Beyond Transactional Selling - Dan Gill - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #7 - Channel Security Secrets

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lou (00:01):
Welcome to Channel Security Secrets. I'm Lou Raban. On this
show, we expose the untoldsecrets and critical insights
from the people shaping thefuture of cybersecurity sales in
the trusted adviser channel. Ifyou're looking to up your game
around selling security, stickaround. Channel Security Secrets
is brought to you by CyberDefense Group on a mission to
shift cybersecurity fromreactive to resilient.

(00:38):
We have an esteemed guest on theshow today. He's a master of
scalable growth and a recognizedchannel visionary with over
twenty five years of experiencerunning technology companies. He
was named one of ChannelFuture's channel influencers of
the year. He has successfullyled five, count them, five
company exits through highimpact acquisitions and

(00:59):
propelled companies to hundredsof millions of dollars in
revenue. Currently, the CEO atAmplyx, Dan Gill, welcome to the
show.

Dan (01:06):
Thank you, Lou. Well, that was that was way too kind. I
feel like I should have somewalk up music or something
behind me. Yeah.

Lou (01:13):
We would need to get some. That's a good, recommendation.

Dan (01:16):
I appreciate it. You took five years off my age by saying
25 instead of 30, so thank you.

Lou (01:20):
Oh, well, that's awesome. We'll have to correct that or
just take it.

Dan (01:24):
No. No. I like I like it. That's good.

Lou (01:26):
Yeah. I mean, it let it's a it's a great pleasure to have
you here because of yourexperience. So, you know, just
to jump right into it, what'sthe biggest secret to to your
success in the channel?

Dan (01:39):
Yeah. So I thinking of Amplex and myself, and I'll
focus a little bit on securitytoo because obviously, you know,
that's your sweet spot and andsomething you care about and
topic. There's there's fourthings that really come to mind
around that. I think first andforemost is being customer
centric, always. That issomething we live and die by

(02:03):
every day.
I always tell people don't getlost in the mess of commission
rates and spiffs and all thestuff that goes into this. It's
really you find the rightsolution from your customer,
regardless of how it impacts youfinancially. And so the best
people in our business growthrough referrals and earning

(02:25):
the right to help theircustomers with multiple
technology areas and solutionneeds. And so you only do that
by being customer centric. Sothat's number one.
Two is really think of the worldin terms of the problems you
solve and the outcomes you helpdeliver. With security, you're

(02:45):
not selling something. You'rehelping a business operate and
scale securely while protectingthe most critical assets. You
need to think that way and youneed to speak that language when
you're talking to decisionmakers in that realm. That's not
just security.
That's any significanttechnology area, cloud, CX, what
have you. Next, I think isreally about investing in the

(03:11):
expertise that you need to havethese conversations and then to
be honest about yourlimitations. So when I talk to
the team, credibility isparamount in advising on
security solutions. And soyou've got to have some
expertise on your team. You needto train folks and get them
access to training, and youshould not wade into areas where

(03:32):
you lack credible knowledge.
The way I think of it is thestakes around security are so
high for our customers. We needto be transparent about what
we're good at and then when weneed to refer them to someone
else who might be better suitedto help them. And you have to be
honest with yourself around thatstuff to do it right.

Lou (03:50):
Yeah. I sorry. Just to, like, jump in on that. That's
really interesting because Ithink that's one of the problems
in the channel right now withselling security because they're
afraid without having theexpertise that they can't be
credible. So how do you, youknow, address that?

Dan (04:08):
Yeah. So, I mean, there's multiple avenues. Right? Like, I
I think trusted advisers eitherinvest in it directly, bring
folks into the organization likewe have with and I know you've
experienced working with Dan andJeff Lieberman and others in our
company. We made a directinvestment.
I think that's the best path tothis because it's important as

(04:29):
an advisor that you own thosestrategic conversations and
you're not outsourcing thestrategic conversation to some
other things like relying onsomeone from a TSD to be your
security expert. There's greatones. I think you had Stefan on
an episode or Will from Avant,he's phenomenal. Telarus is

(04:50):
great folks. But I think it'simportant as a trusted advisor
to have that expertise in houseso that you're owning that
conversation.
So that's first, investyourself. The other is there are
great people at the TAs. Thereare consultative vendors, but
there's less of those in theportfolios we have access You

(05:13):
know, there's not a lot of youin the portfolio. Right?

Lou (05:16):
Thankfully. Right?

Dan (05:18):
And yeah. No. It's good for you.

Lou (05:19):
For us.

Dan (05:19):
Yeah. Aircity is good for you. And so so it's hard to rely
on the vendors. Like, when yourely on a provider of MDR, it's
hard to get unbiased approachthere. Even though they're well
meaning and do great work andmight provide great services,
like we like to have thatexpertise in house or you know,

(05:40):
have a partner that can lead thestrategy conversation without a
view on downstream solutions.
Just how do we get the rightposture for the customer? Then
we can worry about what are thedownstream solutions.

Lou (05:52):
Yeah. So bringing the the expertise in house as far as
having a, someone that'sresponsible for security. They
have the title. This is oursecurity specialist. Yep.
You know, even if they're notsomeone that's necessarily been
a practitioner before, thatwould be ideal, obviously. And
those are the ones that we havethe most success with. But, you

(06:12):
know, I for some of the smallerTAs, TA companies, you know,
obviously Amplex is is, youknow, one of the biggest ones.
So what about the smaller TAs? Iguess if they don't, we tell
them to rely on us.
We tell them that when they hearcertain, you know, certain
keywords or when it starts to godown the path of security, we

(06:33):
try to enable them. And then wesay, okay, when it gets to a
certain point, you wanna say,listen. And and you mentioned
that too. You wanna be honest.You don't want to start to
pretend that you're the expertas a TA.
You know, if you don't have thatknowledge, it's better to say, I
don't know, but I know someonerather than, fudge it because to
your point, credibility,especially in security, you can

(06:55):
lose it pretty quickly.

