Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 183: How to take on the 800lb gorilla with Russell McGuire and Ben White from Ironscales

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183: How to take on the 800lb gorilla with Russell McGuire and Ben White from Ironscales · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

0:32
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time I'm interviewing two people at the same time.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Russell is the CRO at Ironscales, and Ben White is the VP of Business Development, and they're both obviously from the same company.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: They are helping to transform Ironscales from a mid-market company to going after the enterprise, and they are here to talk about that.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: And specifically, they disagree with my questionslash statement from a few episodes ago that Outbound is dead.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Find out why on this episode.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sales Blueberry podcast, where we help cybersecurity companies grow sales faster.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a seller, marketer, leader, or founder, we give you tips, tricks, experiences, examples, ideas, and inspiration from people who know a thing or ten by building great cybersecurity companies.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Mohan.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: A guest today are Russell McGuire, CRO at RNS Scales, and Ben White, the VP of Business Development, also at RNScales.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, welcome to Sales Bluebird.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: Hey, Andrew, great to talk with you.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for having us.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having us.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm looking forward to this.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: So uh uh this is the first time I've had two guests at the same time.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: So uh I've got my fingers crossed a little bit that this is all gonna work out, the tech's gonna be okay, and I'm not gonna lose track of what I'm doing and saying and talking to who and things like that.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: I'll try and do my best to direct my questions and name who I'm who's talking like that so the people listening can can remember and keep up with that.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Um and also, you know, you're both at IronScales, which is going through a uh, I think I don't know if transformation is quite the right word, but certainly altering a little bit on the go-to-market side.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of things, a couple of topics as part of that, which uh I think are super important and which from from from which people can learn.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to going through those.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: But uh, like always, before we get to the the business side of this, um let's do a little bit of personal stuff.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: And what I'll do is just ask each of you to give me one number between more than 35, and uh I'll read you out the questions.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: So, Russell, why don't you go first?
2:46
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh lucky number 23 for me.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: 23, cats are dogs.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: I got a dog in my lap.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: So I I guess dog is the de facto answer as uh as I sit here and she uh she snores.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: So if if you're if you're folks on the podcast here are snoring, I promise it's not me, it's my dog.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: So that's funny.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh, what type of dog do you have?
3:04
SPEAKER_02: She is a three-pound toy poodle, the most ferocious animal you've ever seen in your life.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: Guard dog, right?
3:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: She'll lick you to death and jump on you all day long.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: So a good guard dog.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great, great guard dog.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: All right, Ben, a number to you, one in 35.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh lucky number 12.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: 12.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Suite of the four seasons or cabin in the woods?
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Cabin in the woods all day.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm uh originally from Colorado, so I love love being in the mountains.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: I'll remember that next time you uh expense something, right?
3:36
SPEAKER_02: I'll make sure it's not a four four seasons yet.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: I enjoy both.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: These cabins are more expensive than the four seasons, though.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very true.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh where where about would you want your cabin to be, Ben?
3:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh right outside of Breckenridge.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: I grew up skiing and snowboarding there every weekend, so that's that's my uh my favorite spot to be.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so Breckenridge I love.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you know, we're done, I'm done in Colorado in Denver, Colorado, so we're about two hours away from up there.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Go up there quite a lot.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, you know.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I I actually uh enjoy I enjoy skiing, don't get me wrong, but uh summer in the mountains is is pretty special too.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: A lot less people up there.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: You can easily get around.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no kidding.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: No kidding.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: A quick break to say that this episode is sponsored by the security funded newsletter.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Staying on top of all the latest news of the business of cybersecurity is really hard.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: There are thousands of cybersecurity companies and hundreds of VCs all doing new things all the time.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to keep up with all of it.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: I've been reading the security funded newsletter for the last six months and look forward to seeing it appear in my inbox every Monday morning.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: It's written by Mike Privet, who is a CISO himself and who also advises startups and investors on the business side of cybersecurity.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Each week, Mike covers the latest news and insights on cybersecurity funding, including investment trends, funding runs, new startup launches, and analysis and commentary.
5:09
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5:16
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a founder, investor, or just someone who wants to stay informed about this rapidly evolving industry, the security funded newsletter has something for you.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend you subscribe right now at salesbluebird.com slash funded.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: That's salesbluebird.com slash funded.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Now back to the discussion.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Um so let's move on to what we're talking about.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Russell, you know, I look at your background, uh, some company names that uh stand out to me, Beyond Trust, Cloud Bolt, InfoSec, and now you're the CRO at Iron Scales.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ben, I look at that in the same way.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Intuit, TrustWave, InfoSec, where it sounds like you guys uh coincided for the first time and then also joined Iron Scales recently as well.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Um what is it that brought you both to Iron Scales, Russell, uh that is kind of intriguing for you to be the CRO?
6:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's it's interesting, Andrew.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: It's I think there's very few times within our our kind of uh ecosphere or sphere of software companies that it's the right product, right folks, right market opportunity, right overall general business opportunity.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: And I think with Iron Skills, we've kind of hit on all those, all those aspects.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh certainly from uh technology standpoint, products best that you can find out there, and we can happy to touch on the product piece, but from a market standpoint, Gartner's really going backing behind the API solution when it comes to email security, which is great for us, right?
