Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 108: Alex Jones, CRO at NetSPI, talks journey into cyber and building a great sales team

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108: Alex Jones, CRO at NetSPI, talks journey into cyber and building a great sales team · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sales Bluebird podcast, which exists because at B2B startups it's hard to get go-to-market fit, grow revenue, and scale the sales team.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sales Bluebird provides tips, tricks, experiences, examples, and inspiration from people who've been doing this for many years and in many companies.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: We want your path to go to market fit and beyond to be less rocky so that you can grow sales faster.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and our guest today is Alex Jones, who's the CRO at NetSpy.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Andrew.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to be here.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm looking forward to our discussion today.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Some really cool things you've been doing at NetSpy, and it'll be good for our listeners to hear all about it and get some tidbits to take away.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into that though, I want to hear from our listeners.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just know that there's going to be questions or topics which are top of mind for everyone right now, looking at how they're selling, where they're selling, what's working, what's not working.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as leaders, you know, go to market strategies, models, things like that.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want to hear from you what they are, because we can cover them and uh either myself or with my guests or future episodes.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So email me directly at andrew at unstoppable.do.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's at unstoppable.do, do at the end.com.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it's easier for you, as it is for me, I don't like to write lots of things.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I record videos and audios.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can go to zipmessage.com forward slash unstoppable and record a quick video or email message for me there.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that way we can get your your topic covered.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I actually got a submission yesterday from someone that we're covering on the next episode.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So uh do want to hear these from you.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, uh back to you.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So six questions to get to know the real Alex Jones.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: These are quick answers, not the time for debate, or it depends.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the answer we're looking for.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You might want to say both, or you might want to say it depends, but you gotta pick one and we'll get through these.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, first one dive bar or cocktail bar?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Dive bar, no doubt.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Suite of the four seasons or cabin in the woods?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Four seasons.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Tripped out jeep or German car with all the gadgets?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Tripped out jeep.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Beach or mountains.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Beach.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: They say home is where the heart is.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where is home for you?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Iron Range, Minnesota, even though I'm not from there, stealing it from my wife.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then my inherited land.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: How did you first make money as a kid?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's one of my favorite questions to ask during interviews for SDRs.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I think you know, I've heard so many of theirs that it starts to blend together.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think the first way I made money was mowing lawns.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: How young were you?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was like 10 to 12-ish.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's yeah.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right in the neighborhood, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's cool.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: All the next door neighbors.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Great source of of income for certainly my myround my neighborhood, that's for true.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's true as well.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go to your LinkedIn profile, Alex.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when I look at this, I'll tell you my takeaways from this.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one is that you spend quite a bit of time building up your career outside of cybersecurity.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then a few years ago, what four years ago, five years ago now, you made the switch uh by joining NetSpy.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a kind of pre-cyber and then in-cyber part of your career.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But looking back into the the early days, you you spent a bit of time in the uh recruitment world, it looks like, starting off at as a technical recruiter at C4.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did I get that right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about uh C4 and how you got into technical recruiting.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so from both a cyber background and also from a sales background, I certainly don't have a very traditional path uh that I follow.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that makes for a unique story, but also gives me a really good perspective uh as I've grown through my career.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I graduated college in 09, and I'll tell you what, the first thing we went to in terms of like a career fair, I think it was in 2008, and I happened to work as an analyst for a Wall Street firm in 2008 covering the housing sector.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew how bad it was, but I didn't know how bad it was until I got to this recruitment fair.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, in Minneapolis, there's some really big Fortune 500 level companies, Target, General Mills, Best Buy, and they were all at this private job college job fair we went to.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And they all would accept resumes, but they weren't even interviewing people because there was no interest in hiring people with no experience.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so the job market was terrible when I graduated school, and that challenge really shaped me in a way to just be gritty and not take for granted opportunities because I didn't get any.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I felt like I was a highly qualified candidate and I couldn't land an opportunity anywhere.