Dan (06:56):
Yeah. I mean, people get fired over lapses, and
businesses have millions or tensof millions of dollars at stake
related to these things. Like,so transparency, you you just
have to. Like, if you wanna doright by that customer, you
gotta be honest about yourlimitations. I think for the
small adviser, look, there'sways you can do it.

(07:17):
Alright? You you can you canhave an advisory board even as a
small advisor where you've gotcertain practitioner experts
from your network that you canbring in on special projects or
occasions or conversations withcustomers. So maybe they're not
a full time employee, butthere's someone you can access
who's excited to do it and hasthe right background. I think

(07:39):
that's a good way to do it. Ifyou can't go hire someone, not
everybody's got the budget to dothat.
And then, yeah, like you said,finding it's harder to find
though in the portfolio. So youmight have to look outside your
portfolio to find the boutiqueconsultant that is security
focused, that is of the rightsize, that they're willing to
engage with a smaller TA whohappens to have some good

(08:01):
customers, and then can takethat unbiased approach that's
consultative and posture drivenand strategy driven and not
immediately tactical about asmall set of services that exist
in the portfolio.

Lou (08:18):
Right. Yeah. We've seen that too, where it's there, you
know, it's a per seat licensingbasis. They're trying to shove
into their model to your point,which is there's a need. I mean,
MDR, as you used as the example,that is definitely kind of table
stakes for a lot of companiesthat are starting their security
journey.
They're like, Okay, we needmonitoring. We know we need some

(08:40):
type of monitoring. That's not afull security program, and
that's obviously what we'reproviding. But at least they're
getting in there. The problem iswhen those vendors start to say
they do some of the things thatwe do or other consulting
companies do, and what they'redoing is tacking it on.
You know, they're they'rebasically outsourcing it to a
company like one or two peoplethat maybe are practitioners,

(09:01):
but it's not really part oftheir core competency, but
they're doing it to capture therevenue so they can, you know,
get their foot in the door or,you know, just pretend they can
land and expand. So do you thinkthat that's a good strategy to
to kind of, like, have MDR, tackon some things, or do you do you
think they should just admithonestly that, hey. We're an MDR

(09:24):
company, and that's it.

Dan (09:25):
Yeah. It it depends on the company. Right? Like, there are
some that legitimately have theright people and resources
internally to have broaderconversations and they provide
some downstream solutions. Thecustomer has to decide whether
that feels comfortable to themor not.
And then, yeah, I don't thinkfolks who don't have that as a

(09:47):
real practice and it's just aside gig tack on type thing,
then I think that becomes morerisky for the TA and the
customer. So I do think it'spossible for companies to invest
in both and have legitimatepractices, But there's not many
that can credibly do that. Andso I like the unbiased third

(10:10):
party approach that may notprovide some of the downstream
services. And the challenge is,this is an interesting topic. If
you ask TAs if they sellsecurity, most will say yes.
And it's because they've doneone or more MDR deals. Either

(10:30):
they've got a great MSP partnerthat also does MDR or they've
sold one of the couple handfulsof MDR vendors in the platform.
And they what we're missing isthey got to do it because they
had a customer who loves themand had already made a strategic
decision and just came to themfor some tactical help. And they

(10:53):
earned the right for them tocome to them, and it's great.
But you're not owning thesecurity strategy conversation,
and that is very transactional,And it's different the way the
legacy TA approaches network orUCaaS or these things where they
can have the strategyconversation and the design
conversation or all those thingsbecause they have tremendous

(11:13):
capability and talent.
And so that's what I mean aboutinvesting in the expertise.
Because if we're justtransactional about the security
elements and around just thingslike MDR and stuff, we're gonna
end up losing some of those toVARs and integrators and MSPs
just doing this stuff. There's alot of MSPs who are direct and

(11:34):
aren't even in the channel. Andso you're going to start If
you're not having the strategyconversation and you're purely
transactional, you won't scalethat security business.
Eventually, you'll start losingthose opportunities to people
who are selling them othersecurity technology.

Lou (11:50):
And we've seen that over and over again. Plus the risk,
you know, to your point, whenthe experts come in for UCaaS,
CCaaS, you know, they're they'resaying, we've done this. We know
how this is is done. There canbe, you know, maybe a mistake
with a vendor that's chosen, andthen they have to kind of do
some, you know, firefighting toget that vendor across the line

(12:12):
for whatever. Maybe one of thevendors one of the products is
not, you know, they have anupdate that takes things down or
whatever.
But at the end of the day, therisk there is a lot lower. In my
opinion, you could convince meotherwise. But I think with
security, if you go in and you,you know, project yourself as
the expert, you do somethingtransactional. You say, oh,

(12:33):
yeah. This is gonna be the thingthat you need.
And then all of a sudden,something bad happens to your
point that could be a verysignificant incident. We've seen
it. You know, we're called inobviously with incident
response, and often it is theMSP. You know, they've been
brought in and they're notthemselves doing certain, secure
practices like they're sharingpasswords across clients.

(12:55):
They're not getting paid to, youknow, look at the whole, program
holistically.
So maybe there's some devicesthat are not, you know, they
didn't pay the per seat licenseor the per device license, so
they're not covered forvulnerability management. And
all of a sudden there's a, youknow, some kind of exploit. So I
just think that, you know,again, reinforcing your point of
having someone that's an, youknow, if not an expert at least

(13:18):
can speak to the holisticprogram rather than just the
transaction. It's not only arethey going to lose that business
to another transactional, youknow, security company or
someone that brings a little bitmore value, but they're also
introducing risk because theymight be held accountable for
some of the decisions they theyask the customer to make without
having the expertise.