6:53
SPEAKER_02: So again, we've got the the push from a good product, we've got Gartner in the market saying, yes, this is a direction to go for CISOs out there.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then really an unbelievable great team.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: Everything from our uh CEO and founder, AL, who is just a tremendous person to work with, down to uh every other person within the organization.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: We we have a thing called our scalar DNA, iron scales, and we have our scalar DNA, and it really is uh an ethos that we try to live by as a company.
7:19
SPEAKER_02: So, right product, right fit, right market, right company.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to find something that checks all those boxes.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: And I think both Ben and I are extremely lucky and fortunate to have found a company like this.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no kidding, and you mentioned email security, so that's the space that RN Scales is in.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: Email security has been around for as long as, well, not quite as long as email, but uh you know, quite a while, right?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Remember back in the early 2000s, uh uh having email products to sell in some shape or form.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if I look at this, the the my my view in the market over the years is there's a whole bunch of players were in there.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: There was hardware that was involved, and then there was uh uh the kind of MSP side kind of came in as well.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of vendors had uh online offerings and offline offerings, and something was the consolidation of the marketplace, and then proofpoint kind of seems to be the name that kind of stuck out and did very well.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And now what you're saying is that that market is ready for a bit of disruption again.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: It is, yeah.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: So so it's it's funny you mentioned the proof point.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: 90% of our conversations are are folks that are looking to probably move away from that traditional seg, the secure email gateway, the proof point, the mime cast of the world.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: We take a different approach to email security.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: We're an API-based solution, so we sit at the mailbox level versus a seg that sits in line at the front side.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: And we really uh from our standpoint, we don't look at normal traffic like a segwood.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: We look for what good is, right?
8:48
SPEAKER_02: So we're an AI-based solution that goes out and looks for advanced threats like BEC, you know, business email compromise, account takeovers, uh different from the traditional ways, because we're using that AI and that natural machine learning to analyze what good behavior looks like.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: Does Andrew typically talk to Ben?
9:05
SPEAKER_02: And when he does, is it look like it's this kind of fashion and this kind of language?
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: So we use that AI to really go out there and catch probably 99% of emails attacks, and we pull them out.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: As soon as we see them, we pull them out of the mailbox level.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: That's how us and other vendors uh out there in the market do it.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: We take a bit of a different approach as well.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: We have what we call our human aspect to it, the human approach to it, which we do security awareness training, content aware banners.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: We've able to put this kind of information in front and empower the end users to really be that next level of defense.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: So we take the AI approach, we take the human approach, then we have about 7,000 customers.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: We're a company that's been around for a little while, 20, 2014, and we've got 7,000 customers, and we take a crowdsource approach to security awareness or a crowdsource approach to SOC analysts.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: So basically, we allow our 7,000 customers to report emails, phishing emails that they might have seen, and it raises their hand and say, hey, I've seen this thread over here.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't someone else in your community should be aware of this so they can pull that out automatically?
10:09
SPEAKER_02: So we can leverage almost the almost as you would if you look at Waze when you're traveling, right?
10:13
SPEAKER_02: When you're driving down the road and you use Waze and someone says, hey, there's a cop up here.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: We do that same approach with email.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: Hey, this is a phishing email, this is a malicious attack.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: Why wait for your stock analyst or somebody to pull it out when it's already been probably remediated from someone else within our our 7,000 customers?
10:29
SPEAKER_02: So a bit of a different approach to it.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: You said 7,000 customers now.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: That's uh I remember when I first heard that number, it kind of blew my mind, right?
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: A company that uh is in a pretty mature space with 7,000 customers, and uh that's not normal, right?
10:43
SPEAKER_00: So you've you've got the customers from somewhere, but you're trying to build, keep building the company, and I'm wondering as the transformation comes in, what that is and what you're driving towards.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, we've we've done a really good job.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: Again, we have a great product and a great fit.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: We've we've tackled that mid-market S and B business because that's where the market was at at the time, right?
11:03
SPEAKER_02: It was a bit of a heavy lift for somebody to come into a true enterprise and say, hey, we're gonna go help either remove your approach point or help augment it, right?
11:11
SPEAKER_02: That was a much bigger lift four years ago, five years ago than it is today, now that Gardner's kind of backing us and there's other players in the market.
11:18
SPEAKER_02: So we've captured that mid-market SMB business MSP side.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned the MSP as well.
11:24
SPEAKER_02: We work very well with MSPs, MSSPs.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: So we've captured that market, and now we said, okay, it's time to go upstream.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: The the you know, security vendors that are are pushing for that are are you know being backed up, like I said, by the gardeners and the foresters to go make those plays.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: So it's less of a lift for me to walk into a Fortune 100 company and say, hey, you know, you have a proof point, you have a SEG.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: Is that really the right way to go?
11:48
SPEAKER_02: Should you go leverage your Microsoft plus us?
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Can you look at augmenting your SEG?
11:52
SPEAKER_02: Can you look at replacing it?
11:53
SPEAKER_02: We we have a number of different approaches that we can take.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: And then also with our security and awareness training, we can help folks consolidate as well because we can help tackle that piece of the business as well.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: So again, it's uh it's kind of the right market conditions that allow us to go march upstream.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: It's one of these things that's easy to say, let's just go up market.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh actually how you do it is uh is not so easy.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: It puts lots of stress, stress the right word, but it lots of demands on the the product, the company, the people, things like that.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, how did you approach it from the as a CRO to say, do we have the right setup?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: And if not, how do we get how do we make some changes?
