November 14, 2024 • 44 mins
James sits down with Andrew Morton to learn about his journey from a Nova Scotia farm to a cybersecurity sales leader, showing that success often comes from unexpected places. Starting with technical roles, he quickly discovered his talent for sales in the early 2000s.
Now as VP of Global Sales at DefenseX, Andrew has consistently turned difficult situations into opportunities for growth.
What makes Andrew's story special is his ability to adapt and grow in the fast-changing tech world.
He's successfully moved from selling hardware to modern cloud services, always focusing on building genuine relationships with customers and partners.
His approach combines old-fashioned values of honesty and hard work with modern business strategies.
Key Lessons:
- Success comes from being adaptable and willing to learn
- Technical knowledge combined with people skills creates unique advantages
- Authentic relationships matter more than fancy sales techniques
- Challenges can become opportunities with the right mindset
- Understanding both business and technology is valuable in today's market
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Andrew, thank you so much for joining us.
You've come all the way fromNorth America to join us,
especially here for this show.
So, thank you, thrilled to behere.
Yeah, it's great that you couldjoin us.
I know I say that with a littlebit of jest.
I know you're doing a bit ofbusiness down here.
You've recently been appointedas the VP of Global Sales for
DefenseX, which is a startupsoon to be scale up
(00:21):
cybersecurity company that isgoing global up soon to be scale
up cybersecurity company thatis going global.
And, um, yeah, I've just been soexcited watching the progress
of the company, but also havingconversations with you to
understand how successful youguys are having the success
you're having in north america,but also what I'm anticipating
is going to happen in thisregion.
So today I'd love to um, youknow, just learn a little bit
more about your journey, yoursales journey, your leadership
(00:43):
journey.
Like, how did you get to whereyou are today?
And you know, for that arelistening.
It's really, how can weunderstand kind of who you are
as a person, like, how did you,how did you really get to where
you are?
What are the lessons you'velearned along the way?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Certainly.
Well, I'm not going to go backto childhood, but I could give
you a little nugget.
First I worked a lot in the Bayarea, southern California,
texas, new York, had experiencesoverseas, but I'll get to all
that.
And where I came fromoriginally was a farm in Nova
Scotia.
So this is we're talkingEastern Canada town of 300
people kind of thing.
And I will say when you comefrom a farm and you kind of
(01:17):
place like that, the first thingyou think as you get older is
okay, I want to go see the world.
And well, being here inAustralia is a good example of
that.
Not my first time here, abeautiful country, but
definitely my first time herefor business.
I was here much younger, at amuch more careless time in my
life and it was a lot of fun andit's really great to be back
here.
You know, now in the businesscommunity, you know, and after
coming through it looks you knowit looks very much like Canada.
(01:40):
That makes sense.
You know, being a, my currenthome is in Vancouver, british
Columbia.
Early in my career, when I gotout of school and I was kind of
trying to figure out what youwant to do, I was a very
technical guy from the get-gobut I thought I wanted to be in
arts, which is kind of a funnypath, even though my first
computer I got when I was 11, ina time when not a lot of
11-year-olds had computers.
To date myself a little bit, myfirst computer was a Commodore
(02:02):
64.
My first language I programmedin was basic.
So you know, maybe some of yourlisteners don't know what that
is, but you have floppy diskdrives and all this kind of
thing.
A very different time, when Igot into the working world, you
know, I did work to do some techsupport and various types of
things in marketing and I sawright away that the sales guys
are the ones that had theparking spaces, the tech support
(02:25):
guys had the cubicles.
The sales guys became president.
Many of the techiesunfortunately did not and I kind
of did the math and I went okay, I think I know what's going on
here.
So my first, first realprofessional job out of school
was actually at a computerdistributor.
It was a hundred percentcommission, awesome.
So this is a company called glowhich is no longer around
because they're acquired by techdata, and it was feast or
(02:48):
famine and I learned veryquickly what feast or famine
meant right, which meant if youdon't sell, you do not make
money.
That's like that's it, that'sall.
So we're talking nineties andthey did date myself a little
bit.
And back at that time, you know,client server was a new idea,
novell and networking was kindof a big deal way back at that
time.
So I'm dating myself a lot withall this, but at the time it
(03:08):
was, it was a dialing thing.
When I got there, many of theestablished reps looked at me as
a 20 something kid and said Ifeel really bad for you new guys
, because all the good customersare taken.
So a little, you know, a young,arrogant version of myself went
screw you guys.
Of course there's more thereand they gave me a list of zeros
(03:28):
and non-producers and within Iguess I'm supposed to pound my
chest in a thing like this.
I don't like to do that becauseI'm kind of humble.
But within seven months I madethis marquee milestone.
If you were a million dollar amonth rep, we're talking 90ss
you were like a rock star thereand by month seven I was there.
Wow, a year, a million dollarsa month, a million dollars a
(03:49):
month in gross revenues, wow.
So at that age.
Yeah, so you know.
I didn't have a concept of whatthat meant.
I guess when you don't know anybetter, you're willing to go
for it.
I would show up at six o'clockin the morning.
I would leave late at night.
That was my deal, in fact mybiggest argument with my sales
manager back in those days, whoI've actually stayed in touch
with over the years on and off,great guy, he, uh he said my
(04:11):
biggest battle was I want a keyto the office.
And he looked at me and saidthere's no way I'm giving this
punk a key.
So I had to prove my worth justto get the key.
And one day I remember thisvery distinctly sitting at my
cubicle one and the key getsdropped on my desk and he walks
past me.
Incredible, it was like thisbig moment, right, yeah, and
it's funny how this works inlife.
Just when things are perfect,then things get shooken up.
(04:32):
That's how it works.
And I was recruited and being acomputer distributor.
We had IBM, we had 3Com at thetime we had all the big brands,
hp we're talking client-server.
This distributor was very muchfocused on all client-server
products.
All bars in Western Canada atthe time that's where I was
living at the time.
(04:53):
I was recruited by IBM, whichbecame Lexmark.
When I got there, I realized allthe stuff I had no idea about.
I was not a professional.
I was rough around the edges,to say the least, because nobody
that's you know.
Nobody's there to teach you,and I would definitely say that
that was one of the bestexperiences of my career.
Not that it was great to workfor a big company, but I highly
(05:14):
recommend anybody that everwants to take an entrepreneurial
path work at a big companyfirst, because what I learned at
Lexmark, which became LexmarkIBM had spun this thing off.
Ibm had gone through a lot ofchanges, so what I got was all
the best of what ibm had tooffer for training, mentorship,
all that good stuff how to run ameeting, how to be responsible,
(05:35):
you know, yeah it's funny.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Now you say that I actually had a similar path
myself okay, a few years behindyou, um but I graduated and out
of university in the uk andended up doing my first couple
of years at SAP and that was myfirst cut into the world of
sales and software sales, and itwas tough in the sense that
trying to understand complex ERPsolutions when you come out of
(05:58):
university was challenging andthey weren't necessarily set up
to support the grads at the time.
It was their first year of thegrad program, but I was
incredibly well trained and itwas an incredible opportunity to
have a great logo on my CV aswell.
That opened up a lot of doorsmoving forward as well.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It does help.
And if anybody ever said to mewhat should I do when I start a
company, I always say why don'tyou go work in a big company
first?
So you know what it's like andyou also know what you don't
want to do.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
well, and you know what's funny because, uh, when I
left there, I just migratedfrom the, the big company, to
the mid, to the small one and Iactually found I cut my teeth
really well in the smallercompanies and I really enjoyed
that startup scale up world.
Um, but yeah, absolutely it'sgood to, I think, try a few
things, um to see what you dolike.
I want to ask a question yeah,you stepping into 100
commission-based role at the ageof you know, 21, 22, whatever
(06:47):
that was what was, can you thinkback?
Like what was your primarymotivator?
Like what, what actually reallywas the reason that you went
into that role?
Was it money?
Was it sense of achievement?
Was it proving yourself.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
You know what it was is.
I felt at that age especially,this was my shot, this is my
opportunity to prove myself andget into the real world, the
real world of grown-ups, becauseat that age you know you don't
really know any better.
Yeah, you say you do, of courseyou know, you and you.
I think there's a realizationeverybody has at that age where
they come out and they suddenlyrealize that 2021 maybe they
really don't know everything andI realized that as soon as I
got there, because the you knowall of all of my co-workers
(07:19):
there were all like in my, in mylittle view of the world, the
time grown-ups and when you'relike 21, 22, you're not a
grown-up yet, you really you'rejust figuring yourself out and
the world certainly changedaround.
You know what you know.
Now people are staying withtheir parents longer and
everything.
At that time I was that when Iwas 18, right, and it was a
funny time because you're stillkind of a kid.
(07:39):
And then you suddenly realize,okay, this is like, this is like
kind of serious.
These like really here, theseguys are, these guys have
mortgages and real stuff.
I have a roommate, I live witha bunch of animals.
I'm still a kid right.
So very different time.
I was still like that at 30.
Took me a while to get to thatpart too, but it really I saw it
as an opportunity.
I saw the bigger picture.
(08:00):
Yeah, it bigger picture.
It was a really short time inmy career, so short that it's
not even one of those thingswhere I'm like, hey, this is my
background.
I really see, you know, beingrecruited to an IBM spinoff
company as really my real, firstreal job, if that makes sense,
although I do treasure thosedays.
And why that one is is becauseit was time to grow up a little
bit, and I said when I say growup, meaning understand when you
wake up and learning thoseobjectives and all of that.
(08:21):
But what I definitely learnedin my first gig we'll call it
because it was a bit short wasresponsibility, that I was
responsible for myself and I wasreally running as a salesperson
, my own little business insidea company, and I was very lucky
to have that, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I find that you can spot salespeople that have been,
maybe when they're in college,university they were waiters or
bartenders or something becausethey had this services mentality
, they understand that sense oftoday that makes sense, customer
service today, and what you putin is is correlated to what you
get out as well yeah, a hundredpercent.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
It's a little more of my journey I got.
I was recruited from there toan offer.
I loved where I was working somuch.
I work with a great team ofguys, uh, women, and they're a
great bunch of folks at Lexmarkand I really just loved being
there.
And I remember somebody sayingto me you know how long do you
think you'll stay?
And I said I think I'll stayhere forever.
That's my mentality.
And that guy looked at me andsaid, yeah, you don't want to do
(09:17):
that.
That guy's still there, by theway, which I thought funny,
great guy, even good, good bunchof people.
I was recruited to 3com, whichis a company that doesn't exist
anymore.
They're acquired by hp back inthe 2000s time frame and I very
quickly, long story short,became a very large part of
their number for the broadbandglobal business had big carriers
and all of that.
And it's funny how, again, Istarted to peak and as I was, I
(09:39):
was peaking in that job.
Things changed, the worldchanged around me.
3com was sort of imploding, tosay the least, do you remember
what year that was?
yes, so I left 3com in 2001 andthe reason why I resigned?
I had a great business, one ofmy.
I was there.
I watched a lot of layoffshappening around us, things were
changing and 3com had acquireda number of companies and they
(10:01):
think they just grew too fast,too soon and coming out of an
ibm lexmark kind of mentalitywhere I'm buttoned down and this
kind of thing.
When I showed up at 3com wasmuch more santa clara, silicon
valley, like you know, and guyswould take like the long way
around my office and things.