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up interviewing through a job I found on Craigslist for a staffing and recruiting firm, and it was literally like a project coordinator thing in their office.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they had a stack of resumes and they basically said, You're you're way overqualified for this.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you interviewing?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I don't have a choice, I need a job, I don't have any options, and it was pretty straightforward with them.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, this really that that job experience, they gave me the chance.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I came out of school, I was making$12 an hour with no benefits.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it was one of until this role at NetSpi, it was the hardest I'd ever worked in my professional career.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when I walked in, I was I shared an office with one of the recruiters there.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I was obviously just kind of a temp.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he took me under his wing.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was a mentor, and he said something to me that stuck with me for the rest of my career.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: After a month or so, I realized he was making pretty significant income.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: In my eyes, he was making a ton of money uh when I was 22 with no experience.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, if you want a job like this, just start doing the job that you want to do.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so, as I was a contractor, he taught me the ropes of how to start recruiting for what we were doing.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just started doing it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time the owner of the company found out, I had placed like 20 or 30 people, and he basically told me, I don't have a choice, I just have to make you an offer.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh that's how I got my in to actually get down a path where I could start making some some decent income.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: But that was a time when people kind of been hiring, though, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So not only did you find it tough to get a job, I'm sure very few people were hiring, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the other part of the story, actually, that's interesting.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we were doing telecom-based staffing, and it was real old school, like central offices, people going in and pulling wires and and fiber and decommissioning central offices and and all of those kind of things.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there actually was a fair amount of work in that space because it was project-based, and people were just needed someone for a few weeks or a few months to go in and and do this pretty manual labor.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, in a sales recruiting is sales, and then you also, but you're selling kind of the candidate on the opportunity and and pairing them with it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then in that recruiting world, you can progress typically typical progression is to move into an account management role where you're selling the staffing services.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So they were very busy during that time, which was was lucky for me and allowed me to learn the ropes.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: But doing it in a sector like telecom was uh I just got my teeth kicked in, and it was a very tough job in the sense of you know, really difficult customers, if you will, but it was a great starting ground for sales, and it was uh actually a pretty busy time for us.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then you moved on into peer-to-year career.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It looked like you had your own business for a while and you're doing some consulting and some search.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was uh, you know, the opportunity came with Xperis, which I took because I wanted to work with a a group of young professionals that were like-minded like me, because I saw my owner at the previous company had all these great connections within his network from early jobs he had.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I moved there.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I did that for a while.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was a rep on one of our large financial accounts, went really well, but I just frankly got bored with it.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted a new challenge, and I I reached the point I didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided I was just action was better than anything.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna go out, do some recruiting on my own, and then start a recruiting company.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then during the midst of that, my my manager from Experience actually referred me to a startup, and I went over there to build out uh, I'd say their just everything, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sale, it was really bootstrapped.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was there for almost three years.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was an SAP consulting and technology firm and went there my next step.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then in May of 2018, you joined this completely different company in the cyberspace called NetSpy.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about that move.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: What what what were you thinking when you made the move?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: What attracted you into the cyber world and also to NetSpy?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was really a few things.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I lucked out to get it.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, getting into cyber wasn't even that intentional.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had a few friends from a previous job that had worked at NetSpy for a while, so I knew what NetSpy did.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was the penetration testing, offensive security testing space, and just cyber as a whole was very fascinating to me.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: SAP is like a process-oriented thing and was frankly very boring to me.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was always intrigued by NetSpy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it just so happened I was looking for an opportunity to sort of grow a team more aggressively, invest more in sales technology, optimize and scale a team.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And NetSpy had just been purchased by a PE firm.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: They were looking to do that exact same kind of thing.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And these people had worked for me before, with me before, so they knew like my sales skill set and my leadership style.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And those were the only two things that even got me an interview, Andrew.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: The the job description and my background could not have been like further apart.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was so unqualified on paper for the job.