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, again, going back to the product, the product's again, 7,000 customers, and it's not just all mid-market or SP customers.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: We have large enterprise customers as well in that mix, right?
12:42
SPEAKER_02: We're just now much more focused on that side.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: But so so the product was there.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: So it was more for me, it was a go-to-market strategy.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: How do I go push our business to go get into those larger accounts?
12:54
SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, Ben is on the line with us as well.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I had I had the pleasure of working with Ben at a company previous called InfoSec, where he took our our our SDR and our BDR team and and grew that into uh an unbelievable revenue generator pipeline generator for us.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: So for me coming in, it was how do I go get somebody like Ben?
13:17
SPEAKER_02: And or in my case, how do I go get Ben to come help me build that piece of the business back up?
13:22
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, I I I hear it a lot of times and I see it on LinkedIn nonstop, you know, outbounding's dead, prospecting's dead, you know, gone gone are those with those days, right?
13:31
SPEAKER_02: And again, I I think the traditional way of probably outbounding and prospecting have have probably changed significantly.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: But when you get an expert and you get somebody like a Ben and his team to come in, uh it's a force multiplier.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll come back to Ben's side in a second.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Um I think that is a super important area.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh going back to decisions you had to make though, Russell.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, did you hire a different level of seller and then build a team?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: And have you if you just put it enterprise into mid-market?
14:02
SPEAKER_00: How did you do all that?
14:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'd we'd already been segmented out into that kind of enterprise and mid-market business.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it was go hire some really strong enterprise folks that I've worked with in the past as well.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: But then also go build up our channel ecosystem, right?
14:18
SPEAKER_02: It's very hard to get into uh enterprise accounts without having some kind of a strong channel play.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: And and we had that.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: Again, we we did really well in the MSP and MSSP of the world.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: And then it was how do we start to go tackle some of the traditional VAR VADs of the world and get the right folks in place to go drive that style of business.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's almost an infrastructure, almost an infrastructure play.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: When I say infrastructure, really building out that channel, building out the the outbound motion, and then it starts to layer on top.
14:47
SPEAKER_02: And let's go hire the right reps and understand how to go close these deals, can work with the channels and understand how to go go after it.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's it's it's really build that base layer up and then start going on top of it.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: How did the channel reps kind of take to someone coming in and potentially cannibalizing some of their proof point business?
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Um they tend to protect it quite well.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: You'd be shocked.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: You'd be really shocked.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: I it's I I think nine out of ten partners are probably gonna say, yeah, I hear my I hear my my end users and my customers say things slip through our secure email gateway.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: We see phishing emails, we see the vendor impersonation emails, they see that.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's less so cannibalizing their proof point business or their their traditional SEG business, as much as it is allowing them to be more that strategic advisor for their end users and for their customers to go say, hey, there's a better way to go do this, right?
15:43
SPEAKER_02: And and here is that better way.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: And and again, we we have that ability to work alongside with the proof point, right, and catch what they missed, or we can go in there and replace it as well.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: So it's it really allows our channel, it really allows a channel person to be strategic with their their end users because they're they can come in and go approach this a number of different ways.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's not like you're trying to tell them that what they are are pretty satisfied with isn't working so well.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: They they kind of know it's not working as well as they'd hoped.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And your job is to ask the question, do you want to augment or do you want to replace?
16:14
SPEAKER_00: We can do either, and you know, the our key partners are helping us do that.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: I I have yet talked to a CISO that has said, yeah, fishing is not a that's not a concern for me or not or not an issue.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: It just doesn't happen.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: It a hundred I can I can state state that fact pretty clearly.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: 100% of CISOs are gonna say phishing is a secure is an issue for me, things are getting through what our traditional uh security mode gateway.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: How do we go fix this?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And not just an issue.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it usually is in top five when you get the perfect time, right?
16:44
SPEAKER_00: We're recording this in December.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: The usual questions are big big trends for CISOs, right?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: I bet you next year will be the same as every other year, the last five, eight years is yeah, fishing's a problem.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: It's not going away.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: It's only gonna get harder.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: It's you know, especially now, even with the the advent of AI, we use that AI to help remediate, but you know, threat actors are using AI to help go out there and write more sophisticated phishing attacks and go into to do that at scale.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: So uh you'd be shocked at the number of emails that uh phishing emails that slip through in some large enterprises, right?
17:17
SPEAKER_02: You'd be absolutely shocked at the number that they are.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: Um but again, it's it's the right time, right product, right space, right, right placement.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: So um it's gonna be a this year was a good year for us, and next year's gonna be even better.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: So as you went to you already had the people doing the doing enterprise selling, right?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: But you were saying, okay, let's invest.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: How did you think about what the right number was to invest?
17:41
SPEAKER_00: We did you kind of go, let's add two or three, let's add 23, let's add 103.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: How did you think about you know how to how to go and add the heads in and put some focus around it?