They thought I was a bit, youknow, a bit rough because I was
this driven character, right asa kid, right.
And I remember at 3com I Iremember handing out business
(10:23):
plans to everybody in a salesmeeting and they all went what
the hell is this?
Were you the sales manager?
I was hired to be what theycalled area sales manager and
what that really was was a fancytitle for a sales rep with a
big quota.
But then eventually I was likea team lead and I had a branch
office I was managing and then,unfortunately, at some point my
job was also to help withlayoffs, which was a very
(10:45):
unpleasant experience, to saythe least and my reasons for
leaving, where my division wasfor sale and I was heavily
involved in broadband businessand we had tried to find a way
to get a better supplier forsome of our broadband products.
There was a whole bunch ofreasons why we had to do that.
The company never OEM fromanybody before.
They always built their ownstuff.
In the middle of all that, theytried to sell my division.
(11:07):
That that sale didn't happenand I had to.
I was actually tasked withcalling my biggest telecom
clients imagine these massivetier one carriers, calling these
guys saying hey, I got bad newsfor you.
All those promises I made toyou, uh, company just broke them
.
So I saw this as a reputationdamaging thing and it wasn't the
company's fault.
(11:27):
This is just where the businesswas.
It's something I had to dealwith and I recognized I think
it's time to go and I had someoptions and I started calling
around and luckily I'd built aname for myself enough at that
point where people took my calland I had an option at a
security vendor.
I had my option an option at abig networking vendor and at a
security vendor and my option anoption at a big networking
(11:48):
vendor and I, and door numberthree was do something
entrepreneurial.
And I did that awesome.
So the oem supplier.
I called him up and said hey, Ihave an idea.
I flew into san franciscoairport.
We spent eight hours in theunited club hashing out what a
plan would look like togetherand I said I said this is
basically going to be awell-founded startup.
I'm going to, you're going to,I'm going to take your
engineering team in taiwan.
I'd even been to asia, this guythe guy was a great.
(12:10):
He put a lot of faith in me, uh, and left there.
We made a contract togetherabout how we're going to build a
business.
I stole a peer of mine fromfrom three comedy, joined me and
we launched something calledcomtrend in the US and Europe.
We went from zero to hero.
So I was there and I did thisfor nine years.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
So you identified a problem and a gap in the market
that the corporate world hadcreated and came in and thought
I'm going to solve that andbuild a business around it.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I launched a business in the US in 2001 in
the middle of the internet.
Crash Like this has got to be acrazy move, and two months in
was 9-11.
Crash like this has got to be acrazy move, you know, and two
months in was 9-11.
It was a wild time.
However, broadband wasexploding and what I saw was at
the time it's like nobody doesthis anymore but adsl or dsl
(12:56):
digital subscriber line, whichis essentially the ability to
put high speed over copper.
Remember the old dial-up stuffbefore your time?
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I remember that sure way back yeah, I mean, there's
been.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Modems are like the size of a coffee table, right.
Well, what happened was olddial-up stuff before your time.
A little bit, I remember thatSure way back.
Yeah, I mean, these modems arelike the size of a coffee table,
right?
Well, what happened wassomebody figured out how to make
better spectrum on copper.
What these guys in Taiwan didwas they built a really good
product and the world was movingtowards Asia.
My vision was Eastern coststructure, western face.
Now, at that time it was apretty radical idea.
Nowadays it's nothing new, butat the time it was pretty
radical idea.
Nowadays it's nothing new, butat the time this is very radical
(13:26):
.
This is before y-way had reallyexploded on the global scene
and all of that right, and wewere building modems and routers
and things.
We had customers like some bigtelecoms, not just in us and
canada but also in europe.
The notables would be like bttelephonica, telus in canada,
some pretty big players, uh,centurylink, which is now called
Lumen.
(13:46):
But when we first launched,nobody would take our phone
calls, nobody.
I suddenly was hit with oh mygod, what have I done for the
first week or two?
Nobody want to talk to us andwe built from that a global
scale of about 300 customers,because it took us nine years to
get there amazing.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
What was um?
You know, when you hit thoseroadblocks and those hurdles and
realize I don't have the brand,the name, they're not taking my
calls, what did you, what didyou build or implement that
changed that path?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
you know, our first one was the hardest one and we
had to really give them somegood reasons to work with us.
I knew just cheap wasn't enough.
You know, nobody wins a pricewar.
But what I will say is therewas, there was some real needs.
I went after I understoodcompatibility.
I really got down with studyingmy industry and learning and I
came into this not knowing howcopper andrum worked, but I had
(14:37):
the aptitude, so I learned a lotabout how Spectrum works.
And then I talked aboutperformance and that was my way
in.
And when you finally kind ofget that one little sponsor,
that gets you in, one sponsorleads to the next guy, to the
next person, to the next personand eventually you build some
trust in the organization Ifound my way in.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So, being a subject matter expert coming in, adding
an extra layer of value over andabove.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well, james, the weirdest part is, within a
couple of years of that, I wason panels as a subject matter
expert in that industry.
No way, yeah, because I haddone the work.
It's the innovator.
But really no, I don't.
I wasn't born being a broadbandexpert.
I educated myself because I hadto.
I had to understand what I wasdoing and how the product worked
(15:18):
.
When we finally did that, youknow each success made the next
one that much easier and youknow it really becomes that
hockey stick.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You know, and it's fascinating because these sort
of things happen to us all thetime and the world is changing
at such a rate of knots today.
Can you think of, can youproductize a model of of for
someone that is in thatsituation where they've they've
gone out on their own, they'redoing something different,
they're on their careertrajectory Like what is?
Are there two to three itemsthat you can say like this is
(15:46):
how you need to think aboutreally getting ahead, or getting
out of the rats and buildingsomething for yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Become a credible source to the customer.
That's the key.
It's all about trust, right?
Yeah, you know, and even today,you know I'm building trust
with our clients.
I mean, I've been, you know,somewhat recently joined the
team of defense X, which is lotsof very exciting, and you know,
I'm a I'm a very loyal personand I believe I'm very
trustworthy.
My job is not, it's not toconvince people, that is to
(16:17):
prove it to them.
If I keep coming back and Ikeep saying what I'm going to do
, I'll call you in a week.
I'll call you in a week, youknow, for a rep that's really
struggling, you know, becauseall reps struggle at some point.
Yeah, yeah, you know the theadvice there is rethink how
you're approaching your customerand give them some reason to
want to talk to you, becausedifferentiation now, you know
it's, it's difficult.
But at that time even you know,what we had later on in that
business was it wascommoditization, which I knew
was going to come, you know, andwhat came on the scene was
(16:39):
yyzte, you know, some of the bigbranch from mainland china.
They're really making a charge,they're making giant
investments, they're literallybuying the market, and what kept
us in play was the trust webuilt with our customers.
It certainly wasn't the price,but it took us a while to get to
.
To get to that we also found,you know, very much like the
markets I'm in today, the wordof mouth among all the mid-tier
(17:01):
operators was a big deal.
You know, when this guy over inOklahoma we're talking mid-tier
telcos, this kind of thing,this is kind of old school stuff
, but that guy tells his friendin Illinois, that tells his
friend in Michigan.
You know, these guys areactually the real deal.
It's a good product.
They did the right thing by us,they stuck by us.
We had a support issue wecouldn't configure and you do
all these things.
(17:21):
Yeah, it gets around.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, and I mean defense x are now operating.
Yeah, they've got a scalablesolution which fits the
enterprise.
But you're here with PAX 8 andgoing to the MSP channel here
and you know that's's where Ispent my career in software
vendor land, building salesteams, and that's exactly what
I've done over the years isidentify.
You know, if you can delivervalue and build that trust
(17:44):
particularly the MSP communitythey will go off and tell all of
their friends that this is atrusted vendor that you should
be working with.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
So, yeah, that's our biggest challenge in recruiting
people is making sure peopleunderstand there's
responsibility that comes withthis.
Yeah, the accountability is notjust for the number, but it's
also to make sure the communityis right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
What was, um, you had your own business and you build
up a yeah, your own sales teamand go to market team.
What is, I guess, the mostrecent example of you building a
sales team?
Um, and you know, with that,what is the process and
methodology that you wentthrough in terms of, like you
mentioned, onboarding or hiringthe right sort of candidates or
(18:20):
employees?
What are the sort of things youthink of as an index on for the
right sort of people for yourbusiness?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Great question.
So I was at a company calledEntone and we sold the business
actually one of our competitors,which is another story, which
is a nice exit.
But I built a Latin Americanbusiness closed and very large
opportunities in the us.
I mean, this was very, verythis was very much.
When I arrived, a hardwarebusiness that I helped
transition to a sas and servicesmodel, which is a big
transition to make.
(18:47):
Everybody in hardware likes tosay they're really a software
company because nobody wants tobe in hardware.
But hardware is an essentialpart of the chain.
The challenge is that'scommodity and I was hired to do
that, to really to help thattransition and we did it
successfully.
And looking for people it wasreally folks that not only I
wasn't as worried about somebodythat was an absolute ace and
expert in that industry, butsomebody that had aptitude.
(19:08):
If they were adaptable in someways that's better because it's
because they're actually willingto put in the work and what are
the the traits that you lookfor in a salesperson or sales
leader.
Well, empathy is the biggest one.
Empathy, yeah, I think that'sbecause modern, it doesn't
matter what customer is there's.
If there's a problem you haveto be empathetic around it and
it's really hard to find thatperson.
(19:29):
But what I'm finding now inpeople nowadays, everybody's big
on authenticity and I thinkthat can translate to empathy.
I think that's right.
But empathy is a big oneBecause if they have some
humility, they understandcustomers' needs and it's
genuine.
People buy into that and it'snot a made-up thing.
Gone are the days of theswashbuckling lone star
(19:50):
salesperson, rock star party allnight, sell all day.
I think those people arestarting to change that and I've
certainly been part of thatespecially, you know big
companies.
When you're a sales guy at abig company, you sort of do that
kind of thing a lot Right, andthe world's changing in that
it's more now about a team andsomebody actually understanding
with customer.
Hey, you know, here's here,here I actually care about your
(20:12):
problems and they actually buyinto that If somebody's invested
in their business, especiallynowadays in the modern MSP model
, because nowadays this is not aone-and-done business.
The old-school software saleswere buy some licenses, see you
next year, we'll stay in touch.
This is an ongoing ecosystem.
We're all in this together.
Our MSPs really werecodependent.
(20:33):
We're solving a giant problemfor them, which is modern
attacks.
The way DefenseX worksfundamentally is we're dealing
with the most modern problems,which is identity theft, which
is data loss prevention.
Dns security is kind of an oldidea, but we wrap that and
bundle that, wrap it all intoone package.
What's important to us is thatour MSPs can use it easily.
(20:53):
We understand how they want todeploy and I think the reason
we've built, we've grown so fast, is because of our service, and
that's that's the feedback weget, almost to a point where
we're maniacal about making surewe call people back.
Our support guys will be on thesales guys, myself included if
we're not calling somebodywithin the hour if there's a
problem.
And we're learning as a companyis how important that is to the
(21:14):
customer.
It's more than ever now.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You've gone from big companies running your own
business and now you've joined astartup and your senior
leadership and globalizing thatorganization.
