and keep working, as opposed to, you know, it's like early in the startup world where you're almost lurching somewhat from quarter to quarter as you don't really have a repeatable process in place.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was interesting to hear from Mark about that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was episode 115.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Two episodes, which uh are all-time favorites um from download numbers and from hearing from people were ones that were um, I guess much more about culture.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, what I did in each of these episodes was uh go back into the uh the LinkedIn resume of the CRO at the company with them and talk about their their steps they made, uh what why they were successful or not successful at different companies we're at, what was going on, the dynamics, what they learned, and ultimately what got them to where they are right now is two CROs at two companies which are doing just so well right now.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: The first one was episode 100, so exactly 100 ago from now.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I had Brian Gumble from Armis, the CRO, CRO at Armis, um, on the podcast.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and I remembered it distinctly.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: We he and I talked, it was a Sunday morning, and um uh he was in his living room, I was in my office, and there were kids around, and we were just kind of, you know, Brian and I know each other from back in the day, and we were kind of shooting the shit about different experiences that uh he'd had over the over the time, and you know, our our paths crossed a couple of different times, and it was interesting to get his notes.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and here, what what's ultimately made Brian a very successful seller, uh manager, but also now a leader, and one that uh at a company that's going from strength to strength right now.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then just five episodes before that, episode 95, I had Mike Baker, the CRO at No Name Security.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what's fascinating about that is that Mike was actually, if I remember rightly, he was the first head of sales at Armis uh a few years before Brian got there.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh both Mike Baker, Brian, and myself, we were all at McAfee together back in the day, so know each other.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So again, with Mike's episode, you know, Mike's got a really interesting story.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's very thoughtful about how he goes about doing his stuff.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would say in Mike's world, there's not much that happens by accident.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's uh he's a thinker, he's a planner, um, and he's a successful person, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: He has a drive about him when you see it in real life, which is uh very impressive to see.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Mike talked about how, and I think it was 15 months, you know, when he joined No Name, he was the first person in the US.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're an Israeli uh startup, he was the first employee in the US, of all employees, not just in sales, and he was their first sales employee.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then 15 months later, uh the team, the go-to-market team that he was leading was up to over 100 people.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Mike talked about that hypergrowth stage he'd been through and some of the thoughts and the decisions to make as he was going through that growth.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that was uh two episodes about culture, about you know, really impressive leaders making a big difference.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another impressive leader making a big difference in an area going back to hiring again was in episode 162, I got to chat to Eric Apple, who's the head of sales at Island.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what Eric was saying in that episode was that you know he was looking to hire people that he already knew and trusted as his first sales team at Island.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, it was more important to him to have people he knew because he'd worked with them before.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: He trusted them, he knew how they worked and how they were successful, their strengths and weaknesses.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: They he knew they would do a good job, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was no ifs, buts, and maymies about it.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And even when they uh started building out their own teams, that they were pulling from people they they knew, worked with before, you know, flourished working with them before, knew they would be successful.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And importantly, with all these hires, what what one of the things that Eric was looking for were people who had already existing networks in the target accounts that they were going after.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Eric again, an impressive leader, thoughtful, uh, comes across, very, very good presence about him, truly someone who's a leader.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at, you know, a simple thing to look at is can someone go to a new company and bring great talent with them?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, Eric can.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um what was interesting for me as well, though, not just that whole area, but uh you know, the ding about bringing someone in who has a network is what happens when they run out of their network to sell to.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very few people that can walk into a company with 50 SISOs, right, in their Rolodex and just be able to pick up the phone.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't happen.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, usually you've got 10 to 20, let's say, as people who you've worked with before, they understand that you you're an impressive individual, you're trustworthy, and they want to work with you again.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when you pick up the phone and say, hey, I've landed somewhere new, they'll take the call and want to meet with you to find out what's going on.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what happens after that, I guess, is the question, right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, you get through your first 10 or 15 or 20, then what, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because not every one of them is going to buy and you need to keep selling.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I thought Eric was very thoughtful about how he was bringing those people in, how he knew that was the downside to doing it that way, and how they were thinking about making sure that the uh the growth continued past someone's role decks as they came in.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that was 162 with Eric Apple.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I don't know what the average tenure is of a CRO at a cybersecurity company, but you know, I think it's pretty common that you know we move from company to company, right?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just what we do.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: In episode 87, I chatted with John Mayhall, who just joined as a CRO at Cyber GRX.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the focus of our conversation was what do you do when as a CRO when you first join a company?