17:52
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: I I I like to approach this much more thought out than just kind of go full steam ahead type situation.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm a I'm a numbers guy through and through.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm a I'm one of those CROs that that live and die by KPIs and live and die by numbers.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's let's let's slowly build into this approach so much so that we know we're making the right decisions versus let's go hire 15, 20, 30, 40 reps, whatever the number might be, and then take a step back in six to nine months, say, well, we didn't build up the infrastructure to support hiring those reps.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: Let's be smart about it, let's build the infrastructure, let's get the channel partners on board, which we've done, let's get the product lined up, which it has, and then start to layer people on top of it as we go.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's much more that slow roll approach than it is um, hey, it's a new year, let's go hire 50 reps.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: Did you feel pressure from above to go faster though?
18:43
SPEAKER_02: I didn't.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, our I our our founder, AL, is is on board with the way we're approaching this, and he thinks about it the same way we do, and so does the board.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: They understand that things take time sometimes, right?
18:55
SPEAKER_02: So let's go build this the correct way versus six, nine months, take a step back and say, well, we probably should have slowed down or done that.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: Not to say that we're not growing at a crazy rate because we absolutely are, but we're being very smart about how we go into it, which again, I think it comes down to having a good board as well that understands that that kind of approach.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no doubt.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things you said in there is you want to make sure that the right support was there for the team as you brought them in.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: One of the big things, the challenges, is how do you get these people some pipeline, how do you get them some meetings, get them some leads so that uh they don't all show up there on their first day and go, okay, well, what do I do?
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Do you have to have to pine the phones myself and that's all I do?
19:35
SPEAKER_00: So it's a challenge, right?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know, Ben, this is your area.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, though I'll tell you what I've seen um is I think there's a lot of companies right now struggling with this uh for various reasons.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: But I I think the the trend I see is this, and you may agree or disagree with this, is that um they have the idea that you know we need to go, we we need a pipeline.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: That's the first kind of thing.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: We haven't got enough pipeline.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh what do we do?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's throw some heads at it.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's uh let's let's have a team, an SDR, BDR team.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, let's have them aligned sometimes into marketing, sometimes into sales.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're gonna throw them at this part of the market, we're gonna train them up and away they go.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And usually what happens is that uh the training isn't maybe as great as it could be.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they don't get the support from a leader, right?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: It's it's maybe someone's part-time job to be the BDR leader.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, or they the sometimes if there's smaller companies, the CRO is the one that says, yeah, I'll look after them.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: But of course, you know, CRO's got 25 jobs already, they don't need uh 26.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Um and then as they kind of flounder a little bit, uh people dip in to help them out and say, Oh yeah, I went and supported them.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: I spent half a day with them last month.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, unsurprisingly, they struggle, right?
20:50
SPEAKER_00: And the numbers aren't what people expected.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly everyone starts looking at each other, and before you know it, decisions are made either to completely replace the team, outsource it, insource it, do something different.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: And it just creates this kind of weird cycle.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh to me though, a lot of that is just bad behavior.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: But it means that as you said, Russell, there's a thing right now, you know, or is the right way to go generate pipe, right?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, how do we go do that?
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Is is is this we've been doing it for the last 10 years working or or not?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: So, Ben, as you kind of came in, you know, you you guys have worked together before.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Um how are you how do you think about it as you you say, okay, well, I need to start scale up a team to do this?
21:26
SPEAKER_00: What's the first thing that you start thinking about?
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great question.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: And and that's really what we've noticed that the the outbound motion when you see it on LinkedIn, you see the is outbounding dead.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: You see those polls all the time on LinkedIn.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: I love to chime in and get involved.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, but really the way that I think about it, and and one of the things that really came up, they're in a unique position.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: They are the lowest level at at the organization.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the times they're talking to very senior uh CISOs, VPs of IT, and it's a unique position to be in.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that that you hit the nail on the head is a lot of it comes down to the training.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: What type of training is your team getting that's going to set them up for success?
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard when you have a uh maybe a team lead that's also carrying a quota and also trying to train the team.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: You really need somebody that's dedicated to their success.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm in a unique position too because I I look for all the right people, the right process, and the right technology.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: Those three things in In tandem.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about people then.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, that's where it starts.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: So yep, that that's what I'm always looking for is great talent.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: What what's a great SDR look like to you when you're you're sitting there and you get the resumes piling up on the desk and you're saying, well, I need to tire the team.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: What are you looking for?
22:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for somebody that's that's shown success in in their personal lives.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's not written down on the resume, um, but somebody that that really expresses um some things that they're proud of, right?
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Where did they leave leave their resume open for questions?
23:04
SPEAKER_01: What are they proud of?
23:05
SPEAKER_01: What do they see success look like?
23:07
SPEAKER_01: And I always like to look for people that have played sports or done something competitively because I know that they have that that mentality, that driven um need for success.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: And and that also comes through the interview process and and really digging in.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: We've all made hiring mistakes, right?
23:23
SPEAKER_01: It happens, people are great interviewers, um, but I'm really looking for those individuals.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: We have a uh a very concise but robust interview plan uh and what people go through um all the way down to um um a mock demo and really understanding what we could do.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: We give them all the information.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: I just want to see somebody that that can confidently have a conversation, um, even when they're maybe not as as fluent in the in the technology as they they can be in the future.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about the process then of hiring.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned you go to an interview process that you go through.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: What how do you set that up and what you're looking for at different stages of that?
23:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so the first first step obviously is just talking with the recruiter, making sure everything works.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Then we go to, I have two two conversations.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: I have one with our team leader, and I want to make sure that they're they're meeting the expectations, make sure that that individual um and the prospect mesh well together.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: They're really looking for what their ideal um BDR role looks like and understanding what that day-to-day looks like.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Then when it's coming to me, I'm much more of um looking for those successes.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: What are they proud of?