What attracted you to go fromthe big and the entrepreneur
running your own to now beingthe head of sales for a small
business?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
This is my sweet spot .
Okay, I feel like you kind ofneed to go.
Okay, one of the pieces ofadvice I got from a guy at IBM,
lex Mark, was that he became hewas a big IBM.
All the guys that worked aroundwere 30 year guys.
And I say guys because it wasvery much old school, like
nowadays.
Thank goodness we havediversity, because this is a big
(21:55):
deal.
You know, we've been missingout on 53 of the population in
the tech industry for years.
We're finally getting with thetimes.
This is really cool where weare now in this world.
But I say guys because itreally was guys at that time.
Right, but what he said to mewas he became a better
salesperson after he became amanager because then he was able
to see what was missing inhimself by managing salespeople.
(22:18):
So, having gone to big companiesand done these things and I've
been involved with m&a and Ilike to say I'm a recovering ceo
I tried that for a couple ofyears.
That's enough of that, you know.
And and what I?
What I learned in all of thatwas this is absolutely where I
belong.
This is my sweet spot, you know.
I did it for the last couple ofyears.
Another cyber security company,yeah, and as soon as I met the
management of defense x, I sawwhat we were doing.
(22:39):
I thought, okay, that's wherethe world's going and this is
something I can really getbehind.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Let me say sweets what you're talking about, the
technology or the type ofbusiness, or the size of
business, or the industry okay,so great question.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
A couple things the role, the growth role, because
it's the fun part, this is thefun stuff, yeah, but also a
technology I truly believe in.
I think that a sales there's anold saying a good salesperson
knows their product.
I think in the modern world agood salesperson has to believe
in their product Because it'snot authentic otherwise.
I've seen, I watched some ofyour podcasts and your other
(23:13):
ones and you talked a bit aboutsales reps are willing to say,
oh yeah, I'll cold call, I'll dothis, I'll do that.
They just kind of say this kindof stuff.
Right, my attitude about all ofthat is, of course, I'll just
say that, but I need somebodythat says to me I would prefer
the person say, look, I'm notcomfortable with cold calling,
but I'll figure it out and I'llprove to you, than that I want
that person we've gone throughmore change in the last probably
(23:36):
two to three years than we havein probably the last decade.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
You know, I think covid has accelerated a lot of
with digital transformation,work from home, etc.
Um, you know, coupled with thator, you know, sitting on top of
that, is also the a newphilosophy of of.
You know, work like work likebalance, working from home,
hybrid working you know how haveyou seen that impact the modern
day seller today compared towhat it used to be, and if you
got a any perspective on um,yeah, if any, if you would
(24:06):
adjust anything great question.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I mean I've adjusted everything.
I think you have to adjust.
Yeah, it's adapt or die.
Yeah, yeah, just like anythingelse, adapt or die.
And where we are now, I'venever seen a noisier market
because the tools are so muchbetter.
You know we have crm tools thatare obviously telling us where
to call and when to call themand you know it's all kind of
automated auto dialers.
(24:28):
You know there are legions ofcold callers out there using all
kinds of ai backed tools to dodata scrapes, go find people.
It's an incredibly noisy.
So to differentiate yourself,you absolutely have to adapt.
I feel like we're kind of comingto the end of the fully
automated approach because it'sjust too much noise.
I mean, I talked to a CISO twoweeks ago.
(24:49):
I know personally.
He said that he gets somethinglike seven calls they get
through a day of the dozens ofcalls of sales reps trying to
sell them something Fromnetworking equipment, software,
hardware, cybersecurity,everything.
So I've seen a complete changein all of that.
I think that there's a betterway to approach them.
I think this community aspect,that's the modern way, and in
(25:11):
modern SaaS we've seen a giantchange in how software is
delivered and in modern SaaS.
We've seen a giant change inhow software is delivered when
it used to be, you know, bigpurchase, big CapEx.
It's migrated to SaaS over theyears and now it's even further
over that, to that scale wherethere's actually less commit for
the customer.
You know the contracts arechanging and you know the way
Pax8 works with MSP is verysimilar, where there's not a lot
(25:32):
of commit for a lot of folks.
So it's really on us tocontinually, you know,
essentially seek approval fromour customer and justify our
existence.
That's changed a lot over theyears.
And and then the new.
The new style seems to be verymuch built on trust and
authenticity where it used to bevery much let's make a deal.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
It's a long-term relationship and does that
impact the type of salespersonor the sales skills that you're
going to be looking for as youbegin to build out your business
today?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Definitely, I think that, like I said, the new it's
authenticity.
Yeah, I think you want to.
You want folks to reallybelieve in it.
I feel like, with salespeople,I've always believed that you
were, as a sales manager, you,you work for your employees,
right, you know sitting back andyou know big companies will
have the, you know, let's say,like a CRO type, which is
necessary, who reports to theboard and collects numbers and
(26:24):
everything else.
But somewhere along that line,those bigger organizations there
needs to be someone that's inthe trenches with the team and
really growing the team, and Ifind that the teams that don't
do that fail.
Uh, it's that much moreimportant where someone like
myself I have.
I'm in the trenches, I'mtalking to customers, I'm
working with people, I'm showingpeople how it's done, I'm
(26:44):
training new salespeople.
This is how you earn theirrespect.
It's on.
It's my responsibility to makesure they get it, but it's also
my responsibility to be thatsubject matter expert for them.
So you're kind of alwaysselling.
You're selling internally andexternally, but it's not a
political thing, it'scredibility different yeah, you
just reminded me.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
There's a chap I follow on on linkedin, jason
lemkin, and he runs a communitycalled saster in north america.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith him and um.
You know I've been following alot of the commentary and the
comments and the input in in hiscommunity and um and I've been
getting similar questions in myworld, in the recruiting world,
um, which is, when you'relooking to hire a vp of sales,
(27:24):
how do you decide whether youare hiring a strategic person to
build out your sales processplan strategy, a tactical person
to hold a bag, a sales bag, apipeline, literally be on the
phone closing deals, or a bit ofa hybrid, because they're two
very, very opposite ends of thespectrum and probably parts of
the brain.
(27:44):
So I see you doing both, whichis I think you're that unicorn.
But like what is your thoughton that?
Because it's really reallydifficult to do both of those
jobs really well.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It really is.
I think you need to haveexperience and exposure doing
both to be able to mix thosetogether.
And not everybody can make thatchange, and that's fair.
You know, not every all, we'reall made up differently.
But I think, especially in agrowth company where growth is
key and it's a very competitivemarket, you know you might have
the best technology in the world, but if you're not out there
promoting it, nobody reallycares because it's too noisy a
place, and I think you need tohave that hybrid and I think you
(28:21):
need to have that hybrid.
It's difficult to find that atthe very least, sales leadership
.
If they, or leadership of acompany, like a ceo, sitting
there going, okay, I need, Ineed a sales team, what do I do?
I gotta, I gotta build thisteam out.
I can't be the only salespersonhere, because that's typical.
You know where a lot of ceossee it that way, because they
own this thing if they.
If they can't get it in one,they can build a hybrid where
it's kind of like a money ballthing.
You kind of get all your, ifyou remember the way money ball
works, rather than trying to buytop tier players, you buy wins
(28:45):
and runs.
So if you can't find thatunicorn.
If you can, you're lucky.
But if you can't find thatunicorn, the idea is you can
play a little money ball andeverybody kind of contributes a
couple of singles and doublesand then the whole thing wins.
So you kind of you make acomposite of that person with a
couple of bodies.
One person has to be themanager, but the mandate is.
Here's how the process worksand it becomes more of a team
(29:06):
thing than it becomes theindividual thing.
Yes, I am the hybrid, but I'mhuge on team.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
I can't wait to hire somebody to do certain things
that that should be spreadaround, because we'll just be
more effective for our customersI mean, one of the questions is
, if you are to and I like thatidea of money ball and getting
different people for differentskills and you know, one plus
one equals three Do you think itmakes sense?
And the question is is okay,well, I'm going to go for two
rather than one, because myunicorn doesn't exist where I am
(29:33):
.
Do I go for the BD person tobuild the revenue first or to go
for the, the vp of sales, tobuild the strategy first?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
depends on the stage of the business.
Yeah, right, it depends onwhere your goals are where your
near term, near and long-termgoals are.
Depends also who your keepersare, because there's always an
investor involved.
I mean, my advice to startupguys is think about your
investors, what's important tothem, not because your whole lot
in life is to please you know,please wall street or something
crazy like that but you're nowthe, you're now the custodian to
(30:00):
their money.
That's a heavy responsibilityand, as vp sales, I'm certainly
cognizant that our managementhas, you know, board of
directors and things to thinkabout.
So I have to make sure that I'mhelping them deliver and what
they're what they require,because we have to be stewards
of capital, right.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So it really depends on what the business needs and
from a time frame perspective,coming in a reasonably early
stage startup that's got somefunding, what do you think,
having been a CEO and now VP ofsales, is a fair and reasonable
time to give that VP of sales toexecute and deliver results,
and what roles do you play inactually helping to set what
(30:37):
those goals are in the firstplace?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
You know, we work the targets together, you know, and
work the targets together.
You know it all depends on thesales cycle and a bunch of other
things.
Now in our business, we aregrowing quickly.
We are a very fast-growingcategory.
My real competition right nowis time.
We're signing up MSPs partnersat a higher rate, which is
positive, which also means we'reon a bit of a hiring spree,
(31:00):
which is also good.
All the right things are cominginto place.
The thing about this, james, isthere's not like one thing where
you're saying this is the magicpill and this is it.
But I will say is consistencyis the key.
Pick a system, pick a way to doit and stick with it.
And be ready to pivot, ofcourse, but stick with it.
At least give it a chance toget, to find its way through
(31:21):
where we are now in our business.
We're growing quickly.
Um, we're building the trust ofa lot of msps and mssps,
because that's what we do andwe're solving some real problems
.
It happens to be that in themarket right now, like I said
this earlier, identity theft iskind of a problem, but as soon
as I put that, the people's earsperk up like right away and
they go yeah, you're right, itis a problem.
I never thought of that.
Because think about running abusiness today.
What's going on?
You can't open a donut shopwithout having a web account,
(31:45):
two-man muffler shop.
You can't run that businesswithout having some kind of
connectivity to the outsideworld.
You can't buy Microsoft, youcan't buy Intuit, you can't buy
anything without having accessto the cloud.
That browser has become anexposure point for us.
For us, the business case isclear.
It's right in front of us rightnow.
Our challenge or opportunity isto position that so people
(32:07):
understand that we actually havea way to shrink that attack
surface, which is the browser.
Right, give you a littleanecdote.
So years ago when I was at 3com, the legend there was bob
metcalf.
So bob metcalf inventedethernet while he was at xerox.
If you know kind of the historyof the tech industry, xerox
Park was this place in SouthernCalifornia and I think they had
a sister park in NorthernCalifornia.
I'm pretty sure they did, andthey invented all kinds of stuff
(32:29):
there that Xerox never knewwhat to do with.
Apparently the mouse wasinvented there.
So the legend goes, the GUIapparently was invented there.
I don't remember Xerox shippingany of those.
You know we hardly use thosethings right.
But ethernet was invented thereand actually xerox owned the
patent because while he workedthere, of course any ip you
develop belongs to them.