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that must have been tough though when you come in, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're you're probably feeling a little bit uh nervous about this whole new space and people using terminology that you don't understand and and and things like that, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Terminology was tough, which but what wasn't tough is going from a a three-year-old, uh a three-year stint at a startup where we were in a co-working space and we bootstrapped it and we were just super gritty, is you learn just like how to get it done.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's where you know I got to call myself a VP of sales there, but it was a very small team, and this was in on paper, you know, title-wise, a little bit of a step back, but then the opportunity was so vast ahead of me if I knew I could figure out how to scale it properly.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um I would say I didn't feel as out of place as I thought I was going to coming in.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mastered the terminology pretty quickly, but I definitely put in the work to try to understand the environment and the industry as a whole.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then the rest of it was just like executing and figure out how to build a team properly.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the first rule there it says here director of inside sales and sales ops.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now I imagine PE owned operations and repeatable models and tightening up the K KPIs is all part of being under a PE company.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they had gone through a pretty serious, they they had decided to transform Netsby from sort of a lifestyle boutique cusp company that had always done really well for itself into a high-growth, fast-paced company.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had the opportunity to come in and lay the groundwork by standing up our first set of SDRs and our first team of inside sales reps.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then they approached me a few months in about running the sales ops team, which I just jumped all over because I started to realize just the critical nature of sales operations uh in running an effective sales team.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a key critical differentiator in terms of your competitive stance that some people overlook.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I just jumped all over that and bought really into sales ops and um how it could help improve ourselves, our team uh from an efficiency perspective.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, you know, five, ten years ago, if someone was going into a company saying we need to hire sales ops, you probably looked at a little bit funny, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be like, well, you know, are we there yet?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do we need tools?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do we need processes?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna get in the way.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: These days, it's almost a given that uh one of the first hires at early stage is gonna be someone running RevOps or sales ops.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a nice little change in the industry.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Couldn't agree more.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's and like the problems we experience because of it too.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have the right sales ops support, like we we spammed out of our sales enablement product because we didn't have things set up properly.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine if you're running inside sales, then you're in a velocity mode, right?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you're thinking about how do we get the engine moving as opposed to high-end enterprise, which is often you know deal-by-deal.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about it then.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you you got the inside sales team, the SDR team up and running.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: How did you approach the hiring, attracting or trying to decide the right type of people that would be part of the team as you were forming it?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this was part of the non-traditional uh aspect of my background that paid off so well in this role, which is it's all about hiring and firing, putting people in place to be successful, guiding them to get to a point to see if they can scale effectively themselves, and if they can't, making that tough decision to part ways and making it quickly and effectively.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when we we hired for SDRs and we still do this today, um, first of all, I ripped off basically uh I read the sales acceleration formula.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I do a ton of independent research and reading when I'm trying to figure out a right approach for something.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And Mark Roberts wrote this book about scaling the HubSpot sales team from like zero to you know whatever they are now, and he sort of reverse engineered an approach for hiring model, and it's based on personality and behavioral characteristics, and it really resonated with me, and we built our screening methodology around it, and the profile that I took right out of his book is these key characteristics that he looks for in someone, which is coachability.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's the most important thing to me, but coachability, curiosity, prior success, intelligence, and work ethic.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if we feel we identify those in a candidate, we will try to bring them on um as quickly as possible.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about uh coachability then.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: How do you determine that during a hiring process?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: The easiest way is to run some simulated demos, if you will, or ask them to do something for you and then provide direct feedback and see how they react.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's like number one.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts to become just very clear if they're gonna follow your direction properly and buy in, that they're gonna be good listeners and they're gonna take advice well and they're gonna go out and do it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So another one is we would always wrap up a conversation and I would give them an assignment.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And usually the assignment would be something like send me a follow.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you're interested enough, you would accept the job, send me a follow-up email and write out to me why NetSpy would benefit from having you on the team and what you would bring, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or something like that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a little open-ended.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: It gives them the ability to freely describe themselves in a way they see fit, but it also requires them, then I get to see how quickly they send it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I get to see the ability of their writing skills.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've already gotten to see their verbal communication skills and their in-person presence by meeting with them for the interview, but then I also get to see this follow-up.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know, um, this day and age, writing skills are just as important, if not more important, than verbal communication skills from an SDR prospecting and providing value over an email or through a social post or something like that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: So those are some ways that we would look for coachability, and if they would miss deadlines for sending follow-up emails, or if they wouldn't put together, if they didn't put together a very strong email, they just they weren't considered any further.