24:32
SPEAKER_01: I always ask the question tell me something you're passionate about, right?
24:35
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be sales, doesn't have to be um something specific, but I'm really looking for them to show me that passion.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, we'll go through it, but the stuff that I look for is I want to see the passion in them.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can't get passionate about what you're selling, you're not gonna get anybody to listen to you.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: When you have that tone and that inflection in your voice, when you get passionate about something, I can work with that and make sure that they have the right, the right mindset and the right understanding of the technology to go sell it.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: But I can't teach somebody the passion that comes with cold calling and talking to strangers on the phone all day.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: And one thing you haven't mentioned so far is business experience or business awareness.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And and a lot of the people that I am hiring are straight out of school.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: So that has been a unique position, looking for people that have been successful.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, the the last person that I hired was the president of his fraternity.
25:27
SPEAKER_01: So I know that this person is driven, that they're they're looking for success.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: They like those accolades of being somebody that people look up to.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: And that that really comes down to what they're like in their personal lives, because I like to get to know know the people on the team and get to know them greater than just what they're doing today.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it comes down to what they've done in their in their um personal lives or prior to their true careers.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And then also looking looking to others that that have had experience in other industries that are used to having those conversations with higher-level individuals.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at people coming from um organizations within the cybersecurity industry.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's always that's not always been been the best because I like to get these people out of school that have have no expectations or no bad habits, is what I always say.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people know kind of how to game the system, right?
26:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, anybody that puts Salesforce experience on their resume, I always say doesn't matter.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: Everybody uses it in a different way.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna have to train those things.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of what I look for is I like to, right, uh just a block of clay and I like to mold them into professional individuals.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: And my goal, and the reason that I love the role is to see them be successful, but I get to um have a have a real, real investment in these individuals because I like to hire really good people, but I like to get them off my team as quickly as possible, which is hard for me because I want to keep all the top talent, but I like to to get them to go to to future teams.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: Also, you're gonna say, I think uh yeah, I was gonna say it's it's interesting.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Ben's uh I I think at our last company we probably had 40 BDRs or SDRs at one point.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Ben was was running.
27:10
SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the best hires he made was was actually uh somebody who worked for us, and she came over from um the culinary industry.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: She was a chef, and um wasn't somebody who I would have expected to come in and and and be really good at what she did, but again, it goes back to the passion that that Ben said, right?
27:26
SPEAKER_02: She she came in and just knocked out of the park.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: But it's interesting to see folks make that jump from other industries and be really successful and and and push to go do that.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: So it was it was good to see that kind of stuff.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: And that it's interesting because a lot of uh quite a few of the people that I hired at um at InfoSec came from the hospitality, right?
27:47
SPEAKER_01: They're used to they have a thick skin, I guess is a is a nice way to put it, because they're used to having those conversations and are used to solving people's problems, which is a lot of what we're what we're looking to do.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: We're never selling.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: The BDRs are never selling.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: They're really understanding what that pain is and then asking questions, thought-provoking questions to get the CISO or the VP of IT to really think about what life would be like if that problem was solved.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: So you have these people coming in, they've they've got the raw materials of success and in prior lives, they've maybe got some port sports and competitive background, and they've got the passion that you're looking for.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: But somehow you have to train them to be ready to talk to a senior security leader who's been in security for 25 years.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, where have you learned about how best to get them up and running as soon as possible?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, we I have uh a mentorship program.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: So outside of me overseeing listening to Gong, they're working hand in hand with their account executives.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: So that is much more of their day-to-day mentor.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: They're on all of the demos that they schedule.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: I also in um they're included on the demos that the AEs are running so that they can really understand how these uh the prospects are talking about the problem so that they have a good understanding of what that looks like and not just me telling them, hey, this is what problems we solve, this is how our prospects are talking about iron scales.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: It really comes down to listening to prospects talk about iron scales.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: We do that and we do a lot of mock calls, we do uh a lot of call coaching.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: So we use products like Gong that help us really understand what does good look like.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: You'll hear that probably a lot between Russell and myself, but it really comes down to what does good look like and how do we give them the tools to be successful and be able to have those higher level conversations.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it comes down to having a good understanding of the product, but it's more important to arm them with good questions.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: I always talk about thought-provoking questions.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: How do you get somebody to truly think about what their lives would be like if this problem was solved?
30:04
SPEAKER_01: And then it comes down to the questions that you're asking somebody.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: What would be a good example of a thought-provoking question?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Just to give me some context.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: They're they're all open-ended questions.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: So really understanding when we're when we're talking about time, time to value.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: So when you're talking to a CISO around the time that their team is spending when it comes to fishing, right?
30:27
SPEAKER_01: What could that team be working on that would help the bottom line?
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: So you know, right?
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Really get them to think about and understand that if we do solve this problem, what could they be working on?