Dan (13:37):
Oh, a 100%. And we should be held accountable. Like, if
we're coming out and saying wecan help you make this decision,
then we need to be accountablefor how we help them and what
the result is. It's interesting,there's big consequences on all
this stuff. The network's downand people can't access
applications and do business,that's a massive thing.

(13:59):
Ties to revenue, ties toprobably customer experience. If
the UCaaS or CCaaS systems arehaving problems, that touches
the customer, has realdownstream impacts. But the
security issues make the papersand the board meeting. Right?

Lou (14:16):
And so Yeah.

Dan (14:17):
Exactly. Because of just the view of an organization
who's had its data breached oris in the middle of a ransomware
incident or its employees fellvictim to phishing and exposed.
That kind of stuff escalatesquickly and it's really brand

(14:38):
damaging and probably moredamaging than individual outages
on a system that a customertouches or something. So it it
is really, really heightenedaround that.

Lou (14:51):
Yeah. We we have a security spend paper that we posted
online. There's hard costs andthere's soft costs when you get
hacked. The hard costs are, youknow, you've gotta bring in a
firm like ours to clean it up.You've gotta bring in probably
an MSP to redo a bunch of, youknow, the IT stuff, the network,
the endpoints, etcetera, the andlawyers, all that stuff.

Dan (15:10):
Cyber insurance goes up, like, the whole

Lou (15:13):
Yeah. It's sometimes insurance will cover it. Right?
But with the the soft costs areand and it's what you're talking
about. It's the reputationaldamage.
I mean, you've been in salesalmost your entire career. I'm
learning a lot more about salesthan I ever did. The pipeline,
right? Like you you guard thatpipeline. If you give your
customers any reason to look atthe competitors, you know, the

(15:34):
competitors are jumping on thatnumber one.
And number two, they're saying,okay. Yeah. Listen. We can't do
business with you. You're wejust saw that you were down.
You're in the papers, etcetera.That's a soft cost because that
that hits your bottom linelater. Right? Yeah. As lower
revenue, etcetera.
But and your pipelinedecreasing, but that's not
necessarily on a balance sheet.So it's it's not a a hard cost.

(15:55):
Like, okay. We spend x. It'slike lost opportunity cost.

Dan (15:59):
Yeah. And and there's the uncomfortable board level
conversation of how could youlet this happen?

Lou (16:05):
Yeah. Why why did this happen? Sometimes the board has
to look inward and say, oh,yeah. We didn't approve. We
didn't

Dan (16:11):
give you the budget. Yeah.

Lou (16:12):
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But yeah. So, no, that's it's all
great stuff.
I wanted to go back. You know,you're talking about outcomes. I
I was very proud to havetrademarked the term outcomes
based security, which, led toprobably zero revenue. But

Dan (16:28):
It sounds cool, though.

Lou (16:30):
Yeah. It's it you know, it's because everything's about
outcomes, and it's interestingthat you're talking about that.
So, what do you consider to be,you know, when you're selling or
your team is selling solutions,the are they always aligning
with outcomes like the businessand things like that?

Dan (16:45):
Outcomes are challenges. Right? There's sometimes there's
existing challenges. Like, I'vegot x y z problem I need to
solve. Some are more outcomedriven.
Like, if I'm SOC two compliantand can be audited and say that,
then I can sell to more peopleand I can more easily pass the

(17:06):
vendor risk process or the Yeah,procurement. And deal with
procurement in ways that Icouldn't before. That's a common
one. Obviously, there'sframeworks around HIPAA and PCI
and government related business.Those are all kind of outcome
driven things for customerstrying to find their way to be

(17:27):
compliant within those realms.
There's outcomes tied to thelaunches of specific products or
initiatives or migrations to thecloud, or all those things that
require posture enhancements.Right? And or it's obtaining and
staying in compliance with cyberinsurance.

Lou (17:48):
Oh, yeah. That's a big one now.

Dan (17:50):
This And it is. And it's not just about getting insurance
because when it comes time thatsomething goes bump in the night
and, you know, something go bumpin the night for just about
anybody these days.

Lou (18:01):
Oh, yeah.

Dan (18:02):
Nobody's beyond the reach of of the bad actors and attack
vectors. So you have to be youhave to stay in compliance or
they'll find a reason not to paythe claim.

Lou (18:12):
Oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah. We've seen it.

Dan (18:14):
And so we're always reminding customers not just
about obtaining the coverage.It's you need to stay within the
parameters of that and make sureyou're doing the testing and the
auditing and the assessments andall the things you need to do to
make sure you're there becausethe policy is not very good if
it it's not really worth much ifthey can't they can't reimburse
you for something.

Lou (18:34):
Yeah. You're paying the premiums, but and and we all
know insurance companies, youknow, they're gonna try to
wiggle out of anything that theycan to pay if possible. So,
yeah, it says, hey. You mustmaintain a certain security
posture, and it's, you know,intentionally vague. And so they
can poke holes and really almostno one can, you know, not no

(18:56):
one, but there's very fewcompanies that are doing the
right thing.
And the right thing is even notjust hiring someone. You know,
we see that too where they'relike, well, we'll we'll give you
the security title. You're nowdirector of IT and security. And
it's like but their job iskeeping the lights on, and they
they don't really have time. Andso they're, you know, doing the
best they can, but that's not aproper security posture.