(32:49):
But he basically left saying,look, I want to go make a
business out of this.
And xerox's attitude was wellsure, you can have the patent
you can like, we'll license itto you.
Take it, we don't.
Nobody wants this thing, thisstupid idea called ethernet.
They said ibm's token ring was.
You know that it's already beeninvented.
Networking is done.
The way token ring works isyou're sharing a token across a
ring.
You know, basically a ring ofcomputers all connected very
(33:10):
slow.
I mean, can you imagine a worldtoday with that in ip can't?
Rather than saying in thatprotocol you can't even.
It's the fundamentals of this.
But he realized after a fewyears of banging his head
against the wall, doing demosand going nowhere, he wasn't
actually selling.
He was just doing demos andleaving and he wasn't building
relationships with the people hewas pitching to.
(33:31):
This all documented is a reallycool documentary.
I saw on youtube one day aboutbob metcalf and what he did and
it took him a few years beforehe finally figured out.
When he finally figured out.
It was his job to buildrelationships and be a
salesperson.
Ethernet obviously exploded andwe and as a result of that
we're having this podcast thinkof the connection between those
(33:54):
two.
But if had he not figured thatout, yeah, youtube might not
have happened.
They're kind of wild, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, it's crazy and you know just to, just to go on
onto the, the concept ofrelationships and networking,
you know slightly differentangle.
I want to talk about theconcept of the channel and
selling technology and softwarethrough the channel.
And then that's obviouslyDefense X has said you know,
we're going through the channel.
There's a lot of businesses outthere, a lot of SaaS startups,
(34:24):
and they've got technology andthey're trying to sell it direct
.
So when they're considering achannel, like how do you think
about the mechanics of like whenand why do you go to an IT
channel?
And like what do the economicsneed to look like for it to make
sense for you to do so?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
You know the channel is a necessary part of all this.
That's your path of thecustomer.
One of the biggest reasons isan obvious one to me personally
is that you know we can't beeverywhere to everybody.
It's impossible.
You know the law of diminishingreturns kicks in very early,
especially in a growth mode,because you're thinking to
yourself well, I should beboston for this and I got to be
(34:59):
in sydney for that, and how do Ido all that at once?
Channel makes, the channelmakes that possible.
But more than that, there'salready a little trust built
with the channel.
So you have a little bit of astarting point when you're
talking to customers.
I don't expect people in thechannel to do our work for us
all the time.
It's not realistic because toin fairness to a pac-8, they've
got, you know, a couple hundredvendors now in the us and they,
(35:21):
I think they've onboarded 60 or70 vendors here in australia.
So they're focused.
Their focus is build theirbusiness.
With all of these vendors as aset.
My job is to give them, givetheir customers, some good
reasons to want to order itthrough them and as long as
vendors understand that, I thinkit's a really good symbiotic
relationship they can say hey,here's some customers you should
talk to.
(35:41):
We're happy to make anintroduction, but it's our job
to build that trust and I thinkmy advice to vendors trying to
figure this one out understandwhat your sales model is too.
There are a few folks thatbuild it's not even really a
SaaS product.
It's a big enterprise thingthat might be SaaS.
It's multi-year, that's a bigcontract deal.
The channel might not alwayswork for that and that's why a
(36:02):
lot of vendors go direct.
Our go-to market is very muchvia distribution, via the MSP,
and really our end customer isreally the MSP.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
It's really them doing the delivery Is there a
tipping point at the averagedeal size, because that often
comes into the economics.
If you've got a relativelysmall average deal size, it
doesn't make sense to have adirect sales team.
You're going to pay your salesreps more than your revenue if
you're trying to cover all ofyour customers.
So is that part of the equationwhere you think about it?
I think so.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
But at the same time, we're not looking to go around
the channel.
Our philosophy in this is thechannel allows us to be in more
places.
There's also some really heavyfinancial things that happen
with the channel, meaningcurrent currency conversions are
kind of a big deal.
This is a very messy business.
You know, having a good channelpartner, like a pac-8, makes
that problem go away.
Well, that goes then go away.
No problems go away, but theydeal with the problems.
(36:52):
They're well equipped.
You know my buying power forcurrency isn't close to what
like a pac-8 is, for example.
Uh, you know there's a wholeindustry of currency conversion
and trading and flooring.
There's a whole.
There's puts and calls oncurrency just like any other
commodity, which is kind of awild concept.
They deal with all that whenyou know, however they do it,
they do it well and that they'regood at that.
The other thing it also does isit allows me to turn to a
(37:14):
customer after I'm finishedtalking to them and say you know
what?
Here's a marketplace you canorder it from.
You could have licensesdeployed today.
That's kind of a powerful thingIf I can reduce the friction,
even if I'm dealing withsomebody directly, and move it
to the channel as soon as I'mdone the deal.
When I say I, I mean we DefenseX.
It doesn't matter who it is onour team, then it's actually
(37:38):
it's looked on quite positivelywhen it comes out from customers
, because once they're buyingthe solution they shouldn't
really care if it's goingthrough distribution at that
point.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
And for companies that have built their owner-led
sales they've built a directbusiness with a technology that
realistically could be soldthrough the channel.
What would be the steps forthem to actually start to have
those conversations, to begin togo through a channel partner?
I would say, you know, it'sfunny to begin to go through a
channel partner.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I would say you know it's funny.
I would say that if you havegood direct relationships and a
good direct business, I feellike you have something to trade
with the channel Say like, hey,I've got this, let's work
together as a partner.
I'm going to bring you thisopportunity.
Yeah, and I think it's apositive thing.
It actually gives them anadvantage because they're not
asking for stuff they have.
Gives them an advantage becausethey're not asking for stuff.
(38:22):
They have something to tradeand, having worked in the
channel briefly, and you knowthe channels like yourself,
right, when a vendor comes toyou and says, hey, I have a deal
for you, you're answering thephone yeah, that's a, that's a
bluebird right exactly right,great tips and totally agree.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
So, just um, you know beginning to.
To close, and I want to comeback to the you know the concept
of sales.
We've got a lot of peoplelistening that are sales reps.
They're aspiring on their wayup.
You're reflecting on on yourjourney, mistakes that you've
made, and looking back at youknow, your 25, 30 year old self
(38:58):
and going if I could do thingsdifferently, this is what I
would do to really get ahead ofmyself and accelerate.
I'm looking to become a VP, aCEO.
What are some things thatpeople can think about to really
just hone in on their crafttoday?
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
That's a great question.
Okay, I'll give you an anecdote, because I can't help myself.
So I um, this is a little bitout of sales, but this is
actually a very cool thing.
So I actually involved in anentrepreneurial organization, I
do volunteer work and Ivolunteer and I actually did it.
I haven't done in a couple ofyears.
I mean, like covid kind ofchanged a lot of things for a
lot of us and things got weirdfor there for a bit.
But I'm actually quite seriousabout me getting re-engaged with
(39:32):
these guys.
It's an entrepreneurorganization.
They're called tie the indusentrepreneurs, and tie.
They have something called tieas part it, which is the youth
entrepreneurs.
Now, tie was originallydesigned to be a liaison group
between the East Indiancommunity that joined Silicon
Valley and the community atlarge.
That's not an issue anymore.
Like 40% of the Bay Area isIndian, so, like that's, they
(39:54):
really just become more of likean open entrepreneurial
organization.
So one of the sessions I was ingot I was very lucky isn't
actually Vancouver.
There's a place called Kinsmarket, which is a chain of
grocery stores.
This seems silly, these littleconvenience stores.
Okay, they're everywhere.
They're actually a vegetablestore fresh fruit, fruit and
vegetables, lee and it alwaysseems to be people.
It's like very much English isvery much a second language, a
(40:15):
really cool place to go to buyvegetables.
Okay, he started by a guy whodidn't speak english when he
arrived in canada.
He started with an eight byfour table at an open air market
.
That's how he started and hesaid to me and we said to the
group and he said to me latervery cool guy.
He said every night he'd walkhome from what he was doing and
say today was a good day, buttomorrow I can do better.
(40:35):
You know, and I go.
And so how that translates tosalespeople you can always
improve, improve, you know,celebrate the wins, but you
could always do better.
And to look back and say what Iwould do differently, I'll tell
you.
It's a funny thing.
I, you know, I take advice fromall kinds of places and one of
the things I heard from somebodyis it's always moving forward.
(40:55):
You know your, your mistakesactually shape who you are going
forward Rather than saying Iwish I changed that.
It's hard to do that what I cansay is I have never knowingly
done wrong by somebody.
There's just no way I would dothat and always done my best to
keep relationships, some of mybest relationships I've had for
20 plus years, and it's becausethey trust me and it's part of
(41:19):
it is, at the end of the night Idon't think about all the
things I did right.
I think, oh, I didn't call thatguy, I got to deal with this
right away.
That's the kind of thing that Ithink in a good sale with a, for
a good salesperson to grow,they have to be willing to
continue to grow and then notnot so much look and say, oh man
(41:44):
, what a dumb thing.
I did better tomorrow.
Yeah, that's great.
It's like the one percent.
What can I do one percentbetter every single day and all
of a sudden, the end of the year, you're 365 percent better.
So ken's market yeah, 65 storesin prime locations across what
they call western canada, thelower mainland of british
columbia and western canada.
Two million dollars turnoverrevenue per year per store.
Wow, he still barely speaksenglish what a great story.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
You know one of of the guests that we had on
previously, dane Meir.
He's the CEO of a company calledMySiso and we were talking
about, you know, progression andcontinually moving forward, and
what he talked about was he hasa framework for everything and
a process that he follows, andit may not just be, you know, it
may not be public, but it'ssomething in the backend.
And, you know, one of hisprocesses is I never go, I never
(42:23):
finish the day unless I've doneall of my follow-ups, and it's
a bit like that one percent.
You know, if we're looking atwhat can I do better tomorrow,
maybe the process we couldimplement is the end of the day.
Let me write down one thing I'mgoing to do differently
tomorrow right, just just thatprocess and that consistency of
something that is moving usforward.
And, like the other piece Itook away, this is something
that we look for when we'reinterviewing and, as a sales
(42:44):
leader myself looking for salesreps, a key piece I would always
look for is coachability andhunger for growth.
I don't mind if you don't knoweverything, but what I want you
to do is have intelligence to beable to learn, but the desire
and aptitude to learn as well.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I totally, totally agree.
You can't teach somebody to beenthusiastic.
That's impossible.
You can't fake that.
Authenticity, authenticity,same thing Goes back to it.
You know, I've had some of mybest successes with salespeople
that came from differentindustries, not saying always do
that, but just because theywere so willing and they wanted
so badly to change industriesthat they're willing to really
(43:19):
put in the time and put in theeffort.
Listen, you know, and the morequestions we ask your
salespeople, the better.
I would say that your ears areyour most valuable organ.
Despite popular opinion, yeah,your ears will get you
everything.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
you'll learn everything by listening I
remember the ceo of sap when Ijoined.
He said you have two ears andone mouth.
Use them in those proportions.
Yeah, well put.
Yeah, it's good.
Awesome, andrew.
I've really enjoyed the chat.
Thank you so much for coming tojoin us today.
If there's anyone listeningwants to connect with you or
learn a little bit more aboutDefenseX, how can they do that?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
They can drop me an email.