30:37
SPEAKER_01: And and a lot of that just comes down to them listening to a lot of calls too.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: So so yeah, they'll listen to a lot of calls and they'll maybe keen on that, but they probably need some some real training as well to say that you know these areas are the things that will provoke thoughts.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: These ones are probably more mundane, and uh, you shouldn't be doing that.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I I you know, I'm I'm sure every rep at Iron Scales is just the best of the best, but often, you know, they learn bad habits from from AE's right find, right?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Just generally speaking, you know, what an AE believes is just the greatest crush in the world isn't often perhaps quite as good as they think it might be.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh they need some coaching as well.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: But I guess you have to kind of manage that, you know, take some bits from what the AE does, but don't take everything.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we have a we have a really strong enablement team as well.
31:20
SPEAKER_02: That um uh again, we like to work uh I like to work with folks I've worked with in the past and hired a gentleman by the name of Nick who was with me at Beyond Trust, who's come over and really shaped up our enablement process to to help give air cover for folks like Ben's team and to our AEs as well, right?
31:36
SPEAKER_02: And and even our partners.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny how you know 10 years ago the idea that you'd hire a new enablement person would be would not be normal, right?
31:44
SPEAKER_00: But these days it's it's pretty much the way it is.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: But four four years ago, I think it was a kind of a black black hole enablement.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: What is that?
31:52
SPEAKER_02: Is that a sales trainer?
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Is it a coach?
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Do they what do they do?
31:55
SPEAKER_02: I think it's it's that's a really interesting area that started to really become I from a CRO perspective, there's there's two right hand, right and a left hand, one's my sales ops, and the other one's my sales enablement, the two strongest areas that I have.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like the way you think about that.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: Um and then and then a lot of the training, we we also get them involved with our product team, with our marketing team, with everybody that's talking to anybody external.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: How are we talking about these updates or how are we talking about iron scales?
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Really, what we're one of the main things is is the messaging going out consistent across the board?
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Is what the BDR is talking about, what the AEs are talking about, and also what marketing is talking about.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: Because we want anywhere that they hear about us, they're going to hear a consistent message.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm a new SDR, I'm coming in the team, Ben, to join you.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Let's say I started January 1 for whatever reason.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: How many days would it take me to be usually ready to say, okay, now we're gonna let you loose on on uh on the big bad world out there?
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: So we're right now we're at about three weeks.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: So the first week is a lot of product.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: I want them to get a good understanding.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: Then they're listening to a lot of calls, then we're doing mock calls.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure that they can get down the intro, right?
33:17
SPEAKER_01: Making sure that they have a very good understanding of the value prop.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: How can you consistently say that message over and over the same way?
33:25
SPEAKER_01: So anybody that, right, what is iron scales?
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Right?
33:28
SPEAKER_01: We get a lot of that with with cold calling, right?
33:31
SPEAKER_01: What can you say that's clear and concise that gets that message across so that we can work through that part?
33:36
SPEAKER_01: They're looking in the mirror and they're saying it back to themselves over and over again until it's drilled in their head so that they're not having to think about, oh, if this person answers, what am I going to say?
33:46
SPEAKER_01: So once we get there, then we do the mock calls.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: And once we feel comfortable, we get Russell and I all have been wonderful in helping through that process and making sure that that they can have that valuable conversation up front.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: And then we're we're ready to ready to go.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: So you're all involved in their ramp up to give them the support they need.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
34:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sales is a team sport, revenue is a team sport, so it's everything from CEO down.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: We we take it very serious and take a team approach to it.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh again, I think it's right when I say right company, right founder as well.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: AL is certainly somebody that doesn't hesitate to you know, it could be nine o'clock at night, and uh you know a BDR could have a question to bounce off of and he's gonna answer it, right?
34:30
SPEAKER_02: He's gonna be there to answer it for you.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's certainly uh we look at the BDRs as the foot soldiers.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: They're the first ones, you know, first ones to talk to the customers and first ones to be on that that that receiving end of either an inbound or an outbound call.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: So we want to make sure that that they're armed and ready to ready to have those conversations.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: And giving that, giving them that support and them seeing that support from the top down is extremely important to their their confidence.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Because if they know they're talking to the CEO, a lot of people get nervous or what have you.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: But when they go in there and they truly understand that everybody is invested in their success, they feel very confident in going out and saying, I can have these conversations.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: I know in and out what this product does.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: And it always comes down, there's a lot of technical questions that people ask.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: And I always give them the tools to not only overcome that, but use that to segue into a meeting.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: So really understanding not only how I can talk about iron scales in a very effective way, but when to stop that conversation and ask for the meeting.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: That's almost as important as understanding how to open the call.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: Because I need to be able to know when I need to stop that call to set a meeting for the AEs.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And Ben, you mentioned in the second week that uh the phrase you used was pattern interrupt.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about what you're training the team to do to try and stand out, try and be different so that people might pay attention.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and it a lot comes down to I I listened to your your last podcast that was uh Outbounding's Dead.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: So if anybody hasn't listened to that, go and listen to that and then come over here.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, but the interesting thing is a lot of people are are assuming more, more, more is better.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: And I'm uh I'm a huge advocate of quality over quantity.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: And so when really looking at what what stands out, every single sales enablement platform or engagement platform, every email that you're going to get, you know exactly what it says.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Hi, Ben, this is so-and-so from Iron Scales.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: This is what we do.
36:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, so really looking at what what number one, what fits on a cell phone?
36:35
SPEAKER_01: What is the first thing that that person is going to see on their cell phone?
36:38
SPEAKER_01: And so what we've done with the pattern interrupts is taking out the name, taking out that introduction, saying, Hey, the here are the three things that we solve.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: Is this something that that um is a priority for you right now?