(19:19):
You know? They it's reallyhaving a team that's, dedicated
to making sure that you're doingall the right things. And it is
a certain size company. Right? Imean, we've seen SMB.
We we, have played in that spacein the past more more startup
level, but I they don't have theresources for and and our team
is, you know, highly skilledobviously. So, that's not really

(19:41):
the area we plan and they have athey have a gap. That's where
MSPs can really fill in becausethey can do the the you know,
beginnings of that. So, SMB haskind of the s the MSP market.
But when it comes to mid marketand especially enterprise,
enterprise usually has theirstuff together, at least Fortune
500 or global 2,000 or whatever.
But when I say that, you know,having come from those

(20:03):
environments, I'm not implyingthat they actually the teams are
effective, but at least theyhave the headcount and the tools
and things like that. But whenit comes to, mid market, I think
that that's the big opportunity,and, only a couple industries
are starting to to wake up, Ithink. Are are you seeing this
too? Like, certain industriesthat traditionally hadn't been

(20:23):
in security are now kind ofjumping on board?

Dan (20:27):
I I mean, all the regulated industries are industry subject
to data privacy laws andregulations in the mid market.
We we see warning and asking forhelp. The if you look at the
stack of people and technologiesto do all of this yourself and
properly protect an environment,it it's almost unreachable to do

(20:49):
it properly for a mid marketcompany. They need help. Yeah.
And the good news is there'sproviders like yourself and the
MSSPs and different folks thatcan get them access to the
entire stack and services in away that doesn't cost a fortune
and is is broader than what theycould do on their own. And so
even that Fortune 500, you know,they fall victim a little bit to

(21:12):
the, hey. I've got the budget,so I'm gonna hire a bunch of
people and buy a bunch of tools.Exactly. Approach to it.
Yeah. It's still hard to manage.The the defense is not a human
scale problem anymore becausethe bad actors are using AI and
sophisticated approaches. It'sokay to get help. And it makes

(21:32):
sense to get help.
Like, you might start findingthe mid market better protected
in some cases because they haveno choice but to seek help. And
they end up with broaderstrategies and capabilities that
are better managed than even insome in some big companies who
are more of a go it alone. And Iget it. Like, you you sit with a

(21:55):
CISO of a Fortune 500 company,that's a brilliant individual
that is highly capable and, willknow just incredibly talented
folks. So you get the desire andthe impulse to do it internally,
and they hire really greatpeople.
But the problems change sodynamically, it's hard to manage

(22:15):
it with bodies. Like, you needhelp from service and technology
in different areas, and it'sokay to go get that help. And
we're we're seeing moreconversations with big
customers, not just mid marketbecause of that dynamic.

Lou (22:28):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's something to be said about
those. Absolutely right, Dan.And it's really interesting that
you said about the mid marketperhaps being better protected
because there's truth to that, Ithink.
I hadn't thought of it, but it'sactually very relevant because
also in the mid market, you'vegot a team that's small enough
where you don't have, eightdifferent heads of eight

(22:49):
different departments that haveto put their input. Usually in
the mid market, it's like, okay.We need to do this. The board
says we need to do it. The csuite's aligned, and then you
get to work.
Whereas in, you know, Fortunefive hundred, you might have,
yeah, so many people that haveto have their, input. The the
project doesn't even get startedfor a year or two because, you

(23:10):
know, this person isn't in themeeting or now we have to rehash
everything.

Dan (23:13):
And and and complex procurement processes. Oh gosh.
Yeah. But but what'sinteresting, the mid market has
the opportunity. Right?
I think it it's easier for themto get to a really strong
footing because of theirnimbleness, the fact that they
really have no choice but to gethelp. So they're gonna end up
but they traditionally make badyou know, can can make really

(23:37):
not always, but can make reallybad vendor decisions.

Lou (23:40):
Big time.

Dan (23:41):
Because they have folks who are spread very thin doing a
million things that don't thisis why TAs exist. Right? Because
they don't have the internaltime and resources to make
optimized decisions where you'redoing proper evaluations across
a set of vendors with detaileddata about their performance and

(24:03):
their pricing. And, you know,they'll Google search, come up
with three or four vendors, orlook at the Gartner Magic
Quadrant, get three or fourvendors, and then the best
salesperson wins. Exactly.
And that's not a path to anoptimum decision. So the
opportunity is there to beincredibly well protected
because of the universe ofproviders available to them and

(24:24):
the fact that they have nochoice but to get help. But if
you don't make if you don't runthe decision process correctly,
you can still end up in a badplace where you just you you
have that MSP that's not reallyqualified to do some of those
things, but you like thembecause they did your help desk
and three other things or youryour peer said, hey. These guys

(24:45):
are great, or their salespersonwas just better than than the
other folks who came in.

Lou (24:51):
Or it's just easier. Like, well, we're using them for this.
They they're gonna tack on thesethings. You know, they say they
do security. We need to tick thebox.
Let's do it. But ticking the boxis not adequate anymore.

Dan (25:02):
No. Not if you if you wanna be secure and feel and sleep and
sleep really well. Yeah. It'snot.

Lou (25:11):
Yeah. Big time. Yeah. I feel like there's, like, a
couple generations of decisionsin security. One of them is, you
know, in the beginning, maybelet's hire someone to do this or
let's give the title to someone.
Then it was our MSP can do it.They they're doing other things
for us to your point. Now we'rekind of in either generation
three or generation four, whichis, okay, now we've been through

(25:34):
this. Oh, generation three,sorry, is VC. So we're gonna
hire someone as a VC.
So RVC. So and and what thatwill be is one person that might
have phenomenal enterpriseexperience as a CISO, but they
don't have a team behind themAnd they're kind of just saying
do this and come back in amonth. And did you do that?
Relying on the customer toactually do the work. So now I

(25:55):
feel like we're at Gen four,which is now we need a team.
If we're going to either do itinternally, we've got to spin up
a team that's gonna take timeinterviewing all that stuff, or,
you know, they outsource it tosomeone who's a specialist.
Obviously, that's our valueprop. But that's I think where
the market is moving becausethey've had, you know, the
buyers have had these, they'vemade these decisions over years,

(26:18):
and they're seeing no success,no success, no success. And
that's where we're we fit in. SoI think finding that tea, that
outsourced specialized team thatis the people in process part,
not just the technology, That'sthe secret sauce, especially in
the mid market.