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you give them some feedback and and see how they responded.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said you said like a mock demo, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: You guys go back and forward, say, well, you could have done this better and see how they how they do it.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And some or make them do it again and see if they implement your feedback.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: That can be tough in real time sometimes, but that's that's like my favorite.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sooner, is we look for people that come in dedicated and focused on building a career in sales.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: If someone comes into the my recruiters notice screen for that, so we don't really see this anymore.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if when we were starting out, someone come in, they're like, Yeah, I'm looking at some marketing opportunities, I'm looking at business analyst opportunities, and I'm thinking about sales, they're out.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like that that interview's over because we need people that are gonna fight through the grind of an SDR role or an inside role and have a really tough mountain to climb, and then see that they're gonna get rewarded long term by doing it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really like that, Alex.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll tell you why.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I've noticed working with a few early stage companies is anything that's in the middle, a little bit wishy-washy, just doesn't work, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the phrase that I I use with people is you're either ill all in or all out, right?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: That you can't afford to be trying something, you know, just to see if you like it.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And your example there about doing that.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or the other example I come across is earlier stage companies than the NetSpy, but you know, the the founder wants to try sales or wants to try someone.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's try them out for three months as the head of sales or whatever and see what happens.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like they're they're scared to commit, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in in startup world, you don't you there's no room, right?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's no room for trying things out.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: You try things out at a 50,000 employee company.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't try them out when there's 50 you try to find a business model and and make payroll and and get the next round coming, things like that, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's just no room for it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, couldn't agree more.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's part of what we do as well, Andrew.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: After the first week of SDRs being on board here, I have them write a paper, and the title of the paper is Why Sales?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea is that if they do the paper properly, that's their framework to reference as they continue to progress at Nets Buy.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna have a tough day.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna have a day where they're making 100 to 200 calls a day, they're gonna get hung up on a lot, they're gonna get yelled at, they're gonna get cussed at, and uh they need to make that decision is is this worth it for me?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if they don't know their why, they may not be as invested in that long-term payoff that we see come from, you know, because here we organically grow the team.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we promote from within.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 80% of our field reps today started as an SDR at NetSpy, and it's because of the growth pattern we've been on and the stages of hypergrowth we've been going through, we've been able to promote a lot of people very quickly.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: As an SDR coming in, what expectation do you have for productivity in the first month or first couple of months?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're always evaluating if we're doing things the right way.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's important as a leader to not just get set in stone on an idea and say this is the way.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, what we do is we do a week of very intensive training and the idea, and that culminates at the end of the week with a presentation where they they they give their elevator pitch, if you will, which is really just as much as you could say, and for right or wrong, how we do it is memorizing the key pieces about NetSpy.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: What are our value props, what are our core differentiators, why are we special, how do we benefit customers versus our competition?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: They give that presentation at the end of the week, and really that's giving them enough to be dangerous to get on the phones, get working, and dive right in.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really fast.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then over the course of the weeks two through four, we're getting them more of that intensive training on the technology stack we use and on um giving demos of our platforms.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we are trying as quickly as possible to position our SDRs where they could run an intro call with a customer if they if they're able to or that it happened to be necessary or something like that.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we're progressing them almost immediately to try to prepare them for that next step.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: But those come with a caveat, which is you got to do the day job, right?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that goes back to my first role out of school and and that early mentor saying do the job you want.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we encourage that and we have that reverberate through our whole company to always be pushing the envelope to get involved in ways that are outside of your regular job description.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, speaking of promoting from within, you start off there as director of inside sales, and then three years later you're SPP of all sales, and then four years later, or under four years later, you're your CRO.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: What was happening as you were kind of given more responsibility?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: What were you doing well that people were latching on to?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've lost a lot of hair, but other than that, uh it was it was just like being very investor focused, value focused, figuring out what works and executing on it at a rapid pace.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when we start noticing, you know, for me running a high growth business, you can't be afraid of risk.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And risk means different things to many different people.