Andrew Morton at DefenseXcomAwesome, and I assume that
you're on LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn, have a pingAbsolutely Information.
Have a ping absolutelyinformation on our company, of
course, because I'm supposed todo a plug, because that's what I
always do info at defensexcom.
Come to our website.
You can book meetings with us.
We're very actively growing andvery happy to talk to people.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Amazing thanks, andrew, been a pleasure all mine
.
Thank you.
Andrew, thank you so much for joining us.
You've come all the way fromNorth America to join us,
especially here for this show.
So, thank you, thrilled to behere.
Yeah, it's great that you couldjoin us.
I know I say that with a littlebit of jest.
I know you're doing a bit ofbusiness down here.
You've recently been appointedas the VP of Global Sales for
DefenseX, which is a startupsoon to be scale up
(00:21):
cybersecurity company that isgoing global up soon to be scale
up cybersecurity company thatis going global.
And, um, yeah, I've just been soexcited watching the progress
of the company, but also havingconversations with you to
understand how successful youguys are having the success
you're having in north america,but also what I'm anticipating
is going to happen in thisregion.
So today I'd love to um, youknow, just learn a little bit
more about your journey, yoursales journey, your leadership
(00:43):
journey.
Like, how did you get to whereyou are today?
And you know, for that arelistening.
It's really, how can weunderstand kind of who you are
as a person, like, how did you,how did you really get to where
you are?
What are the lessons you'velearned along the way?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Certainly.
Well, I'm not going to go backto childhood, but I could give
you a little nugget.
First I worked a lot in the Bayarea, southern California,
texas, new York, had experiencesoverseas, but I'll get to all
that.
And where I came fromoriginally was a farm in Nova
Scotia.
So this is we're talkingEastern Canada town of 300
people kind of thing.
And I will say when you comefrom a farm and you kind of
(01:17):
place like that, the first thingyou think as you get older is
okay, I want to go see the world.
And well, being here inAustralia is a good example of
that.
Not my first time here, abeautiful country, but
definitely my first time herefor business.
I was here much younger, at amuch more careless time in my
life and it was a lot of fun andit's really great to be back
here.
You know, now in the businesscommunity, you know, and after
coming through it looks you knowit looks very much like Canada.
(01:40):
That makes sense.
You know, being a, my currenthome is in Vancouver, british
Columbia.
Early in my career, when I gotout of school and I was kind of
trying to figure out what youwant to do, I was a very
technical guy from the get-gobut I thought I wanted to be in
arts, which is kind of a funnypath, even though my first
computer I got when I was 11, ina time when not a lot of
11-year-olds had computers.
To date myself a little bit, myfirst computer was a Commodore
(02:02):
64.
My first language I programmedin was basic.
So you know, maybe some of yourlisteners don't know what that
is, but you have floppy diskdrives and all this kind of
thing.
A very different time, when Igot into the working world, you
know, I did work to do some techsupport and various types of
things in marketing and I sawright away that the sales guys
are the ones that had theparking spaces, the tech support
(02:25):
guys had the cubicles.
The sales guys became president.
Many of the techiesunfortunately did not and I kind
of did the math and I went okay, I think I know what's going on
here.
So my first, first realprofessional job out of school
was actually at a computerdistributor.
It was a hundred percentcommission, awesome.
So this is a company called glowhich is no longer around
because they're acquired by techdata, and it was feast or
(02:48):
famine and I learned veryquickly what feast or famine
meant right, which meant if youdon't sell, you do not make
money.
That's like that's it, that'sall.
So we're talking nineties andthey did date myself a little
bit.
And back at that time, you know,client server was a new idea,
novell and networking was kindof a big deal way back at that
time.
So I'm dating myself a lot withall this, but at the time it
(03:08):
was, it was a dialing thing.
When I got there, many of theestablished reps looked at me as
a 20 something kid and said Ifeel really bad for you new guys
, because all the good customersare taken.
So a little, you know, a young,arrogant version of myself went
screw you guys.
Of course there's more thereand they gave me a list of zeros
(03:28):
and non-producers and within Iguess I'm supposed to pound my
chest in a thing like this.
I don't like to do that becauseI'm kind of humble.
But within seven months I madethis marquee milestone.
If you were a million dollar amonth rep, we're talking 90ss
you were like a rock star thereand by month seven I was there.
Wow, a year, a million dollarsa month, a million dollars a
(03:49):
month in gross revenues, wow.
So at that age.
Yeah, so you know.
I didn't have a concept of whatthat meant.
I guess when you don't know anybetter, you're willing to go
for it.
I would show up at six o'clockin the morning.
I would leave late at night.
That was my deal, in fact mybiggest argument with my sales
manager back in those days, whoI've actually stayed in touch
with over the years on and off,great guy, he, uh he said my
(04:11):
biggest battle was I want a keyto the office.
And he looked at me and saidthere's no way I'm giving this
punk a key.
So I had to prove my worth justto get the key.
And one day I remember thisvery distinctly sitting at my
cubicle one and the key getsdropped on my desk and he walks
past me.
Incredible, it was like thisbig moment, right, yeah, and
it's funny how this works inlife.
Just when things are perfect,then things get shooken up.
(04:32):
That's how it works.
And I was recruited and being acomputer distributor.
We had IBM, we had 3Com at thetime we had all the big brands,
hp we're talking client-server.
This distributor was very muchfocused on all client-server
products.
All bars in Western Canada atthe time that's where I was
living at the time.
(04:53):
I was recruited by IBM, whichbecame Lexmark.
When I got there, I realized allthe stuff I had no idea about.
I was not a professional.
I was rough around the edges,to say the least, because nobody
that's you know.
Nobody's there to teach you,and I would definitely say that
that was one of the bestexperiences of my career.
Not that it was great to workfor a big company, but I highly
(05:14):
recommend anybody that everwants to take an entrepreneurial
path work at a big companyfirst, because what I learned at
Lexmark, which became LexmarkIBM had spun this thing off.
Ibm had gone through a lot ofchanges, so what I got was all
the best of what ibm had tooffer for training, mentorship,
all that good stuff how to run ameeting, how to be responsible,
(05:35):
you know, yeah it's funny.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Now you say that I actually had a similar path
myself okay, a few years behindyou, um but I graduated and out
of university in the uk andended up doing my first couple
of years at SAP and that was myfirst cut into the world of
sales and software sales, and itwas tough in the sense that
trying to understand complex ERPsolutions when you come out of
(05:58):
university was challenging andthey weren't necessarily set up
to support the grads at the time.
It was their first year of thegrad program, but I was
incredibly well trained and itwas an incredible opportunity to
have a great logo on my CV aswell.
That opened up a lot of doorsmoving forward as well.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It does help.
And if anybody ever said to mewhat should I do when I start a
company, I always say why don'tyou go work in a big company
first?
So you know what it's like andyou also know what you don't
want to do.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
well, and you know what's funny because, uh, when I
left there, I just migratedfrom the, the big company, to
the mid, to the small one and Iactually found I cut my teeth
really well in the smallercompanies and I really enjoyed
that startup scale up world.
Um, but yeah, absolutely it'sgood to, I think, try a few
things, um to see what you dolike.
I want to ask a question yeah,you stepping into 100
commission-based role at the ageof you know, 21, 22, whatever
(06:47):
that was what was, can you thinkback?
Like what was your primarymotivator?
Like what, what actually reallywas the reason that you went
into that role?
Was it money?
Was it sense of achievement?
Was it proving yourself.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
You know what it was is.
I felt at that age especially,this was my shot, this is my
opportunity to prove myself andget into the real world, the
real world of grown-ups, becauseat that age you know you don't
really know any better.
Yeah, you say you do, of courseyou know, you and you.
I think there's a realizationeverybody has at that age where
they come out and they suddenlyrealize that 2021 maybe they
really don't know everything andI realized that as soon as I
got there, because the you knowall of all of my co-workers
(07:19):
there were all like in my, in mylittle view of the world, the
time grown-ups and when you'relike 21, 22, you're not a
grown-up yet, you really you'rejust figuring yourself out and
the world certainly changedaround.
You know what you know.
Now people are staying withtheir parents longer and
everything.
At that time I was that when Iwas 18, right, and it was a
funny time because you're stillkind of a kid.
(07:39):
And then you suddenly realize,okay, this is like, this is like
kind of serious.
These like really here, theseguys are, these guys have
mortgages and real stuff.
I have a roommate, I live witha bunch of animals.
I'm still a kid right.
So very different time.
I was still like that at 30.
Took me a while to get to thatpart too, but it really I saw it
as an opportunity.
I saw the bigger picture.
(08:00):
Yeah, it bigger picture.
It was a really short time inmy career, so short that it's
not even one of those thingswhere I'm like, hey, this is my
background.
I really see, you know, beingrecruited to an IBM spinoff
company as really my real, firstreal job, if that makes sense,
although I do treasure thosedays.
And why that one is is becauseit was time to grow up a little
bit, and I said when I say growup, meaning understand when you
wake up and learning thoseobjectives and all of that.
(08:21):
But what I definitely learnedin my first gig we'll call it
because it was a bit short wasresponsibility, that I was
responsible for myself and I wasreally running as a salesperson
, my own little business insidea company, and I was very lucky
to have that, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I find that you can spot salespeople that have been,
maybe when they're in college,university they were waiters or
bartenders or something becausethey had this services mentality
, they understand that sense oftoday that makes sense, customer
service today, and what you putin is is correlated to what you
get out as well yeah, a hundredpercent.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
It's a little more of my journey I got.
I was recruited from there toan offer.
I loved where I was working somuch.
I work with a great team ofguys, uh, women, and they're a
great bunch of folks at Lexmarkand I really just loved being
there.
And I remember somebody sayingto me you know how long do you
think you'll stay?
And I said I think I'll stayhere forever.
That's my mentality.
And that guy looked at me andsaid, yeah, you don't want to do
(09:17):
that.
That guy's still there, by theway, which I thought funny,
great guy, even good, good bunchof people.
I was recruited to 3com, whichis a company that doesn't exist
anymore.
They're acquired by hp back inthe 2000s time frame and I very
quickly, long story short,became a very large part of
their number for the broadbandglobal business had big carriers
and all of that.
And it's funny how, again, Istarted to peak and as I was, I
(09:39):
was peaking in that job.
Things changed, the worldchanged around me.
3com was sort of imploding, tosay the least, do you remember
what year that was?
yes, so I left 3com in 2001 andthe reason why I resigned?
I had a great business, one ofmy.
I was there.
I watched a lot of layoffshappening around us, things were
changing and 3com had acquireda number of companies and they
(10:01):
think they just grew too fast,too soon and coming out of an
ibm lexmark kind of mentalitywhere I'm buttoned down and this
kind of thing.
When I showed up at 3com wasmuch more santa clara, silicon
valley, like you know, and guyswould take like the long way
around my office and things.
They thought I was a bit, youknow, a bit rough because I was
this driven character, right asa kid, right.
And I remember at 3com I Iremember handing out business
(10:23):
plans to everybody in a salesmeeting and they all went what
the hell is this?
Were you the sales manager?
I was hired to be what theycalled area sales manager and
what that really was was a fancytitle for a sales rep with a
big quota.