36:50
SPEAKER_01: And then if you scroll down, then it gives a little bit of an overview of what Iron Skills is.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, but our our enterprise BDR sent one um the other day, and the the reply was, hey Dalton, great email.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: I normally just skim these, but yours got me to read the whole way through because of the hook at the very top.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: And it was extremely important because that was the only thing that they read that got them to read the rest of the email.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I know from the CISOs that I talk to, they're getting 50 to 100 cold prospect emails a day.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: That is extremely disheartening when you hear that because you know that they're just mark all as red, right?
37:27
SPEAKER_01: We've all done it.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, but really the the the other part of it goes down to just being truthful and being clear and concise.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: A lot of these, how can I get somebody to click on my emails just to open it up, right?
37:41
SPEAKER_01: No subject line, maybe a one-word subject line, emojis, right?
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Really being truthful on why I'm reaching out, right?
37:48
SPEAKER_01: This is this is what we do.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Two to three word um subject lines have the best openers.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: So really understanding what that person's gonna care about and and also being relevant.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of a lot of the the emails that I'm getting, hey Ben, I went to Wittenberg University, right?
38:06
SPEAKER_01: I I I'm familiar with Wittenberg, right?
38:08
SPEAKER_01: That has no that has no value to me, and I skip right over it.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: My whole thing with the team is does this email bring them value?
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't like the bump emails.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Hey, just wanted to see if you read my last email, right?
38:21
SPEAKER_01: If I'm just reading that email, I have no context.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it's about, and that didn't bring me any value.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna go back and look for for their email if they didn't uh reply to that email.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: So it's all the little things that make it as easy as possible for somebody to see the value of what Iron Scales is bringing.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: And it and again, it goes back to what Russell is saying.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: We're at the we're at the right organization at the right time with the right market value.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: So we're we're we're getting through a lot of the noise because we're disrupting an industry.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but also just just make sure that all of those emails are bringing value because with any of these sales engagement platforms, we do see more and more and more emails.
39:01
unknown: Okay.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: And making sure that there's quality over quality.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember years ago, the challenge was finding out who to call and who to email, right?
39:08
SPEAKER_00: This is 20 years ago.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: And uh, even with the list companies around in those days, the quality was poor and the coverage was poor.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Something we crack that, and the next thing we do is give everyone the ability to do everything in in high volume.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: So everyone starts doing it in high volume, and what loses out in that equation is the quality.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: Two things that stood out for me from what you said there, Ben.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: One was the idea that you actually start with them as opposed to ourselves.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: But you start with the here's the types of problems you might be experiencing or things like that, right?
39:37
SPEAKER_00: That if I'm I'm if I've got those problems, I'm going, yeah, this person is talking my language, right?
39:42
SPEAKER_00: I it bugs me that I'm spending three hours a day going through suspected phishing emails to try to do whatever.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And in this first sentence, this guy's nailed you know that whole problem for me.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: So that trunks me in.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I think the second thing they talk about was value.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think I think uh for me anyway, and I'm fascinated to get your your both of you guys' opinion on this, is that I think way too often what we do is we approach things from what we want to get from the initial engagement, the second meeting, the demo, the POV, whatever it might be.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: It's all about us.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we want to get.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: And I think that the lens is actually what can we do to make this experience valuable for them, that they want to then keep engaging with us.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: We'll probably get more deals going faster if we think about it from that lens, as opposed to, well, on my criteria, I need to get this done and that done for to be able to move to stage five.
40:35
unknown: Right.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: And we we get a little bit too sucked into the into a kind of vendor world as opposed to our prospects world.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they think that's a that's a dangerous line to walk when you start talking more about yourself and the and the product than you are about solving business outcomes for for a CISO or for anybody at that matter, right?
40:51
SPEAKER_02: Even myself, I buy a lot of software just through the nature of what we do as a CRO.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: And um you know, it's it's it's the same, same with me, right?
40:59
SPEAKER_02: If you're not talking my language on how they're gonna solve a business case for me, it's just uh it's it's not gonna not gonna have a conversation go anywhere.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: Certainly the same with somebody at a CISO level, right at a C level.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: Um so it's it's it's a that's an area that not even on the BDR or SDR side, just as a as a sales in general, we gotta get better at.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I say we as a sales community, right?
41:22
SPEAKER_02: Focus more on the business outcomes than here's what my product does.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Um and so Ben, you've been in the role now for how many months?
41:32
SPEAKER_01: Five months.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: So August 1st.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: And uh you've had the first people on board, I would imagine a month or two after that?
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I inherited um two individuals and then grew the team to five in the States and two in uh in London.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: And what success have you had from outcomes uh so far?
41:51
SPEAKER_01: We're building a lot of outbound pipeline.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: That's that's the goal.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, but a lot of it, um not only that, but outside of that, just seeing the the growth that the team has made when having those high-level conversations.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's important to also take a step back and looking at those uh sales engagement platforms and understanding what those dispositions are.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that I've done in our dispositions is not interested.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: If you see not interested as a disposition, it's not helpful.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at a high level, I want to understand where each individual is getting stuck.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: So breaking that disposition, not interested, because that the not interested can come in at the beginning of the call.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: So pre-pitch, just hey, not interested, right?