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right, how to think about it, how he thought about it, right?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think he was probably at that point five or six months in to his new job at CyberGRX.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what decisions was he making?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: What things was he looking out for?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what could he influence?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: What could he not influence?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Things like that.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a really interesting episode to see how someone who's who's a very impressive individual went about um establishing themselves at a company when they got there and uh wanted to stamp their own mark on the sales team and take control about the growth they needed to get.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um Different Tack, episode 91.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I interviewed Paul Ayers, and Paul is the CEO at Noetic Cyber.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul, uh Paul's got a long background predominantly in sales, but for the last decade or so, maybe more than that, uh, what he's been doing is establishing US uh cybersecurity companies in Europe, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: He'd be the first hire or the second or third hire in Europe and would then become the GM of the European operations for the companies.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in this episode, in episode 91, Paul and I talked about his learnings about how to establish a company from outside of Europe inside of Europe.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I know uh, for example, he's actually written a paper at uh for 1011 Ventures about how to go by doing that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a really interesting episode as Paul, now the CEO at a company, but you know, he's got a lot of experience establishing companies in Europe.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, great learnings from Paul in episode 91.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh completely different tech.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I uh one of my old friends in the sales world and cyber is a guy by the name of Dave Phelps.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Dave is now at CrowdStrike as a regional sales manager.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'm always impressed with Dave when I see what he's doing, how he approaches his job.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, he he's definitely someone who plans and thinks about it and then executes you know, he's an executor, right?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: He he likes to plan, but uh he knows.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: That his success comes from doing things.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and in episode 156, what we talked about was how he attacks a territory, right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking about your territory as a franchise and how he goes about analyzing, prioritizing, and then going about uh attacking the territory.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, um, you know, I I like to listen to Dave, I like to hear what he's going on, and to be honest, I wasn't quite sure how this one would do.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is probably a top five downloaded podcast now, um, in the Sales Bluebird series.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So 156 with Dave Phelps is uh is one to definitely go to.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um another one again a little bit different was uh episode 148.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some of my customers are are fed up for me talking about strategic narrative and using narrative to position your company and you know doing it differently like that, things like that.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in 148, I had on Andy Raskin.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in my mind, Andy Raskin is the OG, the pioneer, the godfather of strategic narrative.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, famously in 2016, he wrote a Medium post uh titled as The Greatest Sales Deck I Ever Saw.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, in many ways, I think that that the that launched his his career as someone who is a consultant who goes into companies at the CEO level and helps them position the company using strategic narrative.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we had Andy on the podcast, which for me was an absolute thrill, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was someone for years I looked up to and we was learning from without him knowing about it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and much of my, you know, reasonable amount of work that I do with my clients is based on some of the learnings I've had looking at how Andy does his job.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we we did a number of things in the episode, one of which we said, you know, let's take a company, let's take a cybersecurity company.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: How might they go about developing a strategic narrative?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's something that intrigues you, I highly encourage you to go to episode number 148.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the things that uh I've been doing for a while now is is doing what I call solo episodes.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's where I talk for for a short period of time, usually about 15 minutes or so.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what I do, frankly, is I I pick the hot topics I'm talking about with my clients.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I know that uh it's it's you know areas of interest for them.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore I imagine it's areas of interest for the listeners of the podcast.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the things that um I I did reasonably early in the process, number uh 78, so that's going back probably a couple of years now.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I talked about how to run a good uh sales meeting.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing, right?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you get to uh a team, let's say you got a team of six, seven, eight, whatever it is, you got a sales leader, you got some reps, maybe two or three SEs in there as well.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we feel like what we have to do is have that Monday morning or Friday morning sales meeting, right, for the team.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on and what learnings do we have and things like that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, anyone who's been doing this any length of time knows that the danger is that that very quickly turns into a bit of a um, you know, I suppose we have to do that.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna talk about today?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, scramble at the last minute to say, well, let's put a topic together and go talk about this kind of thing.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what I talked about in episode number 78 was well, how can you run a better sales meeting?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: What might be a template, a formula?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: How can you get great ideas about how to do it?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: How can you involve a team more?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Things like that.