But then eventually I was likea team lead and I had a branch
office I was managing and then,unfortunately, at some point my
job was also to help withlayoffs, which was a very
(10:45):
unpleasant experience, to saythe least and my reasons for
leaving, where my division wasfor sale and I was heavily
involved in broadband businessand we had tried to find a way
to get a better supplier forsome of our broadband products.
There was a whole bunch ofreasons why we had to do that.
The company never OEM fromanybody before.
They always built their ownstuff.
In the middle of all that, theytried to sell my division.
(11:07):
That that sale didn't happenand I had to.
I was actually tasked withcalling my biggest telecom
clients imagine these massivetier one carriers, calling these
guys saying hey, I got bad newsfor you.
All those promises I made toyou, uh, company just broke them
.
So I saw this as a reputationdamaging thing and it wasn't the
company's fault.
(11:27):
This is just where the businesswas.
It's something I had to dealwith and I recognized I think
it's time to go and I had someoptions and I started calling
around and luckily I'd built aname for myself enough at that
point where people took my calland I had an option at a
security vendor.
I had my option an option at abig networking vendor and at a
security vendor and my option anoption at a big networking
(11:48):
vendor and I, and door numberthree was do something
entrepreneurial.
And I did that awesome.
So the oem supplier.
I called him up and said hey, Ihave an idea.
I flew into san franciscoairport.
We spent eight hours in theunited club hashing out what a
plan would look like togetherand I said I said this is
basically going to be awell-founded startup.
I'm going to, you're going to,I'm going to take your
engineering team in taiwan.
I'd even been to asia, this guythe guy was a great.
(12:10):
He put a lot of faith in me, uh, and left there.
We made a contract togetherabout how we're going to build a
business.
I stole a peer of mine fromfrom three comedy, joined me and
we launched something calledcomtrend in the US and Europe.
We went from zero to hero.
So I was there and I did thisfor nine years.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
So you identified a problem and a gap in the market
that the corporate world hadcreated and came in and thought
I'm going to solve that andbuild a business around it.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Well, I launched a business in the US in 2001 in
the middle of the internet.
Crash Like this has got to be acrazy move, and two months in
was 9-11.
Crash like this has got to be acrazy move, you know, and two
months in was 9-11.
It was a wild time.
However, broadband wasexploding and what I saw was at
the time it's like nobody doesthis anymore but adsl or dsl
(12:56):
digital subscriber line, whichis essentially the ability to
put high speed over copper.
Remember the old dial-up stuffbefore your time?
A little bit.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I remember that sure way back yeah, I mean, there's
been.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Modems are like the size of a coffee table, right.
Well, what happened was olddial-up stuff before your time.
A little bit, I remember thatSure way back.
Yeah, I mean, these modems arelike the size of a coffee table,
right?
Well, what happened wassomebody figured out how to make
better spectrum on copper.
What these guys in Taiwan didwas they built a really good
product and the world was movingtowards Asia.
My vision was Eastern coststructure, western face.
Now, at that time it was apretty radical idea.
Nowadays it's nothing new, butat the time it was pretty
radical idea.
Nowadays it's nothing new, butat the time this is very radical
(13:26):
.
This is before y-way had reallyexploded on the global scene
and all of that right, and wewere building modems and routers
and things.
We had customers like some bigtelecoms, not just in us and
canada but also in europe.
The notables would be like bttelephonica, telus in canada,
some pretty big players, uh,centurylink, which is now called
Lumen.
(13:46):
But when we first launched,nobody would take our phone
calls, nobody.
I suddenly was hit with oh mygod, what have I done for the
first week or two?
Nobody want to talk to us andwe built from that a global
scale of about 300 customers,because it took us nine years to
get there amazing.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
What was um?
You know, when you hit thoseroadblocks and those hurdles and
realize I don't have the brand,the name, they're not taking my
calls, what did you, what didyou build or implement that
changed that path?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
you know, our first one was the hardest one and we
had to really give them somegood reasons to work with us.
I knew just cheap wasn't enough.
You know, nobody wins a pricewar.
But what I will say is therewas, there was some real needs.
I went after I understoodcompatibility.
I really got down with studyingmy industry and learning and I
came into this not knowing howcopper andrum worked, but I had
(14:37):
the aptitude, so I learned a lotabout how Spectrum works.
And then I talked aboutperformance and that was my way
in.
And when you finally kind ofget that one little sponsor,
that gets you in, one sponsorleads to the next guy, to the
next person, to the next personand eventually you build some
trust in the organization Ifound my way in.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So, being a subject matter expert coming in, adding
an extra layer of value over andabove.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Well, james, the weirdest part is, within a
couple of years of that, I wason panels as a subject matter
expert in that industry.
No way, yeah, because I haddone the work.
It's the innovator.
But really no, I don't.
I wasn't born being a broadbandexpert.
I educated myself because I hadto.
I had to understand what I wasdoing and how the product worked
(15:18):
.
When we finally did that, youknow each success made the next
one that much easier and youknow it really becomes that
hockey stick.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You know, and it's fascinating because these sort
of things happen to us all thetime and the world is changing
at such a rate of knots today.
Can you think of, can youproductize a model of of for
someone that is in thatsituation where they've they've
gone out on their own, they'redoing something different,
they're on their careertrajectory Like what is?
Are there two to three itemsthat you can say like this is
(15:46):
how you need to think aboutreally getting ahead, or getting
out of the rats and buildingsomething for yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Become a credible source to the customer.
That's the key.
It's all about trust, right?
Yeah, you know, and even today,you know I'm building trust
with our clients.
I mean, I've been, you know,somewhat recently joined the
team of defense X, which is lotsof very exciting, and you know,
I'm a I'm a very loyal personand I believe I'm very
trustworthy.
My job is not, it's not toconvince people, that is to
(16:17):
prove it to them.
If I keep coming back and Ikeep saying what I'm going to do
, I'll call you in a week.
I'll call you in a week, youknow, for a rep that's really
struggling, you know, becauseall reps struggle at some point.
Yeah, yeah, you know the theadvice there is rethink how
you're approaching your customerand give them some reason to
want to talk to you, becausedifferentiation now, you know
it's, it's difficult.
But at that time even you know,what we had later on in that
business was it wascommoditization, which I knew
was going to come, you know, andwhat came on the scene was
(16:39):
yyzte, you know, some of the bigbranch from mainland china.
They're really making a charge,they're making giant
investments, they're literallybuying the market, and what kept
us in play was the trust webuilt with our customers.
It certainly wasn't the price,but it took us a while to get to
.
To get to that we also found,you know, very much like the
markets I'm in today, the wordof mouth among all the mid-tier
(17:01):
operators was a big deal.
You know, when this guy over inOklahoma we're talking mid-tier
telcos, this kind of thing,this is kind of old school stuff
, but that guy tells his friendin Illinois, that tells his
friend in Michigan.
You know, these guys areactually the real deal.
It's a good product.
They did the right thing by us,they stuck by us.
We had a support issue wecouldn't configure and you do
all these things.
(17:21):
Yeah, it gets around.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, and I mean defense x are now operating.
Yeah, they've got a scalablesolution which fits the
enterprise.
But you're here with PAX 8 andgoing to the MSP channel here
and you know that's's where Ispent my career in software
vendor land, building salesteams, and that's exactly what
I've done over the years isidentify.
You know, if you can delivervalue and build that trust
(17:44):
particularly the MSP communitythey will go off and tell all of
their friends that this is atrusted vendor that you should
be working with.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
So, yeah, that's our biggest challenge in recruiting
people is making sure peopleunderstand there's
responsibility that comes withthis.
Yeah, the accountability is notjust for the number, but it's
also to make sure the communityis right.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
What was, um, you had your own business and you build
up a yeah, your own sales teamand go to market team.
What is, I guess, the mostrecent example of you building a
sales team?
Um, and you know, with that,what is the process and
methodology that you wentthrough in terms of, like you
mentioned, onboarding or hiringthe right sort of candidates or
(18:20):
employees?
What are the sort of things youthink of as an index on for the
right sort of people for yourbusiness?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Great question.
So I was at a company calledEntone and we sold the business
actually one of our competitors,which is another story, which
is a nice exit.
But I built a Latin Americanbusiness closed and very large
opportunities in the us.
I mean, this was very, verythis was very much.
When I arrived, a hardwarebusiness that I helped
transition to a sas and servicesmodel, which is a big
transition to make.
(18:47):
Everybody in hardware likes tosay they're really a software
company because nobody wants tobe in hardware.
But hardware is an essentialpart of the chain.
The challenge is that'scommodity and I was hired to do
that, to really to help thattransition and we did it
successfully.
And looking for people it wasreally folks that not only I
wasn't as worried about somebodythat was an absolute ace and
expert in that industry, butsomebody that had aptitude.
(19:08):
If they were adaptable in someways that's better because it's
because they're actually willingto put in the work and what are
the the traits that you lookfor in a salesperson or sales
leader.
Well, empathy is the biggest one.
Empathy, yeah, I think that'sbecause modern, it doesn't
matter what customer is there's.
If there's a problem you haveto be empathetic around it and
it's really hard to find thatperson.
(19:29):
But what I'm finding now inpeople nowadays, everybody's big
on authenticity and I thinkthat can translate to empathy.
I think that's right.
But empathy is a big oneBecause if they have some
humility, they understandcustomers' needs and it's
genuine.
People buy into that and it'snot a made-up thing.
Gone are the days of theswashbuckling lone star
(19:50):
salesperson, rock star party allnight, sell all day.
I think those people arestarting to change that and I've
certainly been part of thatespecially, you know big
companies.
When you're a sales guy at abig company, you sort of do that
kind of thing a lot Right, andthe world's changing in that
it's more now about a team andsomebody actually understanding
with customer.
Hey, you know, here's here,here I actually care about your
(20:12):
problems and they actually buyinto that If somebody's invested
in their business, especiallynowadays in the modern MSP model
, because nowadays this is not aone-and-done business.
The old-school software saleswere buy some licenses, see you
next year, we'll stay in touch.
This is an ongoing ecosystem.
We're all in this together.
Our MSPs really werecodependent.
(20:33):
We're solving a giant problemfor them, which is modern
attacks.
The way DefenseX worksfundamentally is we're dealing
with the most modern problems,which is identity theft, which
is data loss prevention.
Dns security is kind of an oldidea, but we wrap that and
bundle that, wrap it all intoone package.
What's important to us is thatour MSPs can use it easily.
(20:53):
We understand how they want todeploy and I think the reason
we've built, we've grown so fast, is because of our service, and
that's that's the feedback weget, almost to a point where
we're maniacal about making surewe call people back.
Our support guys will be on thesales guys, myself included if
we're not calling somebodywithin the hour if there's a
problem.
And we're learning as a companyis how important that is to the
(21:14):
customer.
It's more than ever now.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
You've gone from big companies running your own
business and now you've joined astartup and your senior
leadership and globalizing thatorganization.
What attracted you to go fromthe big and the entrepreneur
running your own to now beingthe head of sales for a small
business?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
This is my sweet spot .
Okay, I feel like you kind ofneed to go.
Okay, one of the pieces ofadvice I got from a guy at IBM,
lex Mark, was that he became hewas a big IBM.
All the guys that worked aroundwere 30 year guys.
And I say guys because it wasvery much old school, like
nowadays.
Thank goodness we havediversity, because this is a big
(21:55):
deal.