42:36
SPEAKER_01: We get those calls all the time.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And then post-pitch, where where is each individual getting stuck?
42:42
SPEAKER_01: Because then I can much more tailor that training to those individuals.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: What are they saying right up the front that's gonna have somebody just hang up the phone?
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Is it their tone?
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Are they just sitting down, shrugged over their desk on call 90 of the day?
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Where we're really understanding where people are getting stuck is is is important too when it comes to training.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm I I love the fact that uh you're being so methodical about, you know, A, the move from mid-market to enterprise, but also the support you're giving uh the sales team, you know, investing in in systems, but also in people to help that that transition go as smooth as it can.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm sure there's ups and downs every week and every day, uh how things are going, but you're making the right investments.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: And it seems like you're being very methodical and thoughtful about well, how do we do we make this successful?
43:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, all the things I laid out at the start of our conversation, Ben, about what I've seen other places, it seems like you guys are doing the opposite.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: So it, you know, if if I was uh working there at Irish Gilles right now, I'd be very encouraged that my management team has got my back and uh really wants me to be successful.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've we've learned from mistakes in the past as well, right?
43:51
SPEAKER_02: Just like anybody.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: So oh yeah, I think we've all been there.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: And and Russell, you know, as we're kind of wrapping up here just now, as you look into we're recording this in December 22.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: As you're looking into 2023, what is that uh what changes, what what big big ideas have you got coming up that that might uh might make a difference for Iron Scales?
44:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for us, it's it's full steam ahead type of mindset.
44:17
SPEAKER_02: So we're we're absolutely approaching this year, very bullish on everything that we're doing.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: We've we've spent the last six, nine months really building the groundwork for pushes that we're gonna go into into the next year.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's full steam ahead.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: We've we've got tailwinds with us from market.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: So for us looking to hire folks, looking to grow the team.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: We've got a large uh large international business as well, large international teams.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: So defining where our next markets to go to uh is key force as we go into next year as well.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: So it's certainly uh again, it goes back to the industry.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: There's it's um took off really well here in the States, started to go into AMEA, and now it's where do we go after that?
44:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like you're in a great spot, right?
45:01
SPEAKER_00: In a market that is uh quite mature, which sometimes means it's ready for the interruption disruption that you're you're doing.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Um and I certainly wish you both and the rest of the team great success for closing that this year into 2023.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: If someone wants to get a hold of you, is is LinkedIn the best way to go to look you up and connect with you there?
45:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm a big fan of LinkedIn.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: Try to try to save active as I can, so feel free to reach out to me.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: That's probably the best way.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: And Ben, for you?
45:28
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: Same as me.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: LinkedIn is the way to get a hold of me.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: So Ben White at Iron Scales on LinkedIn and Russell McGuire at Iron Scales on LinkedIn.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: And uh with chat that gents, uh great to chat and written for you in 2023.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Andrew.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Andrew.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, what a great journey that Iron Scales is on with Russell and with Ben.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, a lot to take away from this episode, thinking about how they're going about making the transformation of the company.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: I've got three takeaways specifically.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: First of all, that move, that transformation from mid to enterprise is a big deal.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: It's not something to be taken lightly.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a case of putting a specific sales team on it.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: There's company uh structure, infrastructure, process things to think about as well.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: And it really sounds like RN Scales is doing a good job of developing all those things in support of the sales team that they're hiring.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: Second takeaway for me was differentiating against an established big player like they are with Proof Point is not easy.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy at all, right?
46:29
SPEAKER_00: A lot of inertia in the industry, uh, but they figured out and are very clear on how they are different.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you picked up that from what Russell was saying, uh, but they're very clear on how they're different and they're seeing the traction coming through by being so specific.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: I bet you the temptation inside Iron Scales is to think about 15 ways that we're better than uh ProofPoint.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: But they seem like they got a very clear message about uh what customers of ProofPoint are experiencing and how Iron Scales can go after that uh weak point.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And the third takeaway for me was obviously Ben when he was talking about the pipeline machine, the outbound machine that he's building, the success they're having initially by doing it and showing that with the right processes, the right people, the right messaging, all the right uh basics in place, the foundations in place, you can make outbound work.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh it looks like the commitment to the cause and the support all around them is really making a difference.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: So listen, I again really wish uh Russell and Ben success for 2023 and uh written for them and all of you going forward.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: Before I go, two things to wrap up on here.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: First one is have you ever been in a situation where the sales deck is just not cutting it?
47:41
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your sellers are rolling their own or doing their own edits of the company deck, or maybe your prospects are bored and disinterested when you go through the deck itself.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: It's happened to all of us and it happens all the time.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Firstmeetingdeck.com is a new service that is designed to get the deck back on track.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Make it a deck that prospects and sellers actually get value from and like.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: What is clear is that when you have a great deck that is used well by sellers, you increase conversions from the first to second meeting and beyond.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: Find out more at firstmeetingdeck.com.
48:17
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, you know how every podcast host asks you to rate and review their podcast, but doesn't actually tell you how to go do it.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that obvious.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Where do you go to leave a review or give a rating?
48:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've made it easy for you.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: If you enjoy the podcast and specifically this episode, please could you give a review with this easy to use tool by going to salesbluebird.com slash R.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: That's it, just the letter R.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: SalesBlueBird.com slash R.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: It would mean a lot to me personally and it helps grow the podcast.