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: But to know what helps protect you from making risky decisions is knowing that you'll course correct very quickly if it doesn't work.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if we overhire for something and we don't hit the goals that I think we can, we course correct very quickly.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that rapid response allows you to be flexible and nimble as you grow the business.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you hit on something that works, then you go all in and continue to do it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it was just raising my hand a lot, getting super involved.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when you know what I see a lot of people miss as opportunities.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is like getting that chance to engage with someone and taking advantage of it, right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a risky proposition to get engaged with the CEO of a company at a high growth engine if you're not going to be prepared.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a give and take, right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going to approach the C-level executives with an important idea or a solution, and I always encourage people if you're going to present leadership with a problem, have to have a solution with it, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just took advantage of the opportunities.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: My one thing about taking this opportunity at NetSpy as director of inside sales was I wanted to feel like I had a seat at the table.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they kind of catered to allow me to do that.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then once I was able to take advantage of that situation by proving my value, that's when the opportunity started to flow in.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then you just have to consistently deliver.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: So one of, you know, I'll give an example early on.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: There was an opportunity we had to re we had to build and redo our customer renewal process.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And our chairman of the board was very vocal about this, and he saw it, and it was great vision from him of what we needed to do.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had an opportunity to significantly take advantage of our client base if we improved our renewals.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in in security testing, it's a reoccurring business, and we've added so much technology to our offering that we're making it less and less reoccurring every day.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I built with my team, and my team built it, but and they are much better than me at these kind of things, and is the way you need to delegate, obviously.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: But uh we built a new customer success and a customer renewal process.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just things like that where it probably wasn't in my job description.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: I probably didn't need to do it, but we were able to deliver on it, and it helps you gain visibility within these small but fast-growing companies if you're providing consistent value.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other piece is like exactly why I came to NetSpy, which is the leadership was bought in on sales.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's anyone early in their sales career or wants to grow as a sales management professional or anything like that, you want to see that from the top down your company is bought into sales.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they aren't, if they don't see the value sales brings to the organization, they're not going to reward you for the job you're doing.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's always gonna be that sense of friction.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel that's a big gap with a lot of like technical founders, is that they don't place the value on sales that that is deserving of sales, and that is not the case here.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when you deliver strong results as a sales leader here, it it resulted in more opportunity for me.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to cut in here just to tell the listeners about uh our sponsor today, Alex, and it's cybersalesjobs.com.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a hiring manager and struggle to find great cybersecurity sales talent, or are looking in a uh yourself and are fed out having to check out a bunch of different sites to see what's out there, check out cybersalesjobs.com.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: It has AEs, SEs, SDRs, channel, operations, enablement, individual contributors, leaders, all these different roles at a whole bunch of different cybersecurity companies.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hiring managers can post jobs for free, and job seekers can get alerts as jobs open up and for their role in their area, also for free.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: So head over to cybersalesjobs.com.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just quickly go back to something you said, and you use the phrase being investor focused.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to just tell us a little bit more about what that means as you're looking at uh the team there?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's it's certainly how I lead the organization and is a point of friction in the sense that not everybody, especially in sales, thinks this way.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's in the sense of being team focused, team-oriented.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is an individual sport, right?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sales is like, give me my quota, I'm gonna go hit my quota, and I'm gonna try to make as much money as I can while I do it and get out of my way.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we um have been able to build a team that's very team focused, and that's like what's best for the cause and the journey we're on.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's always how my leadership style has been.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I say investor focused, I think that was one of the key pieces that probably helped NetSpy decide more comfortable with giving me the opportunity and chance to be chief revenue officer here.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the decisions we make is not what's best for sales.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: The decisions aren't what's best for my comp plan.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: The decisions are what's best for NetSpy and for the strategic growth that we need to achieve, and how are we going to do that?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're making decisions that are focused on value adds to the business, then you get that opportunity to be at a sort of C-level role.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you're not thinking like a frontline sales manager or a VP of sales that's more tactical and execution focused.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And your job in a role like CRO, in my opinion, is to cascade that vision down to your team so they embody those same values, and you can build that culture that's going to be sustaining in that in that way.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about the CRO role, Len.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you took it on in January of this year.