You know, we've been missingout on 53 of the population in
the tech industry for years.
We're finally getting with thetimes.
This is really cool where weare now in this world.
But I say guys because itreally was guys at that time.
Right, but what he said to mewas he became a better
salesperson after he became amanager because then he was able
to see what was missing inhimself by managing salespeople.
(22:18):
So, having gone to big companiesand done these things and I've
been involved with m&a and Ilike to say I'm a recovering ceo
I tried that for a couple ofyears.
That's enough of that, you know.
And and what I?
What I learned in all of thatwas this is absolutely where I
belong.
This is my sweet spot, you know.
I did it for the last couple ofyears.
Another cyber security company,yeah, and as soon as I met the
management of defense x, I sawwhat we were doing.
(22:39):
I thought, okay, that's wherethe world's going and this is
something I can really getbehind.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Let me say sweets what you're talking about, the
technology or the type ofbusiness, or the size of
business, or the industry okay,so great question.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
A couple things the role, the growth role, because
it's the fun part, this is thefun stuff, yeah, but also a
technology I truly believe in.
I think that a sales there's anold saying a good salesperson
knows their product.
I think in the modern world agood salesperson has to believe
in their product Because it'snot authentic otherwise.
I've seen, I watched some ofyour podcasts and your other
(23:13):
ones and you talked a bit aboutsales reps are willing to say,
oh yeah, I'll cold call, I'll dothis, I'll do that.
They just kind of say this kindof stuff.
Right, my attitude about all ofthat is, of course, I'll just
say that, but I need somebodythat says to me I would prefer
the person say, look, I'm notcomfortable with cold calling,
but I'll figure it out and I'llprove to you, than that I want
that person we've gone throughmore change in the last probably
(23:36):
two to three years than we havein probably the last decade.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
You know, I think covid has accelerated a lot of
with digital transformation,work from home, etc.
Um, you know, coupled with thator, you know, sitting on top of
that, is also the a newphilosophy of of.
You know, work like work likebalance, working from home,
hybrid working you know how haveyou seen that impact the modern
day seller today compared towhat it used to be, and if you
got a any perspective on um,yeah, if any, if you would
(24:06):
adjust anything great question.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I mean I've adjusted everything.
I think you have to adjust.
Yeah, it's adapt or die.
Yeah, yeah, just like anythingelse, adapt or die.
And where we are now, I'venever seen a noisier market
because the tools are so muchbetter.
You know we have crm tools thatare obviously telling us where
to call and when to call themand you know it's all kind of
automated auto dialers.
(24:28):
You know there are legions ofcold callers out there using all
kinds of ai backed tools to dodata scrapes, go find people.
It's an incredibly noisy.
So to differentiate yourself,you absolutely have to adapt.
I feel like we're kind of comingto the end of the fully
automated approach because it'sjust too much noise.
I mean, I talked to a CISO twoweeks ago.
(24:49):
I know personally.
He said that he gets somethinglike seven calls they get
through a day of the dozens ofcalls of sales reps trying to
sell them something Fromnetworking equipment, software,
hardware, cybersecurity,everything.
So I've seen a complete changein all of that.
I think that there's a betterway to approach them.
I think this community aspect,that's the modern way, and in
(25:11):
modern SaaS we've seen a giantchange in how software is
delivered and in modern SaaS.
We've seen a giant change inhow software is delivered when
it used to be, you know, bigpurchase, big CapEx.
It's migrated to SaaS over theyears and now it's even further
over that, to that scale wherethere's actually less commit for
the customer.
You know the contracts arechanging and you know the way
Pax8 works with MSP is verysimilar, where there's not a lot
(25:32):
of commit for a lot of folks.
So it's really on us tocontinually, you know,
essentially seek approval fromour customer and justify our
existence.
That's changed a lot over theyears.
And and then the new.
The new style seems to be verymuch built on trust and
authenticity where it used to bevery much let's make a deal.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
It's a long-term relationship and does that
impact the type of salespersonor the sales skills that you're
going to be looking for as youbegin to build out your business
today?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Definitely, I think that, like I said, the new it's
authenticity.
Yeah, I think you want to.
You want folks to reallybelieve in it.
I feel like, with salespeople,I've always believed that you
were, as a sales manager, you,you work for your employees,
right, you know sitting back andyou know big companies will
have the, you know, let's say,like a CRO type, which is
necessary, who reports to theboard and collects numbers and
(26:24):
everything else.
But somewhere along that line,those bigger organizations there
needs to be someone that's inthe trenches with the team and
really growing the team, and Ifind that the teams that don't
do that fail.
Uh, it's that much moreimportant where someone like
myself I have.
I'm in the trenches, I'mtalking to customers, I'm
working with people, I'm showingpeople how it's done, I'm
(26:44):
training new salespeople.
This is how you earn theirrespect.
It's on.
It's my responsibility to makesure they get it, but it's also
my responsibility to be thatsubject matter expert for them.
So you're kind of alwaysselling.
You're selling internally andexternally, but it's not a
political thing, it'scredibility different yeah, you
just reminded me.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
There's a chap I follow on on linkedin, jason
lemkin, and he runs a communitycalled saster in north america.
I'm not sure if you're familiarwith him and um.
You know I've been following alot of the commentary and the
comments and the input in in hiscommunity and um and I've been
getting similar questions in myworld, in the recruiting world,
um, which is, when you'relooking to hire a vp of sales,
(27:24):
how do you decide whether youare hiring a strategic person to
build out your sales processplan strategy, a tactical person
to hold a bag, a sales bag, apipeline, literally be on the
phone closing deals, or a bit ofa hybrid, because they're two
very, very opposite ends of thespectrum and probably parts of
the brain.
(27:44):
So I see you doing both, whichis I think you're that unicorn.
But like what is your thoughton that?
Because it's really reallydifficult to do both of those
jobs really well.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It really is.
I think you need to haveexperience and exposure doing
both to be able to mix thosetogether.
And not everybody can make thatchange, and that's fair.
You know, not every all, we'reall made up differently.
But I think, especially in agrowth company where growth is
key and it's a very competitivemarket, you know you might have
the best technology in the world, but if you're not out there
promoting it, nobody reallycares because it's too noisy a
place, and I think you need tohave that hybrid and I think you
(28:21):
need to have that hybrid.
It's difficult to find that atthe very least, sales leadership
.
If they, or leadership of acompany, like a ceo, sitting
there going, okay, I need, Ineed a sales team, what do I do?
I gotta, I gotta build thisteam out.
I can't be the only salespersonhere, because that's typical.
You know where a lot of ceossee it that way, because they
own this thing if they.
If they can't get it in one,they can build a hybrid where
it's kind of like a money ballthing.
You kind of get all your, ifyou remember the way money ball
works, rather than trying to buytop tier players, you buy wins
(28:45):
and runs.
So if you can't find thatunicorn.
If you can, you're lucky.
But if you can't find thatunicorn, the idea is you can
play a little money ball andeverybody kind of contributes a
couple of singles and doublesand then the whole thing wins.
So you kind of you make acomposite of that person with a
couple of bodies.
One person has to be themanager, but the mandate is.
Here's how the process worksand it becomes more of a team
(29:06):
thing than it becomes theindividual thing.
Yes, I am the hybrid, but I'mhuge on team.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
I can't wait to hire somebody to do certain things
that that should be spreadaround, because we'll just be
more effective for our customersI mean, one of the questions is
, if you are to and I like thatidea of money ball and getting
different people for differentskills and you know, one plus
one equals three Do you think itmakes sense?
And the question is is okay,well, I'm going to go for two
rather than one, because myunicorn doesn't exist where I am
(29:33):
.
Do I go for the BD person tobuild the revenue first or to go
for the, the vp of sales, tobuild the strategy first?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
depends on the stage of the business.
Yeah, right, it depends onwhere your goals are where your
near term, near and long-termgoals are.
Depends also who your keepersare, because there's always an
investor involved.
I mean, my advice to startupguys is think about your
investors, what's important tothem, not because your whole lot
in life is to please you know,please wall street or something
crazy like that but you're nowthe, you're now the custodian to
(30:00):
their money.
That's a heavy responsibilityand, as vp sales, I'm certainly
cognizant that our managementhas, you know, board of
directors and things to thinkabout.
So I have to make sure that I'mhelping them deliver and what
they're what they require,because we have to be stewards
of capital, right.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So it really depends on what the business needs and
from a time frame perspective,coming in a reasonably early
stage startup that's got somefunding, what do you think,
having been a CEO and now VP ofsales, is a fair and reasonable
time to give that VP of sales toexecute and deliver results,
and what roles do you play inactually helping to set what
(30:37):
those goals are in the firstplace?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
You know, we work the targets together, you know, and
work the targets together.
You know it all depends on thesales cycle and a bunch of other
things.
Now in our business, we aregrowing quickly.
We are a very fast-growingcategory.
My real competition right nowis time.
We're signing up MSPs partnersat a higher rate, which is
positive, which also means we'reon a bit of a hiring spree,
(31:00):
which is also good.
All the right things are cominginto place.
The thing about this, james, isthere's not like one thing where
you're saying this is the magicpill and this is it.
But I will say is consistencyis the key.
Pick a system, pick a way to doit and stick with it.
And be ready to pivot, ofcourse, but stick with it.
At least give it a chance toget, to find its way through
(31:21):
where we are now in our business.
We're growing quickly.
Um, we're building the trust ofa lot of msps and mssps,
because that's what we do andwe're solving some real problems
.
It happens to be that in themarket right now, like I said
this earlier, identity theft iskind of a problem, but as soon
as I put that, the people's earsperk up like right away and
they go yeah, you're right, itis a problem.
I never thought of that.
Because think about running abusiness today.
What's going on?
You can't open a donut shopwithout having a web account,
(31:45):
two-man muffler shop.
You can't run that businesswithout having some kind of
connectivity to the outsideworld.
You can't buy Microsoft, youcan't buy Intuit, you can't buy
anything without having accessto the cloud.
That browser has become anexposure point for us.
For us, the business case isclear.
It's right in front of us rightnow.
Our challenge or opportunity isto position that so people
(32:07):
understand that we actually havea way to shrink that attack
surface, which is the browser.
Right, give you a littleanecdote.
So years ago when I was at 3com, the legend there was bob
metcalf.
So bob metcalf inventedethernet while he was at xerox.
If you know kind of the historyof the tech industry, xerox
Park was this place in SouthernCalifornia and I think they had
a sister park in NorthernCalifornia.
I'm pretty sure they did, andthey invented all kinds of stuff
(32:29):
there that Xerox never knewwhat to do with.
Apparently the mouse wasinvented there.
So the legend goes, the GUIapparently was invented there.
I don't remember Xerox shippingany of those.
You know we hardly use thosethings right.
But ethernet was invented thereand actually xerox owned the
patent because while he workedthere, of course any ip you
develop belongs to them.
(32:49):
But he basically left saying,look, I want to go make a
business out of this.
And xerox's attitude was wellsure, you can have the patent
you can like, we'll license itto you.
Take it, we don't.
Nobody wants this thing, thisstupid idea called ethernet.
They said ibm's token ring was.
You know that it's already beeninvented.
Networking is done.
The way token ring works isyou're sharing a token across a
ring.