Dan (26:33):
The the interesting thing too is the when you get that
help externally, they have abroader purview than you do.
Right? You you just see what'sin front of you in your own
environment. And maybe throughpeers in your industry, have
somebody's But when someone'slooking across multiple
industries, across multiplecompanies of all different
sizes, there's a lot ofinformation about the different

(26:57):
ways bad actors try to exploitdifferent things in different
industries, different sizedcompanies. There's a lot of
extra expertise that I think isreally valuable too.
We talk about on the trustedadvisor model, we have access to
all this pricing information,vendor performance information,
and how vendors work andintegrate with certain things,
and how long it takes thisvendor to turn up a service

(27:19):
versus this vendor. All thisdata that an internal IT team
never has themselves. It's thesame thing here. The broader
view into what's going on inthat dynamic environment is
invaluable to folks. Even ifthey've hired a great team, that
team is busy doing what's infront of them and isn't

(27:42):
necessarily in tune toeverything that's going on and
all the different things acrossdifferent industries and
different customer sizes,different vectors.

Lou (27:51):
Exactly. Often, they'll hire someone probably that can't
do everything as well, and sothat person will need help.
Yeah. Because, you know, theycan oversee it, but they're not
going to they expect themsometimes to do everything maybe
with some help from IT. Butyeah.
Yeah. So what's the the the youknow, you've been in the channel
for for a while a while. Youknow that it's really well. Not

(28:13):
'25, 30?

Dan (28:14):
No. Well, I mean, in technology that long. I've only
been in the channel for aboutfive years, believe it or not.

Lou (28:19):
Okay. So what how's it changed for you? Have you seen,
like, a big change, or is it isit you know, I've only been in
the channel for three probablythree maximum, like, really
deeply in the channel. I workedfor, you know, a couple
companies that were channelpartner focused. But, are you
seeing a big change likeevolution?

Dan (28:40):
I mean, it's changed dramatically. The influx of
private equity investment andjust change in the trusted
advisor business models and newcompetitive sets that are
appearing has caused significantchange just in the five years
I've been involved. Before that,you didn't have hugely scaled

(29:03):
trusted advisors. Now you havefolks like Amplex that have 300
employees and have acquired 11businesses and multiple enhanced
capabilities and can serve amuch broader stack of
technologies and can also gomuch deeper in terms of the
services we provide. So that's adifferent landscape for advisors

(29:25):
to figure out where the industryis going and for the vendors to
figure out how to support themand same with the TSDs.
So that's been a big change.People trying to figure out, do
I scale my business myself? Do Iinvest in it? Do I look at an
acquisition opportunity? If I amgoing to look, what's the right
model for me and my employeesand my customers?
There's a lot there. So there'schange there. I think the

(29:47):
competitive environment'schanged. You've got certain
vendor categories where you seethe vendors starting to compete
a little bit, like in the TAMworld, it's probably outside
your realm, but might wherethey're starting to procure
circuits for customers, whichkinda overlaps the TAs that they
brought in. Might see some ofthat in the MSP world from those

(30:10):
that are not in the channel,where they're doing things that
overlap some of the things

Lou (30:14):
we do.

Dan (30:15):
We're seeing large consulting firms. Like, we've
had head to head competitivesituations on CX with big four
firms and won.

Lou (30:25):
Yeah. They need to diversify because they're
they're bleeding on some oftheir contracts and stuff.

Dan (30:30):
Well, it's a logical extension of some of the things
they do, so I get it. But thetactical expertise, they lack.
Right. Right? And so it'sforeign territory.
And so we've been successful incompeting with some of those,
but we're seeing them. We didn'tsee them two, three years ago
and those types ofopportunities. And then just the
other is the rapid onslaught ofAI and desire to use AI and

(30:55):
explore AI is creating all kindsof conversation, not just around
the applications of it and howto make a business case around
it and how to do it properly tostart, but what does this mean
for my infrastructure and howdoes that need to change? What
does this mean for my securityposture? How does that need to
change?
Do I even have a data strategyand data management platform

(31:18):
that even allows me to do thesethings? It's creating
conversations that advisorshistorically didn't have, but
can now. So it's opened uptremendous revenue growth
opportunities for our channel tobe the ones that help people
drive those outcomes and solvethose challenges. But it
requires some investment andsome expertise and the ability

(31:41):
to really go after it andservice customers with the same
expertise that you do in ourtraditional categories. But
that's changing everything.
The conversations are sodifferent with C level
executives at mid market andenterprise companies than they
were even when I started fiveyears ago.

Lou (31:57):
Yeah. Yeah. AI. I mean, it's almost like we have to
discuss AI, but AI security isdata security. You you hit the
nail on the head.
It's, you know, anyone thatwants to use it. We had a
conversation the other dayabout, yeah, they're like, so
what should we do? And it'slike, well, where's your data?
Who's using it? What'ssensitive?
Do you have a way to determineif it's going anywhere in your

(32:21):
or outside your environment?Because that's where you want.
That's what you want to protectwith AI is. Yeah. So and it's
getting tough.
I mean, like, the the big guysare spending like Anthropic and
and, you know, OpenAI and Metaand Grok. They're all spent
Google, Apple. They're spendingbillions, hundreds of billions
of dollars on data centers andstuff like that. So where does,

(32:45):
you know, in the mid market,they can't spin up necessarily
that kind of scale. So they'renot going to market with an AI
product.
They're just looking to usetheir own kind of AI perhaps
internally. Is that right?