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a little bit surprising to me, but this is one of the top performing episodes in in Sales Bluebird.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the most downloaded episodes that I have.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I get people referencing it from time to time, even though it was released uh you know two plus years ago.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, go back and look at number 78 if that's of interest to you.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh completely other end of the spectrum, uh, 179 was a solo episode as well.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was actually spurred by a conversation I had with a very early stage founder.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: He was about to start doing founder-led sales, and um we just jumped on the phone for 45 minutes and we ended up talking about you know the things that you know he wanted to know what should I not be doing, right?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's the what's the mistakes to avoid?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I talked him through a bunch of those things.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, you know, that actually might make a really good episode.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So uh episode 179 is 13 mistakes the founders make when they start doing founder-led selling.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so if you're at that stage or you're a founder and you find yourself even in involved in the sales team and you're perhaps even leading a small sales team, episode 179 could be really interesting for you.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then um the final one to call out again was was very different.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, episode 164.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had two SISOs on the podcast for the first time.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I had Mike Provet and Ben Halpert, uh, both of whom I've known for some time now.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the time that they came on was right when Joe Sullivan, the former CISO at Uber, had been indicted.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was by a grand jury.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm forgetting some of the details.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: This was the end of last year, he'd be indicted about how a breach was handled at Uber a few years previously.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this sent shockwaves through the CISO community that you know CISO's being indicted about uh a breach and how it was handled and things like that.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than me having an opinion, uh relatively uninformed opinion, I I had Mike and Ben come on and we talked through their impressions of what it really meant, the stage it was at, how they think CISOs should be thinking about this, what it really means for them, and things like that.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was a very different podcast.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it got great download numbers, um, and maybe it's something I should do more of going forward.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a bunch of episodes that I that stood out for me as I was looking back this morning, thinking about the ones that stood out.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all of them, it's like calling, you know, try to pick out your favorite, favorite kid, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all of them I just you know, I love the conversations I've had with people.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um not much happens in terms of the podcast uh you know by accident.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm choosing people and I'm choosing topics, which I think are gonna be more interesting for for the audience, for you.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm always open to feedback to say, you know, this is something you should cover, or um, I wish you would uh done this this differently, or I wish you would ask these founders these types of questions.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you got any suggestions at all, you know, hit me up.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Andrew at unstoppable.do.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's unstoppable.do.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, message me like that, and yeah, I'd love to have a conversation with you.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up on the podcast, uh, we're gonna continue with um the themes that we've been working on so far.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, I'm in the midst right now of interviewing the CEOs at innovation sandbox companies.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm looking forward to having those come out before RSA this year.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then what I'm gonna do is go into a focus around CROs again.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I've kind of done a bunch of CEOs and then I did a bunch of CROs, just did more CEOs.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: But now I think after RSA, I wanted to release maybe 10 to 15 to 20 interviews with CROs.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you know a really interesting person who's a CRO, someone who's a really compelling talker, um, someone who's got some great ideas that are a little bit different, anything like that, I'd love to get your recommendations for someone who should be on.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's different people out there that I know that I've got great names, um, that uh are really good speakers around sales and uh and cybersecurity.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to have those people on the podcast.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so please send them my way.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if for something you could do for me and that would really make a big difference, I'd really appreciate it is um if you like what you're hearing on these podcasts, you know, a rating and review of what you hear um really helps out with the success of the podcast.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: It helps you know attract people into this world so we get the download numbers, the listeners, and also attract great guests.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can do something like that for me, I'd really appreciate that.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just simply go to uh salesbluebird.com slash R, R for review, and you'll find uh a quick way to leave a review right there in that.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: So many thanks for listening for all the all this time, all these episodes.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for giving me the support.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you that reach out and say, I'm I'm loving this, keep going.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, podcasting is is is often a one-way thing.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: You you put your heart and soul into these interviews and solo podcasts, but at the end of the day, like I am right now, I'm staring at a computer screen, wondering, you know, who this is gonna hit home with.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do get value, you know, reach out to me and let me know that you're you will enjoy it.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as I say, if you got ideas for great people to come on, just let me know.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: With that, I wish you every success for uh for March, April, spring for 2023, Far State, and beyond.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.