You know, basically a ring ofcomputers all connected very
(33:10):
slow.
I mean, can you imagine a worldtoday with that in ip can't?
Rather than saying in thatprotocol you can't even.
It's the fundamentals of this.
But he realized after a fewyears of banging his head
against the wall, doing demosand going nowhere, he wasn't
actually selling.
He was just doing demos andleaving and he wasn't building
relationships with the people hewas pitching to.
(33:31):
This all documented is a reallycool documentary.
I saw on youtube one day aboutbob metcalf and what he did and
it took him a few years beforehe finally figured out.
When he finally figured out.
It was his job to buildrelationships and be a
salesperson.
Ethernet obviously exploded andwe and as a result of that
we're having this podcast thinkof the connection between those
(33:54):
two.
But if had he not figured thatout, yeah, youtube might not
have happened.
They're kind of wild, yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, it's crazy and you know just to, just to go on
onto the, the concept ofrelationships and networking,
you know slightly differentangle.
I want to talk about theconcept of the channel and
selling technology and softwarethrough the channel.
And then that's obviouslyDefense X has said you know,
we're going through the channel.
There's a lot of businesses outthere, a lot of SaaS startups,
(34:24):
and they've got technology andthey're trying to sell it direct
.
So when they're considering achannel, like how do you think
about the mechanics of like whenand why do you go to an IT
channel?
And like what do the economicsneed to look like for it to make
sense for you to do so?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
You know the channel is a necessary part of all this.
That's your path of thecustomer.
One of the biggest reasons isan obvious one to me personally
is that you know we can't beeverywhere to everybody.
It's impossible.
You know the law of diminishingreturns kicks in very early,
especially in a growth mode,because you're thinking to
yourself well, I should beboston for this and I got to be
(34:59):
in sydney for that, and how do Ido all that at once?
Channel makes, the channelmakes that possible.
But more than that, there'salready a little trust built
with the channel.
So you have a little bit of astarting point when you're
talking to customers.
I don't expect people in thechannel to do our work for us
all the time.
It's not realistic because toin fairness to a pac-8, they've
got, you know, a couple hundredvendors now in the us and they,
(35:21):
I think they've onboarded 60 or70 vendors here in australia.
So they're focused.
Their focus is build theirbusiness.
With all of these vendors as aset.
My job is to give them, givetheir customers, some good
reasons to want to order itthrough them and as long as
vendors understand that, I thinkit's a really good symbiotic
relationship they can say hey,here's some customers you should
talk to.
(35:41):
We're happy to make anintroduction, but it's our job
to build that trust and I thinkmy advice to vendors trying to
figure this one out understandwhat your sales model is too.
There are a few folks thatbuild it's not even really a
SaaS product.
It's a big enterprise thingthat might be SaaS.
It's multi-year, that's a bigcontract deal.
The channel might not alwayswork for that and that's why a
(36:02):
lot of vendors go direct.
Our go-to market is very muchvia distribution, via the MSP,
and really our end customer isreally the MSP.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
It's really them doing the delivery Is there a
tipping point at the averagedeal size, because that often
comes into the economics.
If you've got a relativelysmall average deal size, it
doesn't make sense to have adirect sales team.
You're going to pay your salesreps more than your revenue if
you're trying to cover all ofyour customers.
So is that part of the equationwhere you think about it?
I think so.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
But at the same time, we're not looking to go around
the channel.
Our philosophy in this is thechannel allows us to be in more
places.
There's also some really heavyfinancial things that happen
with the channel, meaningcurrent currency conversions are
kind of a big deal.
This is a very messy business.
You know, having a good channelpartner, like a pac-8, makes
that problem go away.
Well, that goes then go away.
No problems go away, but theydeal with the problems.
(36:52):
They're well equipped.
You know my buying power forcurrency isn't close to what
like a pac-8 is, for example.
Uh, you know there's a wholeindustry of currency conversion
and trading and flooring.
There's a whole.
There's puts and calls oncurrency just like any other
commodity, which is kind of awild concept.
They deal with all that whenyou know, however they do it,
they do it well and that they'regood at that.
The other thing it also does isit allows me to turn to a
(37:14):
customer after I'm finishedtalking to them and say you know
what?
Here's a marketplace you canorder it from.
You could have licensesdeployed today.
That's kind of a powerful thingIf I can reduce the friction,
even if I'm dealing withsomebody directly, and move it
to the channel as soon as I'mdone the deal.
When I say I, I mean we DefenseX.
It doesn't matter who it is onour team, then it's actually
(37:38):
it's looked on quite positivelywhen it comes out from customers
, because once they're buyingthe solution they shouldn't
really care if it's goingthrough distribution at that
point.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
And for companies that have built their owner-led
sales they've built a directbusiness with a technology that
realistically could be soldthrough the channel.
What would be the steps forthem to actually start to have
those conversations, to begin togo through a channel partner?
I would say, you know, it'sfunny to begin to go through a
channel partner.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I would say you know it's funny.
I would say that if you havegood direct relationships and a
good direct business, I feellike you have something to trade
with the channel Say like, hey,I've got this, let's work
together as a partner.
I'm going to bring you thisopportunity.
Yeah, and I think it's apositive thing.
It actually gives them anadvantage because they're not
asking for stuff they have.
Gives them an advantage becausethey're not asking for stuff.
(38:22):
They have something to tradeand, having worked in the
channel briefly, and you knowthe channels like yourself,
right, when a vendor comes toyou and says, hey, I have a deal
for you, you're answering thephone yeah, that's a, that's a
bluebird right exactly right,great tips and totally agree.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
So, just um, you know beginning to.
To close, and I want to comeback to the you know the concept
of sales.
We've got a lot of peoplelistening that are sales reps.
They're aspiring on their wayup.
You're reflecting on on yourjourney, mistakes that you've
made, and looking back at youknow, your 25, 30 year old self
(38:58):
and going if I could do thingsdifferently, this is what I
would do to really get ahead ofmyself and accelerate.
I'm looking to become a VP, aCEO.
What are some things thatpeople can think about to really
just hone in on their crafttoday?
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
That's a great question.
Okay, I'll give you an anecdote, because I can't help myself.
So I um, this is a little bitout of sales, but this is
actually a very cool thing.
So I actually involved in anentrepreneurial organization, I
do volunteer work and Ivolunteer and I actually did it.
I haven't done in a couple ofyears.
I mean, like covid kind ofchanged a lot of things for a
lot of us and things got weirdfor there for a bit.
But I'm actually quite seriousabout me getting re-engaged with
(39:32):
these guys.
It's an entrepreneurorganization.
They're called tie the indusentrepreneurs, and tie.
They have something called tieas part it, which is the youth
entrepreneurs.
Now, tie was originallydesigned to be a liaison group
between the East Indiancommunity that joined Silicon
Valley and the community atlarge.
That's not an issue anymore.
Like 40% of the Bay Area isIndian, so, like that's, they
(39:54):
really just become more of likean open entrepreneurial
organization.
So one of the sessions I was ingot I was very lucky isn't
actually Vancouver.
There's a place called Kinsmarket, which is a chain of
grocery stores.
This seems silly, these littleconvenience stores.
Okay, they're everywhere.
They're actually a vegetablestore fresh fruit, fruit and
vegetables, lee and it alwaysseems to be people.
It's like very much English isvery much a second language, a
(40:15):
really cool place to go to buyvegetables.
Okay, he started by a guy whodidn't speak english when he
arrived in canada.
He started with an eight byfour table at an open air market
.
That's how he started and hesaid to me and we said to the
group and he said to me latervery cool guy.
He said every night he'd walkhome from what he was doing and
say today was a good day, buttomorrow I can do better.
(40:35):
You know, and I go.
And so how that translates tosalespeople you can always
improve, improve, you know,celebrate the wins, but you
could always do better.
And to look back and say what Iwould do differently, I'll tell
you.
It's a funny thing.
I, you know, I take advice fromall kinds of places and one of
the things I heard from somebodyis it's always moving forward.
(40:55):
You know your, your mistakesactually shape who you are going
forward Rather than saying Iwish I changed that.
It's hard to do that what I cansay is I have never knowingly
done wrong by somebody.
There's just no way I would dothat and always done my best to
keep relationships, some of mybest relationships I've had for
20 plus years, and it's becausethey trust me and it's part of
(41:19):
it is, at the end of the night Idon't think about all the
things I did right.
I think, oh, I didn't call thatguy, I got to deal with this
right away.
That's the kind of thing that Ithink in a good sale with a, for
a good salesperson to grow,they have to be willing to
continue to grow and then notnot so much look and say, oh man
(41:44):
, what a dumb thing.
I did better tomorrow.
Yeah, that's great.
It's like the one percent.
What can I do one percentbetter every single day and all
of a sudden, the end of the year, you're 365 percent better.
So ken's market yeah, 65 storesin prime locations across what
they call western canada, thelower mainland of british
columbia and western canada.
Two million dollars turnoverrevenue per year per store.
Wow, he still barely speaksenglish what a great story.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
You know one of of the guests that we had on
previously, dane Meir.
He's the CEO of a company calledMySiso and we were talking
about, you know, progression andcontinually moving forward, and
what he talked about was he hasa framework for everything and
a process that he follows, andit may not just be, you know, it
may not be public, but it'ssomething in the backend.
And, you know, one of hisprocesses is I never go, I never
(42:23):
finish the day unless I've doneall of my follow-ups, and it's
a bit like that one percent.
You know, if we're looking atwhat can I do better tomorrow,
maybe the process we couldimplement is the end of the day.
Let me write down one thing I'mgoing to do differently
tomorrow right, just just thatprocess and that consistency of
something that is moving usforward.
And, like the other piece Itook away, this is something
that we look for when we'reinterviewing and, as a sales
(42:44):
leader myself looking for salesreps, a key piece I would always
look for is coachability andhunger for growth.
I don't mind if you don't knoweverything, but what I want you
to do is have intelligence to beable to learn, but the desire
and aptitude to learn as well.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I totally, totally agree.
You can't teach somebody to beenthusiastic.
That's impossible.
You can't fake that.
Authenticity, authenticity,same thing Goes back to it.
You know, I've had some of mybest successes with salespeople
that came from differentindustries, not saying always do
that, but just because theywere so willing and they wanted
so badly to change industriesthat they're willing to really
(43:19):
put in the time and put in theeffort.
Listen, you know, and the morequestions we ask your
salespeople, the better.
I would say that your ears areyour most valuable organ.
Despite popular opinion, yeah,your ears will get you
everything.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
you'll learn everything by listening I
remember the ceo of sap when Ijoined.
He said you have two ears andone mouth.
Use them in those proportions.
Yeah, well put.
Yeah, it's good.
Awesome, andrew.
I've really enjoyed the chat.
Thank you so much for coming tojoin us today.
If there's anyone listeningwants to connect with you or
learn a little bit more aboutDefenseX, how can they do that?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
They can drop me an email.
Andrew Morton at DefenseXcomAwesome, and I assume that
you're on LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn, have a pingAbsolutely Information.
Have a ping absolutelyinformation on our company, of
course, because I'm supposed todo a plug, because that's what I
always do info at defensexcom.
Come to our website.
You can book meetings with us.
We're very actively growing andvery happy to talk to people.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Amazing thanks, andrew, been a pleasure all mine
.
Thank you.
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