Dan (32:57):
Yeah. Mean, yeah, they're looking to utilize these
solutions and harness differentsolutions. Customer experience
is the place we see it mostfrequently because there's real
ROI and there's real businesscase you can make on creating
efficiency in your customerservice strategy and creating
enhanced customer experiencesthrough big, smart companies

(33:21):
know. If we do this, it producesthis much revenue, it reduces
churn by this much, it does allthese things. So we've got a 20
person team that just does AIand CX applications at Amplex.
That's how significant and howquickly the success is moving in

(33:42):
that particular category. Butthen you have the other
conversations of other businessapplications and support for
data science teams and differentthings that are more complex and
taking longer or someone's boardhas said, why aren't we using
AI? You need to use AI. And sothey wrote copilot out to
everybody and nobody reallyknows why or what they're doing

(34:05):
with it. But now people at leastanswering questions and getting
content written for them as apart of that.
But it's like, okay, but whatdata is that pulling from?
What's it accessing from asecurity perspective? Is there
bias in those data sets that aremaking the results and things
coming out of it not appropriatefor the business or not value

(34:27):
driving for the business. Like,there's so much that goes into
this that we wrestle withpeople, and there's risk. Like,
if you have a poor first projectand experience with it, then
it's hard to get support formore.
Right. And you don't wannastifle innovation because you
had the wrong you didn't dot allyour i's and cross your t's in
your approach. That's reallywhere we talk to folks. Like,

(34:49):
let's find a place where we cancontrol what we're going to do,
have success that proves valueto the business, so that we can
get you a broader purview to gothink about AI across your
organization and not get limitedbecause it didn't produce the
results or you didn't do theright work with the CISO and the

(35:11):
compliance team and now they'reupset and everything's frozen.

Lou (35:17):
Right. Right. Yeah. It's exciting, though. I mean, as a
technology, it really is, such agame changer as everyone's
seeing.
You've invested. So Amplyx hasinvested in, heavily into AI and
CX, and you're already seeing anROI on that.

Dan (35:32):
Oh, yes. Yeah. Both in terms of services we provide
customers, our ability to impacttheir bottom line by using the
technology and implementing it,our ability to impact their
CSATs and and growth througheffective use of it. We've been
doing it for a while, hadsignificant success. And now
we're having a lot ofconversations on broader

(35:54):
infrastructure.
How do you have the right datamanagement and security policies
and environments? How do youmanage costs associated with a
lot of this stuff in the cloudand the cloud hosted databases
that get access for thesethings? How do I make sure I've
got the right connectivity, theright workloads in the in the

(36:17):
right place? All those thingsare we're having more of those
conversations now, but CX islower hanging fruit for AI
because it's been proven.

Lou (36:27):
Right.

Dan (36:28):
In its effectiveness, and so, we can move quickly with
customers there.

Lou (36:34):
That's excellent. Yeah. And and you talked about the TAs
too, the the conversationsthey're having. Speaking about
AI, we're talking about securityobviously as well. What is the
profile of like what's TA likewith the not the perfect TA
because it depends on the usecase obviously.
But let's say you're someonelooking to get into this world.

(36:55):
You know, what what do you thinkthe profile is for that person
that to have success?

Dan (37:00):
Has success as a trusted adviser?

Lou (37:02):
As a trusted adviser. Yeah. They let's say somebody is, I
don't know, they're they'recoming out of college and
they're like or or they'recoming out of industry and
they're like, you know what? Idon't really wanna do what I did
as a career but I've got allthese c suite connections and I
want to be a trusted adviser.You know, I wanna get started
but what's the you know, whatnot what can they do, but what
is their, the the profile of theperson that you think would be

(37:25):
successful at that?

Dan (37:26):
Yeah. I I think they have to be a solution seller. So the
best sellers in the entireindustry are not necessarily
feet off the street that werejust curious. It's the owners of
these businesses. Like, were allexpert sellers before they get
into it, and they continue thatexpertise.
They have a network of peoplethat they've done something for

(37:49):
that trust them, that arewilling to listen and and they
have some expertise in one ormore categories that are sweet
spots. And look, you could be acloud only expert. You can maybe
get a long background in cloud.You can go start a trusted
advisor with that background anddo tremendous with just that. Or

(38:09):
security or CX.
When we acquired Inflow CX, allthey did was CX. They had 100
people in a trusted advisororganization doing nothing but
CX. So having some expertisewhere you can really understand
how to solve problems for folksearly leveraging the tools and

(38:30):
resources from the TSDs till youbuild your own infrastructure.
But expert seller always worksbest. It's hard to come from the
practitioner or technologistside into this industry alone.
Like, you you have to have a aselling capability and a network
of people you can call on whotrust you to get started.

(38:52):
Selling today is harder thanit's ever been. Yeah.
Traditional sales and marketingefforts don't work in some
cases. Most cases.
It worked with much lesseffectiveness. Yeah. So having a
network so for people coming outof college, I would say I always
say, go learn someplace. Golearn how to sell, go learn how

(39:16):
to do consultative discovery, golearn how to do these things in
a good training program with abig vendor or a mid sized vendor
that has a good program forthis, learn how to do it. Then
build a network of people youhelp that support.
If you come out of college intosomething like this without

(39:36):
access to a network ofcustomers, it'll be such a slog
the first few

Lou (39:40):
years. Pain.

Dan (39:41):
There's a lot of pain.