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's your plans and focus areas for the rest of the year and into uh 2023?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we just launched a really exciting product.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's our attack surface management platform, and it's very complimentary and falls under everything we're doing here at NetSpy, which is pen testing as a service.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so from a go-to-market perspective, we're launching, we're constantly launching new products, we're constantly innovating with new technology.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: We had a rapid response through our technology for the log4j situation.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: We had a rapid response through the rise in ransomware with our breach and attack simulation product.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we're bundling these products, we're wrapping them with services.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we call that, Andrew, what we say here to define that is platform-driven, human-delivered.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the value that our customers get out of NetSpy is when you look at like the most costly and worst breaches that occur out there, it's almost always at the hands of an individual actor.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just through technology exploitation.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we are not a check the box kind of shop.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to give you tons, we're focused on the high quality results that we're delivering to our customers on a consistent basis.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're not trying to load them with noise.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the cyber industry, um, I think is overwhelmed with noise.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we're looking to cut through that with really high value, high and critical severity vulnerability findings and deliver those to customers as quickly as possible.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: On the sales side uh and sort of the internal sales management.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So as part of that go-to-market motion between with pen testing as a service and this delivering of you know, human delivered through our platforms, we have a sales motion that works like a very much like a SATH-like motion, and and most of the things we're delivering are in a SATH mannerism.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then on the sales side, we're trying to properly segment.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the strategy right now, from from that perspective, is that we've gone from sort of this like field and inside model that was sort of a territory pod, and we've split that up, and now we've segmented.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got to the size where that worked for a couple of years, and now it we've outgrown that model.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have three different segments.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have our majors and then which is like strategic accounts, and then we have enterprise and commercial accounts, and then we have SDR supporting across those segments.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you know the point where you get some specialization in different sizes.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have you got as far as thinking about different verticals?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not yet, but very soon that would probably be the case.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think the next one is to double down on our our majors, which is just we see focus, activity drives results, and focus drives exponential results, in my opinion.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So what's what's counterintuitive to reps is if you have a territory of like five or six states and all of a sudden we trim you down to supporting 20 or 30 accounts, you're freaking out because you feel like you have less addressable market.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's actually the opposite because of the exponential rise in need for large enterprises for what we offer, the more you can focus on a complex sale into a large enterprise, you're gonna get significantly better opportunities.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can provide more value to those customers by focusing on them.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they need.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think before we go into industry focus, we're gonna continue to grow that market segmentation and more and more into the majors.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can continue to bring in new logos.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the and the tough part because we know when when we look at CAC to LTV and these kind of metrics, we're we're punching above our weight right now.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we want to continue to bring in those logos to then grow them through upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we we saw 92% year over year growth in our sales bookings from 20 to 21, and I think two or three hundred somewhere in that range percent growth in our new logo acquisition.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna keep focusing on bringing those clients in and then doing what we do best to service them and and grow them for now.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the engine is working then with those numbers, as far as I can tell, right?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm wondering for your uh majors and enterprise segments, how much are they expected to fish on their own and how much do they get from the SDRs in terms of pipeline?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love that question because I feel like it comes it comes up uh all the time in terms of the frustration.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when I talk about like cultural team building and values that we want to see throughout an organization, this is so key.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Every single person at NetSpy is that's in sales or a quota carrying rep, they are responsible 100% for their own performance.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it is unacceptable to hear anything, and it would not even be a consideration, I don't think, for most reps to bring it up that my SDR is not performing well for me, that I'm not getting good enough inbound leads.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: It does not happen.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Part of that is because every rep here was an SDR within the last four years at some point, for the most part.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: So they know what it takes and what to do.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of our enterprise reps heavily still use sales loft and do their own cadences and do their own prospecting, and then they have that SDR supporting them as well.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a mix of everything to continue to grow that.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: But the reps are definitely expected and know that they are responsible, ultimately responsible for guiding that whole motion and trying to kick up opportunities for themselves.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully, Andrew, if they do it the right way and learn, they know that that prospecting in the enterprise or major space is much different than it would be in the commercial space where you're just probably banging out calls and getting in front of opportunities.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't work with a complex sale into enterprise.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: You need to connect the dots, find people, uh, and uniquely position ourselves to get in front of them in a way that's through a common connection or through a networking focus or giving them an educational presentation of some kind.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I find it impressive that uh so many have moved up from SDR so quickly into these, you know, supposedly higher sales roles, right?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: What pressure does that put on your organization to make sure they're ready and and trained, ready to do that?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's one of the most critical things that we we work on all the time.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so we load our team.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: I like to think, I, you know, you always can do better, but I like to think we load our team with tons of support.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: So our team is doing, in my opinion, the hardest part of sales.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're going out and getting in front of customers, they're being aggressive, they're they're kicking up opportunities, and then they know how to quarterback those opportunities.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: They know how to build relationships, they know how to set next steps, they know how to go through the entire sales cycle.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what they aren't is just like me when I started, they aren't industry experts.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have 20 years of sales experience in cyber.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know how to talk about your entire security posture, but we arm them with experts that can do that, and they're empowered to bring those people on.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a uh fantastic leader over our strategic solutions team, and that's comprised of our solutions architect role.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's like your pre-sales engineer, but they're they're really, really special talents.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then we also have a managing director program, which is like your ex-CISO level executive security thought leader that comes in and helps arm you with all the things you need to be thinking about from a security leadership perspective.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they go arm in arm with our sales team to uh work with prospects and existing clients and help scale and operationalize their security functions, but they're not sales reps.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're they're really client advocates.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love that combination actually.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm seeing it more and more where there's the you know, some people call them evangelists, some call them the the industry expert pod, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the the sales team can call on them in the right circumstances to to be the the expert in the room.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it uh it allows the sales people to focus on what they're good at, right, which is finding and building opportunities.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, I love I love all the stuff that you've got going on there.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let me switch gears a little bit on you here.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: What sales question or saying would you that you just don't like that you would cast into the far reaches of space, never to be heard ever again?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe, Andrew, it might be because I have a four-year-old at home that this is gonna be my answer.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: But from a sales management perspective, any question that starts with the words I want makes me want to throw up and and kick the person out of the room and take a break.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason is because of everything we talked about with growing a team and the cultures and values that matter to a properly run business is that we shouldn't be individual focused, we should be business focused, we should be investor value focused.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if someone approaches me and says, I want to go to this conference because dot dot dot, and it it usually comes off as very self-centered.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if they were to approach me and say, I need to go to this conference because these customers are going to be here and because this is the ROI that's gonna be driven from the event if I attend and the importance of me building the relationship, they are might be asking for the exact same thing, but it's completely different in my eyes and my viewpoint because at that point they're acting like a true leader and they're they're acting with NetSpy's best interests at heart.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're not just portraying that they want to be a globetrotter and go out and and visit another part of the country they haven't been to or go to a fun event.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's about what's gonna benefit the mission that we're on at NetSpy.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: So don't approach Alice with I want, right?
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Start off with I think the company might benefit if we go.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I Andrew, if you say I want to take you to dinner, that's okay.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, I get it.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, I think I know the answer to this.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Are you hiring right now?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how do people get hold of you?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, we're hiring like crazy.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So um the easiest way to get a hold of us would be go on to our website and and look at open opportunities and apply.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: But message me on LinkedIn, find my email.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna give away because I think the good sales reps will find it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, any of those kind of things and and reach out.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that sales candidates forget about is the process of selling yourself during um a job interview is so critical, and I think a lot of them get it wrong and it's an easy fix.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: But we're hiring like crazy.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we're hiring two or multiple regional vice president roles over our sales teams here in the enterprise space.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're hiring SDR manager, any tons of sales manager roles, as well as a couple of our key roles on our strategic solutions team and on our revenue operations team.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of across the board right now.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Tons of SDRs as well.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: So there you have it, everyone.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a company hard-charging CRO that's sounds like a very sales-led company, a good sales culture with open recs right now, looking for great talent.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to look Alex up on LinkedIn and go to the careers page to go and do that.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: With that, Alex, thanks so much for joining us.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andrew.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's super fun.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.