Lou (39:43):
Yeah. Yeah. But I think the principles you discussed when it
at the top of this this, podcastwhere you were talking about,
you know, having integrity, youknow, customer centric, being
honest about your skills, thingslike that. That's probably good
advice for any TA. And thesolution selling, that's my
takeaway from what you'retalking about, too, is no more

(40:05):
transactional selling.
You can only get there to acertain point. It's like the the
salespeople that contact thecustomer, you know, a month or
two before the renewal date, andthey haven't spoken to him for a
year. Like, you're not gonna youknow, you're just a number.
You're just another, you know,annoying person in their inbox
versus someone that's actuallygot a relationship with them and

(40:26):
is trying to help them with thepain points.

Dan (40:28):
Yeah. Look. If you're transactional, even if you have
success, you're so easilyreplaced.

Lou (40:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the lowest, the next person with the
lowest price. Right?
Yeah. So what what's in thefuture for Amplyx, and, what
excites you about what's goingon there? Because there is a lot
of exciting stuff going onthere.

Dan (40:46):
Yeah. So more more strategic acquisition. Right?
We're looking to add expertiseand capabilities in specific
categories, that we think areimportant to the next generation
trusted adviser. Look.
We're setting out with biggoals. Like, we're setting out
to build, you know, a definitivebrand and a really important
space. You know, the theindustry is worth billions of

(41:08):
dollars now, and it's gotthousands of players. And, it
still remains to be seen who thedefinitive brands and winners
are. We're trying to do it byadding value to our customers.
What are more capabilities? Howdo we support the full life
cycle of a technology investmentbetter from strategy to

(41:28):
optimization and everything inbetween. And then we're growing
really healthy organically.We'll continue to do that,
adding to the team, bringing ina lot of new customers, cross
selling to our existingcustomers. All that will
continue.
Continue to have a methodicalapproach to M and A as we've
had. And we still work with theTSDs and love engaging with

(41:52):
those guys. We'll continue to dothat.

Lou (41:53):
I constantly see Amplix winning the top top TA award,
award at all of the TSDs, soyou're obviously doing something
right.

Dan (42:03):
We've got a team of, highly motivated, amazing people that,
you know, work work their rearends off and treat each other
like family. So it's a specialenvironment.

Lou (42:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Good people over there. We've worked with
them. Yeah.
I'm gonna pivot quickly to someto just you personally. I'm
first, do you have, like, apersonal story that demonstrates
where cybersecurity might havehad some kind of impact on you
or your life?

Dan (42:29):
Yeah. I'm I'm gonna put work aside on this one. And and,
like, it's it's I have twopeople in my life that I'm super
close with that are a bitblissfully unaware of the the
risks associated. One is myelderly father.

Lou (42:44):
I was gonna say it's gotta be your parents, right, or one
of them.

Dan (42:47):
Yeah. He's who's got some he's he's almost 80. He's got
some cognitive slowing down,like, type things.

Lou (42:53):
Yeah. Yeah.

Dan (42:54):
He gets targeted on text message and email constantly.

Lou (42:59):
It's disgusting.

Dan (43:00):
It it's it's really horrific. I don't think people
understand. Yeah. To the pointwhere, like, I'm just happy he
doesn't really know how to usehis phone very

Lou (43:08):
Right. You give him a flip phone, basically.

Dan (43:11):
So just trying to explain to him about not giving certain
information ever, not clickingon anything ever, that stuff.
And then I've got a teenagerwho's really bright, like a good
math and science kid, supersmart, can work devices like
I'll never work devices oranything, but still doesn't
understand the scope of badactors and attack vectors and

(43:35):
trying to get her to understandwhere and how she needs to be
careful. And so these areconstant conversations because
doing what we do, we see scarystuff all the

Lou (43:44):
time. Oh, yeah.

Dan (43:45):
And so, of course, I bring that home and like, hey. Did you
know this? And, you know, okay,dad. And I'm like, no. I'm
serious.
Like, this is actually somethingyou need to worry about. I'm not
just telling you about worktoday. And so that that's been
my kind of funny personalexperience with it is there's,
like, a constant dialogue withthose two people that, you know,

(44:05):
I care about so much to try tohelp keep them out of harm's
way.

Lou (44:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I think I I mean, no one is immune these
days. It's to your point. Mymom's 94, And, you know, even
earlier than that, yeah, she isconstantly like, we had to get
her a special phone blocker forknow, she still got a landline.
So we had to, you know, thingslike that because it's, yeah.
It's just and then on the emailand things like that, thank god

(44:33):
she's not using that stuffanymore because it's just yeah.
It's horrific.

Dan (44:37):
Oh, and social media. Like, it's

Lou (44:39):
Yeah. And now with AI, you know, deep fakes and stuff.
Yeah. So that is prettypersonal. Yeah.
And then, you know, Dan, theman, you're in Massachusetts.
You've got you know, I mean, I'mI've got a list here of of the
organizations that you've been apart of. You know, five exits. I
what what do you think? And Idon't know if that's even

(45:00):
accurate.
Is it five, or is it even morethan

Dan (45:02):
No. No. No. It was, you know, prechannel. There were
four startups that I was part ofthat I helped lead to exit, and
then I I helped put the threecompanies together that became
Amplex and take on our privateequity sponsor.
I ran that process for us. Sothat would be the fifth,
although it actually involvedthree companies. So yeah, this
is kinda crazy to think about.Yeah. So I've always been you

(45:27):
know, I did a few years upfrontat big companies to learn, learn
how to sell, learn how to run abusiness, learn all of those
things.
And then I went out and didventure backed and growth stuff
from that point forward. And,it's riskier, but really
intellectually stimulating, and,your contribution is magnified
in the smaller environments, andit's really fun, and cool to be

(45:50):
a part of. And, yeah, it's beena great ride.

Lou (45:54):
Yeah. You can really see the impact. Yeah. And, and it's
it's really interesting toobecause I think a lot of people
that have had exits, it's notalways, a successful exit. Like,
maybe they've been part of anorganization, but they haven't
really gotten what they werehoping, etcetera.
But you have obviously learnedprobably through some pain
points throughout the years.

Dan (46:14):
100%. Not a Yeah. Not all not every exit was, like,
massively successful from afinancial standpoint for all the
investors and everybody, but,you know, it getting to an exit
is really hard, particularly asa venture backed startup. Right?
They invest in 10, hoping one ortwo produce.
Right? Right.

Lou (46:33):
Right.

Dan (46:33):
And so but when you sometimes there's outcomes that
are modest that are really good,that are good for the customers,
and they're good for theemployees because maybe there
wasn't a huge financialwindfall, but it became part of
something bigger and continuedforward. Right. And and, you
know, and the customers hadgreat experience, and the
employees had career paths thatthey didn't expect. And, you

(46:56):
know, so I I try to measure allof those results as a part of
this. Of course, the you know,delivering for investors is is
very important, and I thinkabout that every day in in all
shareholders, internal andexternal.
So

Lou (47:12):
Mhmm. Yeah. Not a lot of people have that ex you know,
the the breadth and depth ofexperience that you do, so it's
really impressive. Thank you.Yeah.
And then, you know, what do youdo outside of work? You're on
the board of a couplenonprofits.

Dan (47:26):
I am. So I'd I've been involved with Big Brothers Big
Sisters of now Eastern Mass.They've broadened since I got
started. I was a big brother foralmost twelve years and then
just started fundraising andoffering advice on their
advisory board. Then also theJoin Drizzy Foundation, which
helps directly provide fundingto cancer patients in active

(47:50):
treatment who are havingfinancial troubles.
So we're paying mortgages andutility bills and providing
transportation and meals anddealing with food security
issues you know, for thousandsof patients who are in active
treatment. And it it'sastounding. I think it's like
more than fifty percent ofcancer patients end up filing
for some form of bankruptcy.

Lou (48:12):
That's I mean, to be honest, I think that's criminal
too. Probably a conversation foranother time.

Dan (48:17):
Yeah. That's a that's that's a long conversation. But

Lou (48:20):
Yeah. Yeah. But I think what you're doing, that's really
impressive, Dan. You're givingback. Yeah.
Amazing. That thanks.

Dan (48:26):
I appreciate it. Other than that, I'm I'm a girl dad. I've
got one daughter, and she's anamazing athlete. What's she
what's her sport? Softball.
We travel all around the countryOh, wow. Doing softballs just in
your neck of the woods playingin the national championships in
Huntington Beach for

Lou (48:41):
something new. Amazing.

Dan (48:42):
Our team, you know, did really well, and she played
great. And she's gonna go playin college. And so when I if I
when I have free time, it's mywife and I with her traveling
somewhere doing somethingsoftball related pretty much.

Lou (48:57):
Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a huge commitment, especially
these days because everyonetakes it so, so serious.

Dan (49:02):
Oh, yeah. You can tell. When you see me, I'm a terrible
golfer, and, you know, there'snot I when I can get out of the
ocean, I want to, but I don'tget to do it nearly enough.

Lou (49:12):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you're taking advantage of those
days. I've got the two boys thatare teens. My eldest is gonna be
graduating high school too.
So soon you'll have you'll be,you know, wanting to be as busy
as you were with with runningaround with softball and stuff.
So Yeah. Yeah. Take advantage ofit.

Dan (49:30):
My wife and I, we joke. Like, what are we gonna do next?
Like, we have all when we havethis time. Like, what are we
gonna talk about? Like, whereare gonna go?
What are we gonna do?

Lou (49:38):
Yeah. Somebody tells me you'll figure it out.

Dan (49:40):
No. We're looking for we look you look forward to it, but
you also are like, That's right.I don't know. It's been, like,
seventeen years of allconsuming, so I don't know.

Lou (49:48):
Right. Right. Yeah. That's the empty nest syndrome. Yeah.
So where can people find you?You're on LinkedIn, x. I don't
know if you're active on,Twitter slash x.

Dan (50:00):
I'm not as active as I I don't know. That platform last
couple years, I've just spentless time. And LinkedIn's the

Lou (50:06):
Yeah.

Dan (50:07):
Great place to reach me. People can reach me just at
dg@Amplex.com. Super simple. AndI love to talk to people. Love
to talk shop.
Spend lots of time talking toother owners, not about M and A,
just about industry and what'sgoing on. And, you know, I'm you
you know me pretty well. I'm anopen book. I'm happy to offer

(50:28):
advice, experience. I'm happy toask for advice from folks.
And so I love engaging withpeople.

Lou (50:34):
You've been super generous with your time with me, helping
me out. So

Dan (50:38):
Yeah. Well, you're you're running a great business with a
great product, so happy to doit.

Lou (50:42):
Thank you. Thank you, Dan, Gil.

Dan (50:45):
No. I appreciate it. This was great. Yeah. Look look
forward to, keeping the dialoguegoing, and hopefully, it's
helpful for folks out there onthe channel.

Lou (50:53):
Big time. Yeah. Thanks to everyone that's watching and or
listening. If if you learnedsomething today or laughed,
please tell someone about thispodcast. We're still new, so we
wanna spread the word.
Thanks again, Dan. Yeah. Andthis has been another exciting
episode of Channel SecuritySecrets. See you next time.
That's a wrap for this episodeof Channel Security Secrets.

(51:14):
Thanks for tuning in. For shownotes, guest info, and more
episodes, visit us atchannelsecuritysecrets.com.
Channel Security Secrets issponsored by Cyber Defense
Group. When it comes toprotecting your business, don't
settle for reactive. Partnerwith experts who build
resilience from the ground up.

All Episodes

Beyond Transactional Selling - Dan Gill - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #7

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Beyond Transactional Selling - Dan Gill - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #7