Hang with us today as we wrap up our track titled Tech Stack Mastery Secrets to sell across Cloud, Connectivity, and Security. Today, our guest is long-time partner Steve Davis from NDS. Steve has an amazingly winding backstory as to how he got started in this space, and the theme is that he didn't take no for an answer! Steve, a prior Marine, leveraged what he learned there to start developing his passion for fitness into technology and ultimately found himself face-to-face with enterprise decision-makers. Not only has he done an incredible job crossing over the tech stack, but he's also a newly minted CISSP, so he shares with us that journey and how it's changed his conversations on security and technology more broadly. Don't miss this one!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success selling
technology solutions. I'm your host Josh Lopresto, SVP
of Sales Engineering at Solaris,and this is Next Level Biztech.
Everybody. Welcome back.
We are wrapping up a track todaywith nobody better than Mr.
(00:21):
Steve Davis of Network Data Solutions.
Steve, welcome on man. How are you?
I'm I'm good, I'm better that you're here.
We, we, we got a lot of cool stuff.
I won't spoil it yet, but for everybody listening out there,
we're talking about tech stack mastery, secrets to sell across
the cloud, Colo connectivity, security, all the things.
(00:41):
So Steve, maybe, maybe just kickus off.
Let's I've, I've known you for awhile, but let's hear your
story. How did you get into this field?
Where did the path start? Windy, crazy stories fill us in.
All right, so I fell backwards into this, which is I, I
constantly reflect on it and, and see how I, I got to this
(01:03):
point in this wonderful field that we're in.
But, you know, did not have any sort of background in technology
whatsoever. And, and, but was fascinated
with it and, you know, wrestled,played football all my life,
typical jock type scenario, you know, got a, a small offer
(01:24):
coming out of high school from Middle Tennessee and, and just
my passion wasn't there for it. And I felt like that it was just
going to potentially be a waste of my time, you know, and wasn't
at that maturity level. I went to school for about 6
months and realized that, hey, I'm not ready for this college
(01:45):
life yet. And my family had had pretty
much been in, in a military typebackground for the most part.
Not everybody, but a good bit ofthem.
And was looking for that sports type challenge and was like,
hey, I'm going to go join the Marine Corps.
You know, we which, which one, which branch am I going to join?
(02:06):
I'm going to join the Marine Corps because I was looking for
that challenge, right? Well, I got the challenge so and
dove head first into it, went tothe recruiting station, talked
to him about it a little bit, told him that, you know, I was
looking to do some sort of, you know, special forces type
experience. You know, that was my goal to
(02:26):
get to that level, right. And then you take an ASVAB test
and the, the, the recruiter starts trying to talk you out of
going into the infantry. The only way, you know, the only
way you can get to that is goingto the, to the infantry.
And then, you know, that kind ofdictates where they're going to
place you, if you even get to that.
(02:49):
They tried to talk me out of it.You know, they were, you know,
they were like, hey, you can do anything you want in the
military. You're sure you want to do this.
And I was like, absolutely. You know, this is this is where
I'm going with it. So went, went, went down that
path. It did its job in the fact that
(03:09):
it grew me up very fast. And I was not at that point in
my life, you know, the maturity wasn't there when I reflect back
on it, but it did what it was supposed to do and, and got me
to that level of maturity very fast.
And so on that path, I got pulled out and, and was able to
(03:34):
go through a certain blame that they had and ended up getting a
top secret security clearance and put at Camp David, which was
was very, very interesting. Not this is really the first
time even being in the channel for what is it 1516 years, 17
(03:55):
years. I think that that I've never
really talked about it, never never really thought to talk
about it. Kept the cover well.
Respected. Yeah, yeah.
And so, but, but after that, youknow, I, I, I went as far as I
could go. I felt like in that and, and I
had this entrepreneurial bone inme and, and it was just, I
(04:19):
needed something more, you know,and, and there is love our
military, love America, love ourarmed forces and all that, but
there is a thumb on you. So I felt like there was more
out there for me to accomplish. And so once I got out of that, I
started a person I knew I wantedto be an entrepreneur of some
(04:42):
kind. And, and my first passion was,
was fitness. And when I got out of the Marine
Corps, I started a, a personal training business, borrowed
$7000 because you're not making any money in the military, I
promise you. And borrowed $7000 from my
parents, started a personal training business to where I
(05:03):
would go into homes and do you know, top to bottom programs for
them and really enjoyed it. And one of the only thing about
that was I couldn't duplicate it.
I couldn't duplicate my efforts.I just wasn't, I felt like there
was a better way to, to get scale of a, of a business and,
(05:26):
and I'm not scaling my time because it was a, a 16 hour
grind to where I was going into homes and all that good stuff.
And it just took a lot of time. And, and I've always been very
interested in technology, even though I did not know a lot
about it. And I had a customer, it's weird
(05:47):
how things lead to other things.And I had a customer that was
like, you know, what you need todo, You need to come sell
technology for me. And, and I thought about it and
I'd always had that interest in technology.
And so I, I spoke to him about it, told him I really didn't
know anything about technology. And he was talking more about
(06:10):
the infrastructure side. So that's not, I'm not going to
say it wasn't that hard to learn, but, you know, easier to
learn. And I could go into businesses
and, and try to get pretty much cabling jobs, right.
Cablings moves, ads, changes things of that nature and ran
into a larger banks VP of IT operations and he was into
(06:35):
triathlons. And so I started talking with
him about potentially being ableto come in and do infrastructure
for Compass Bank is the bank it was for.
And that led me down the path ofgetting into doing triathlons
and being able to kind of commingle my passion with
fitness along with the technology space.
(06:56):
And we became close in that process.
And we had probably at the end of that little run, we ended up
having about 50 technicians all over the Southeast from Texas to
Georgia and Florida, everywhere.They had a branch pretty much.
And we were doing moves, ads, changes, you know, back then it
(07:19):
was, it was taking two pair and swapping 2 pair to another thing
on the 66 block, you know, I mean it.
And so after that, I started really diving into the knowledge
behind technology, and then it just got really even more
interesting on that front. And so with that, Bobby Fabri,
(07:49):
I've got to mention this too. So Bobby Fabri comes to our
office and he, he comes in and he, he was working for pay Tech
at the time. And he's like, hey, you know,
you guys were already out here in the infrastructure space.
Why don't you start selling services?
Why don't you sell some connectivity to these customers?
Well, the light kind of clicked.I'm like, OK, explain this to
(08:13):
me. And then I started working as a
bar with Bobby at Pay Tech just on the side, just just as we, as
we ran into opportunities, I would ask the customer, hey, we
may can get you some Internet connectivity for, for a better
price than you're getting today and continue down that path.
(08:36):
Windstream purchase pay tech andI don't want to say anything
bad. This is one thing, you know, it
is what it is. But Windstream purchase pay tech
and, and, and, and, and I was missing a good bit of
commissions after that. After that happened, that's what
we'll say. And I knew that the model behind
what I was doing, even as a bar in those low commissions, the
(09:00):
model made sense. And you know, I can go out here
and put forth effort and get paid on that effort in
perpetuity as long as this customer is happy, right?
And, and that math made sense tome.
And then, you know, Fast forwardto the day and, and you know,
found Telaris through a search and Telaris put me with a
(09:26):
larger, larger group, telco management group.
And I worked under Marilyn Dooley for, for a while and
really started seeing all the services, not just Internet
connectivity, but all the services that could be sold out
there. And when you put a pencil to
paper or pen to paper and you start doing the math, it's
(09:48):
pretty powerful model, probably the most powerful model I've
ever seen in my life. And so I jumped head first into
it and started devouring information.
I mean devouring it. I wanted to be able to sell
every single thing that TSDS hadto offer.
And so that knowledge is is whatled me to where we are today.
(10:12):
So as you as you go through thatand and the customers come to
you and talk about. All right, tell us.
Give me the You're at the door. You got 30 seconds.
Give me the NDS elevator pitch. Where do you see?
How do you explain how NDS stands out?
How do we see how NDS stands out?
So usually I'm now anyway, and this has been a progression for
(10:37):
sure throughout the years, but now we're getting that initial
discovery presentation done. This is today.
Early on it was vomiting on people and not oh.
Yeah, yeah, you figured. Out early on, it was just a
vomiting on individuals and saying, hey, we can save you
money on Internet. And so now we're, we're, we're
(10:59):
putting together presentations that allow us to come in and,
and the number one thing I do today is we follow a challenger
sales model, which is was introduced to us through the
TSDS. And I let them know that I'm not
a salesperson, I'm a consultant for you and I'm not a yes man.
(11:20):
We're going to show you what it looks, what, what it should look
like. And then you can get these olive
cart services, but we're going to show you what it should look
like if someone asked us for Internet today, we're going to
show them a DIAA direct Internetaccess.
We're going to show them a coax.We're going to show them a 5G
wireless backup or 4G wireless backup, whatever along with
(11:43):
Starlink that is going to get connected into some sort of SD
Wan managed firewall device for that redundancy.
And it doesn't matter if they just ask for Internet
connectivity. That's the quote they're seeing
from us. And then when we go in, we're
saying this is what it should look like.
If it makes economical sense to the business, we can sell it a
(12:06):
la carte. But I do let them know that,
that, that we're there to show them what it should look like
mainly and, and regardless if they're needing those services
or not. And then the the solution, the
technology solutions map really lets them see, because these
people that you're in front of or businesses that you're in
front of, they can't, they really can't grasp all that we
(12:30):
can do without knowing that. Exactly.
I, I love it. I, I, I think that is the, that
is The funny thing about this business is surely everybody
knows all the things that we canhelp them with.
And you, you put yourself empathetically in their shoes
and we are just a sliver. We are 30 minutes in their 12
hour day depending on how much time we get right.
(12:51):
So they only know what. So I love the I love the
approach of, Hey, you asked for this.
This is how we look at things. And I think, I mean, that's
that's why we wanted you on thissession because this whole story
is about how do you go your yourstory is about transitioning in
a windy path and, and just constant progression,
progression, progression. And I think that that'll get us
(13:11):
into we're we're going to get tosome more of that, you know, the
evolving role in the cross selling things here in a second.
Maybe one, one final thought on this.
I always love asking this question.
Hard won wisdom over the last, you know, 15 plus years.
Something that you learned really hard yourself.
Great lesson from a mentor. What's what's been your stand
out? Get rid of your ego immediately.
(13:36):
Like when you come into this, there's no way to be a just a
top level expert on all of it. So listen, you know, listen, go
to these events, get rid of yourego, understand that there's a
lot that you do not know in thisindustry and, and constantly be
listening to others because their, their path is giving, you
(13:59):
know, giving them wisdom that you may not have another hard
one. Wisdom, you know, don't have all
of your eggs in one basket. We mentioned Compass Bank
earlier. BBVAA Brazilian company came
over and bought Compass Bank. So I went from A50 technician
business to hey, we don't have our one major customer anymore.
(14:23):
And it was the first really hardkick in the gut that I had to
get myself up off the floor fromtruthfully, because it was, it
was, it was devastating at the time it was.
So don't have all your eggs in one basket for sure.
And then as far as other like a mentor type wisdom that was
(14:48):
given was Dan Henderson was alsoa, a, as I was making the
transition over from in house personal trainer, fitness guru
to the technology world, I was explaining, you know, I, I
developed relationships with allof my, my, my fitness customers.
And, and he was a, you know, thepeople that could afford it were
(15:11):
usually CEO type individuals that, that were bringing me into
their home. And so we would have deep
personal conversations a lot of the time while we were doing
what we were doing. And he just, you know, he had,
he had, he had mentioned to me and he saw my drive and he just
said, you know, no matter what happens to you in life, your
(15:35):
word is all that you have. You know, your, your word is all
that you have and stay true to that.
And I kind of added some stuff, you know, since then, it's just,
you know, say what you mean and mean what you say.
You know, always try to make that person in front of you feel
better than when they first approached you and in any
(15:56):
situation. And then, you know, another
thing is just always do the right thing when nobody's
looking. You know, no matter what this,
this industry, it seems like to me, there are, there's room for
not so good activities, right? I mean, there's room for that.
(16:16):
And, and as long as you can stick with that no matter what,
do the right thing when nobody'slooking, you're always going to
be in the clear and and good to go.
So I love it. Those are great.
All right, let's, let's get in. Let's get into this idea of, you
know, you've got some secrets here.
(16:36):
We're talking about selling cross-platform, cross technology
stack. So from your perspective, what's
the what's the right, what's theeffective strategy if I start
with cloud and I move to security or I start with network
and I want to move to cloud? How are you positioning that
overall conversation? Walk us through some more of
that. So usually when we come in,
(16:57):
there is a need. We, we do a lot of referral
based relationships, right? If we go into a customer and
they're happy with what we've done, I asked for five referrals
every single time. You know, hey, if you, if you
liked what you saw here and we brought value to the table, pick
out five of your peers that you would like us to come in front
(17:22):
of and do the same exact thing we did for you over here with
them. And so as far as the transition,
for me, it's, it's all about listening to that customer and,
and, and finding out those needs, asking the questions,
making sure they know all that you can do.
And then the flow, the information flow will go with
(17:46):
that. You know, if it's, if it's a
budget issue, usually we're coming in saying, hey, you know,
if, if we're looking at cybersecurity, let's, and you
don't have the budget for what'sneeded on cybersecurity.
Let us look at the network piece, the UCAS piece.
Let's create some budget so thatyou can spend on the cyber
(18:08):
security needs and or cloud needs that are there that you
know, you have to have, but there's a budget issue.
So, you know, let us create thatbudget for you or at least look
into it and and potentially takethat, but you know the budget
savings and spend it over here where you where your must haves
are. Is that when you do that?
I mean, to me it seems so simplistic, but I don't think a
(18:30):
lot of customers think like this.
I mean, what's the reaction whenyou think like when you get the
customer thinking down that path?
The reaction, I, I would say that there's not a whole lot of,
of businesses out there that truly understand what we do.
You know, I mean, it's, we come in, we, we, we explain to them,
(18:51):
hey, they, they're looking at you as that salesperson.
And and I constantly reiterate to those customers, not a
salesperson, I'm not here selling widgets, OK, This is a
non transactional experience. This Is Us coming in and sitting
on your side of the table and helping you navigate this
(19:13):
humongous knowledge gap that's out there.
And this is, you know, seasoned CIOCTOS, doesn't matter.
They're busy running their business.
And so we're there to stay on that bleeding edge so that they
don't have to. And so once they see that we're
coming in and bringing value andwe're sitting on their side of
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the table, the to me, the trick is to get them to realize that
we are a partner with them. We are not that salesperson
trying to get them to buy everything under the sun.
We want to find out what it is the needs are.
And then once we find out those needs, we can navigate with
them, not for them, but with them down that path.
(19:54):
I. Love it.
So want to talk about, you know,your stories about growth and
and kind of where you've come from, where you started.
When we when we got together a while back, couple years ago, we
we were talking, you know, obviously we talk a lot about
certifications. We love certifications at
Telaris. You know, we think it's it's
(20:15):
helpful in in staying in tune with what's happening in the
industry as we get into discovery calls all all those
reasons that we talk about you recently.
I found out, picked up a pretty interesting certification and I,
I love hearing this and kind of hearing what your plan is, but
walk us through maybe why you set your sights on that and, and
(20:37):
now really let's talk about, youknow, what drove that and how
you plan on leveraging that and what is this cert?
So I did and it was, it was a very fun, brutal path, I will
tell you that. And, and what made me, it's kind
of along the lines with that, that military experience, right?
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I went and I was like, OK, I'm going to join.
I'm going to go into the military.
And immediately my mindset is which one is supposedly, I don't
want to offend anyone in other branches, but which one is
supposedly the hardest, right? And, and for, you know, the, the
opinion is usually that the Marine Corps is the hardest.
And that's where I've been, I'm going to the Marine Corps.
(21:19):
Same situation with this. You know, what's the hardest
subject that we deal with? Being a trusted advisor.
To me, it seems to be cybersecurity.
And then immediately ask myself,what's the hardest certification
in cybersecurity to get? And the from what I've seen, the
(21:40):
opinion is, is the CISSP or Certified Information Security
Services professional is the toughest 1.
And so I just decided that that's the one that I was going
to go. After.
Why not? Why not?
Yeah, why not? And, and so when I decided that
of course, I was on Teleris University and to take as much
(22:04):
free knowledge that's out there like that as I could before, I
decided to go after the CSSP. Well, I had done a couple of
courses on there and thought, man, I'm pretty good.
You know, I feel pretty good about this.
So I sign up to take this test and I go in and I'm sitting down
palm scans, you know, they're just all, you know, very strict
(22:26):
on this test and sat down. And after that, three hours,
actually about 30 minutes in, I thought I had signed up for the
wrong test. And so once I realized that it
is that hard and there's so muchmore knowledge involved behind
the aspects of the CIS SP, I washooked.
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I was hooked. So then after that experience,
I, I went and then knew I neededto dive in pretty hard and, and
started getting up at at 4:30 inthe morning, studying from 5:00
to 8:00 a little bit every single day, going to bed,
reading about it. Where was I, where were the gaps
(23:09):
in my knowledge? I would stick, you know,
strictly on that until I could talk to my wife or others about
it and teach them about it. And if I couldn't do that, I've.
I've read that Common Book of Knowledge four Times Now.
That's what it took for me. Yeah, but, but, but it's an
interesting read. If there's one thing I suggest
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to all the partners out there isgo grab a copy of that book and
read it. Because if you're in this
industry, if you never want to try to get that certification,
that Common Book of Knowledge goes over the enterprise complex
circulatory system right from start to finish.
(23:51):
And it really opened my eyes up to how much more I needed to
learn not only about cybersecurity, not only about
the inner workings of the enterprise, but just as a whole,
how it all fits together. And so that would be a
suggestion for all partners is hey, go grab a copy of that, go
(24:12):
to Amazon and read that cover tocover one time and it will help
further everything you do with your business discussions.
Love it big. Big congratulations was super
excited to hear that you knockedthat one out.
And I think it will, it will pay, it will pay dividends.
And I, you know, I, I guess I don't want to put words in your
(24:33):
mouth, but I'm curious because I've seen how this can be
effective in conversations. But what's your plan like when
you, you, you, you've mastered this body of knowledge, you feel
that you, you know, I like your example, the enterprise
circulatory system. What's, how does, how does that
change when you go into a discovery conversation with a
(24:54):
customer before and how do you go into a maybe a security
conversation after? What, what does that change in
your frame up? So.
Before and and a lot of this andand that that path to get that
was about my confidence, my confidence in that I deserve to
(25:15):
be sitting at that table. I didn't have that.
I will be very honest. I'll get vulnerable about it.
I didn't have that I I and and just not having the background
of technology right. I was always questioning myself,
did I know enough to go have an enterprise level conversation
(25:35):
with C-Suite executives? And one of the main reasons why
I was so dedicated to getting that is that allowed me to have
the confidence to know that I deserve to have a seat at any
table. And so that was the biggest
boost for me. And I think it will transition
over to the business conversations being had with
(25:58):
with C-Suite executives. You know, there's no more
jockeying for, you know, hey, who knows more about this?
Who no more, you know, who knowsmore about that, which I see a
lot in this industry. And it's, hey, here, I've got
this. It also allows those C-Suite
executives to believe in you andso that belief helps and just
(26:19):
piles on to that confidence and and it shows in the
conversations you have with these guys.
Awesome. Let's go let's go to an example
here. So walk us through a customer
that you got brought into maybe what was the tech stack?
I mean, this is about kind of cross selling, you know, going
different paths. What was the what was the
environment before and then whatwere the problems and kind of
(26:41):
how did it look after? Yep.
Am I allowed to mention names? I guess if you want it's.
Up to you SO. So we've got a large customer
Sarah Automotive dealership, oneof the top ten dealerships in
the country and and when we first went in, you know, it was
(27:02):
a Internet connectivity, right, Internet connectivity.
They needed this. Well, they are running a very
lean IT center I will say and simply asking the questions, you
know, going in with Internet connectivity, we ended up they
hadn't they hadn't looked at their Internet connectivity in
(27:24):
years and we ended up saving them mass amounts of money,
which gave them competent confidence in us to be able to
look at other services. And truthfully, the cross
selling is, is, is every single time we go into a customer, not
only Sarah Automotive, but everysingle one we're asking, you
(27:44):
know, hey, let us look at all ofyour services, not just this
Internet connectivity. Doesn't matter what it is.
You're, you know, where, where do you stand today?
Where are you having issues in your knowledge today on the
services that you have? And most people are just, you
know, minus the minus the large enterprise, they don't have the
(28:06):
money to spend on the IT services side and especially
for, for labor. And so us going in, we are
looking, we and we tell people when we first come in, we want
to see the entire stack. The more you give us, the more
we can put on a spreadsheet for you, the more we can compare
pricing. Even if you don't get it from
(28:28):
us, right, at least you'll have an idea of what it is that's out
there. And when you do need it, you're
going to come back to us. So that's, that's really, I
think the most important thing to, to me was, was once we
realized and once I realized that that all of these services,
services can and should be facilitated.
(28:52):
I, I get away from the sales word.
People are so against sales, right?
And so I just tell I'm not a sales, I'm an expert
facilitator. I'm going to help you down this
path and, and so asking those questions each and every time,
no matter if it's a one phone doctor's office or a healthcare
organization with 10,000 people,ask the question.
(29:14):
Can I, you know, you like what we've done here, You know, let
us look at your, your other services, whether it's
cybersecurity, what are you doing for your, you know, your
access points. Let's take a look at that, make
sure they're secured properly. What are you doing?
Have you, have you migrated to the cloud yet?
Are you looking to do so? The AI question now, of course,
(29:39):
you know, how are you integrating AI?
Have you integrated AI into yourcustomer experience model or
your your contact center? You know, just just question
after question. You need to have these questions
imprinted into your mind so thatyou are asking them every single
time. I love it.
(30:02):
I, that's the, I was going to talk about kind of some of the
roadblocks that I see out there,but I think you kind of called
it out in that, it the, the onlytime where we've seen advisors
not be successful is just because they didn't ask or they
didn't think that maybe they didn't know that that was in the
portfolio to, to, to have at their, at their, you know, at
(30:22):
their beck and call. They didn't know that that arrow
was in the quiver. And so I love that you've got
this programmatized to just ask every single time.
And, and I, I think if you run that discipline process and
you've got your CRMI, think the,the worst thing that happens out
of all of this is they go, hey, Steve, you know, that's great.
I, I love that you're asking us about that.
(30:43):
Let's work on this one thing right now.
But in we're stuck in contract for about 6 or nine months.
Great. Put it in the CRM, ping them
back in six months before anybody else does.
Just keep asking, keep asking, keep asking.
I love you mentioned the checklist, right?
I, I'd envisioned it in the, youknow, door knocking days, like
that checklist would be plastered on my cubicle and just
(31:03):
just ask because if they don't, if they don't know that you do
it, they're never going to bringit up to you.
And and that's. One thing it being that that
when I jumped into this, I had zero knowledge, right, zero
knowledge, scared to death. And I think that's what happens
to partners that aren't asking the questions.
If you ask a question about contact center right and it the
(31:28):
partner themselves or or me, at least, I was scared that they
were going to ask a question back that I wouldn't know, you
know, I'm not going to know this.
But in reality, we've got so many people that are experts in
this. Ask the question and if they ask
you something simply say Hey I don't know this but I do have a
(31:49):
team of people that do and and bring them to the table to help
help you out and sell those complex systems.
Final couple thoughts here as weget towards the end.
I mean, if I'm a, if I'm a partner, you, you, I think you
covered this pretty good. But if, if I'm a partner and I'm
going all right, I'm, I'm boughtin Steve's got me hyped up.
(32:12):
I'm ready. I'm not afraid.
What's the, what's the best advice for partners to, to
continue to identify these and position themselves in that
correctly? How would you put a bow on kind
of some of these thoughts we've talked about?
Will be funny for a minute, but I, I think about this and, and I
think that the majority of partners have that fear of
(32:36):
rejection. I did as well, right?
And, and one of the best things I can tell you to do is start
singing karaoke. So if you can, so if you can
start singing karaoke and you'renot a good singer.
And this is something that I didbecause I was deathly afraid to
to speak publicly. I mean, I was, I was deathly
(32:58):
afraid of it. I don't know why.
I was just deathly afraid of it.And I was talking to somebody
and, and, and just said, you know what, I'm going to start
singing karaoke. And we would go out and I would
sing karaoke and was horrible atit.
And if you can make it through that, then you can, you know,
you cannot be afraid to ask those questions every single
time. But but on a more serious note
(33:20):
for partners themselves, they need to get engaged with every
piece of knowledge aspect out there so they don't have that
fear. Everything Telaris has to offer,
there's AI mean I would love to know the value, the quantitative
value of that Telaris universitythat is a free source of
(33:44):
knowledge and there's so much onthere in every aspect of what we
sell. You know, if I, I, I don't know
the quantitative amount that that would be worth, but it's a
lot. And so every event you can go to
that you can afford to go to go to every single virtual event
(34:05):
that you can go to, go to, you have to know the technology or
the theory behind the technology, as well as know
what's in the portfolio so that you can translate to your
customer of where to go. And so you need to know that
that portfolio backwards and forwards and get with your, you
(34:27):
know, your channel managers thatshould know that portfolio
backwards and forwards and, and simply ask, don't be afraid to
ask the questions and don't be afraid to jump in and snag all
of that, that free knowledge that's out there as much as you
can retain, as much as you physically can do so All right.
(34:47):
Final thoughts. So let's look into Steve's
crystal wall. You got the next 12 to 24
months. What are the innovations in the
market you're looking the most forward to that are just out
there products or just innovations in general?
Innovations. In general, quantum computing,
quantum computing has is, is fascinating to me.
You know, when, when Google cameout with that Willow chip and
(35:12):
did what frontier it would take them what I believe it was 10
septillion years and it does it in 5 minutes, you know, and
being that I dove head first into the cybersecurity realm,
where does that leave us in, in the cybersecurity realm with
the, with the cryptographic, youknow, analysis and everything
(35:34):
else? I mean, it's, I'm very
interested to see where that takes us and the evolution of a,
you know, how far will it go? I can't wait to see the the
robots that are helping us do our our everyday task, laundry
and cooking and everything else because it's coming, you know
it's coming and it's coming at avery fast pace.
(35:55):
Fair points. I love it.
Well, man, a lot of good stuff. Lots of lots of good stuff.
I appreciate you coming on. It's been a blast, man.
It's been a blast. Thank you very.
Much I'm honored to be on here and and you know we we watching
this industry grow has been fascinating it's taken me a
(36:15):
little while longer to ramp up than I would have liked, but
it's it's it's happening and it's fun and and I enjoy it and
thank all you guys and and. Oh, by the way too, thank you
for your service. We appreciate.
Oh, absolutely. So, yes, all right.
Everybody that wraps us up for this week.
As always, remember wherever you're coming to us from Apple
Music, Spotify follow subscribe so you get these as they drop
(36:39):
every Wednesday and don't miss any of them.
It has been tech stack mastery secrets to sell across cloud
connectivity and security. Steve Davis, network data
solutions. I'm your host, Josh La Presto
SVP of sales engineering at Solaris.
Until next time. Thank you this level Biztech has
been a production of Solaris Studio 19.
Please visit telaris.com For more information.
Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success selling
technology solutions. I'm your host Josh Lopresto, SVP
of Sales Engineering at Solaris,and this is Next Level Biztech.
Everybody. Welcome back.
We are wrapping up a track todaywith nobody better than Mr.
(00:21):
Steve Davis of Network Data Solutions.
Steve, welcome on man. How are you?
I'm I'm good, I'm better that you're here.
We, we, we got a lot of cool stuff.
I won't spoil it yet, but for everybody listening out there,
we're talking about tech stack mastery, secrets to sell across
the cloud, Colo connectivity, security, all the things.
(00:41):
So Steve, maybe, maybe just kickus off.
Let's I've, I've known you for awhile, but let's hear your
story. How did you get into this field?
Where did the path start? Windy, crazy stories fill us in.
All right, so I fell backwards into this, which is I, I
constantly reflect on it and, and see how I, I got to this
(01:03):
point in this wonderful field that we're in.
But, you know, did not have any sort of background in technology
whatsoever. And, and, but was fascinated
with it and, you know, wrestled,played football all my life,
typical jock type scenario, you know, got a, a small offer
(01:24):
coming out of high school from Middle Tennessee and, and just
my passion wasn't there for it. And I felt like that it was just
going to potentially be a waste of my time, you know, and wasn't
at that maturity level. I went to school for about 6
months and realized that, hey, I'm not ready for this college
(01:45):
life yet. And my family had had pretty
much been in, in a military typebackground for the most part.
Not everybody, but a good bit ofthem.
And was looking for that sports type challenge and was like,
hey, I'm going to go join the Marine Corps.
You know, we which, which one, which branch am I going to join?
(02:06):
I'm going to join the Marine Corps because I was looking for
that challenge, right? Well, I got the challenge so and
dove head first into it, went tothe recruiting station, talked
to him about it a little bit, told him that, you know, I was
looking to do some sort of, you know, special forces type
experience. You know, that was my goal to
(02:26):
get to that level, right. And then you take an ASVAB test
and the, the, the recruiter starts trying to talk you out of
going into the infantry. The only way, you know, the only
way you can get to that is goingto the, to the infantry.
And then, you know, that kind ofdictates where they're going to
place you, if you even get to that.
(02:49):
They tried to talk me out of it.You know, they were, you know,
they were like, hey, you can do anything you want in the
military. You're sure you want to do this.
And I was like, absolutely. You know, this is this is where
I'm going with it. So went, went, went down that
path. It did its job in the fact that
(03:09):
it grew me up very fast. And I was not at that point in
my life, you know, the maturity wasn't there when I reflect back
on it, but it did what it was supposed to do and, and got me
to that level of maturity very fast.
And so on that path, I got pulled out and, and was able to
(03:34):
go through a certain blame that they had and ended up getting a
top secret security clearance and put at Camp David, which was
was very, very interesting. Not this is really the first
time even being in the channel for what is it 1516 years, 17
(03:55):
years. I think that that I've never
really talked about it, never never really thought to talk
about it. Kept the cover well.
Respected. Yeah, yeah.
And so, but, but after that, youknow, I, I, I went as far as I
could go. I felt like in that and, and I
had this entrepreneurial bone inme and, and it was just, I
(04:19):
needed something more, you know,and, and there is love our
military, love America, love ourarmed forces and all that, but
there is a thumb on you. So I felt like there was more
out there for me to accomplish. And so once I got out of that, I
started a person I knew I wantedto be an entrepreneur of some
(04:42):
kind. And, and my first passion was,
was fitness. And when I got out of the Marine
Corps, I started a, a personal training business, borrowed
$7000 because you're not making any money in the military, I
promise you. And borrowed $7000 from my
parents, started a personal training business to where I
(05:03):
would go into homes and do you know, top to bottom programs for
them and really enjoyed it. And one of the only thing about
that was I couldn't duplicate it.
I couldn't duplicate my efforts.I just wasn't, I felt like there
was a better way to, to get scale of a, of a business and,
(05:26):
and I'm not scaling my time because it was a, a 16 hour
grind to where I was going into homes and all that good stuff.
And it just took a lot of time. And, and I've always been very
interested in technology, even though I did not know a lot
about it. And I had a customer, it's weird
(05:47):
how things lead to other things.And I had a customer that was
like, you know, what you need todo, You need to come sell
technology for me. And, and I thought about it and
I'd always had that interest in technology.
And so I, I spoke to him about it, told him I really didn't
know anything about technology. And he was talking more about
(06:10):
the infrastructure side. So that's not, I'm not going to
say it wasn't that hard to learn, but, you know, easier to
learn. And I could go into businesses
and, and try to get pretty much cabling jobs, right.
Cablings moves, ads, changes things of that nature and ran
into a larger banks VP of IT operations and he was into
(06:35):
triathlons. And so I started talking with
him about potentially being ableto come in and do infrastructure
for Compass Bank is the bank it was for.
And that led me down the path ofgetting into doing triathlons
and being able to kind of commingle my passion with
fitness along with the technology space.
(06:56):
And we became close in that process.
And we had probably at the end of that little run, we ended up
having about 50 technicians all over the Southeast from Texas to
Georgia and Florida, everywhere.They had a branch pretty much.
And we were doing moves, ads, changes, you know, back then it
(07:19):
was, it was taking two pair and swapping 2 pair to another thing
on the 66 block, you know, I mean it.
And so after that, I started really diving into the knowledge
behind technology, and then it just got really even more
interesting on that front. And so with that, Bobby Fabri,
(07:49):
I've got to mention this too. So Bobby Fabri comes to our
office and he, he comes in and he, he was working for pay Tech
at the time. And he's like, hey, you know,
you guys were already out here in the infrastructure space.
Why don't you start selling services?
Why don't you sell some connectivity to these customers?
Well, the light kind of clicked.I'm like, OK, explain this to
(08:13):
me. And then I started working as a
bar with Bobby at Pay Tech just on the side, just just as we, as
we ran into opportunities, I would ask the customer, hey, we
may can get you some Internet connectivity for, for a better
price than you're getting today and continue down that path.
(08:36):
Windstream purchase pay tech andI don't want to say anything
bad. This is one thing, you know, it
is what it is. But Windstream purchase pay tech
and, and, and, and, and I was missing a good bit of
commissions after that. After that happened, that's what
we'll say. And I knew that the model behind
what I was doing, even as a bar in those low commissions, the
(09:00):
model made sense. And you know, I can go out here
and put forth effort and get paid on that effort in
perpetuity as long as this customer is happy, right?
And, and that math made sense tome.
And then, you know, Fast forwardto the day and, and you know,
found Telaris through a search and Telaris put me with a
(09:26):
larger, larger group, telco management group.
And I worked under Marilyn Dooley for, for a while and
really started seeing all the services, not just Internet
connectivity, but all the services that could be sold out
there. And when you put a pencil to
paper or pen to paper and you start doing the math, it's
(09:48):
pretty powerful model, probably the most powerful model I've
ever seen in my life. And so I jumped head first into
it and started devouring information.
I mean devouring it. I wanted to be able to sell
every single thing that TSDS hadto offer.
And so that knowledge is is whatled me to where we are today.
(10:12):
So as you as you go through thatand and the customers come to
you and talk about. All right, tell us.
Give me the You're at the door. You got 30 seconds.
Give me the NDS elevator pitch. Where do you see?
How do you explain how NDS stands out?
How do we see how NDS stands out?
So usually I'm now anyway, and this has been a progression for
(10:37):
sure throughout the years, but now we're getting that initial
discovery presentation done. This is today.
Early on it was vomiting on people and not oh.
Yeah, yeah, you figured. Out early on, it was just a
vomiting on individuals and saying, hey, we can save you
money on Internet. And so now we're, we're, we're
(10:59):
putting together presentations that allow us to come in and,
and the number one thing I do today is we follow a challenger
sales model, which is was introduced to us through the
TSDS. And I let them know that I'm not
a salesperson, I'm a consultant for you and I'm not a yes man.
(11:20):
We're going to show you what it looks, what, what it should look
like. And then you can get these olive
cart services, but we're going to show you what it should look
like if someone asked us for Internet today, we're going to
show them a DIAA direct Internetaccess.
We're going to show them a coax.We're going to show them a 5G
wireless backup or 4G wireless backup, whatever along with
(11:43):
Starlink that is going to get connected into some sort of SD
Wan managed firewall device for that redundancy.
And it doesn't matter if they just ask for Internet
connectivity. That's the quote they're seeing
from us. And then when we go in, we're
saying this is what it should look like.
If it makes economical sense to the business, we can sell it a
(12:06):
la carte. But I do let them know that,
that, that we're there to show them what it should look like
mainly and, and regardless if they're needing those services
or not. And then the the solution, the
technology solutions map really lets them see, because these
people that you're in front of or businesses that you're in
front of, they can't, they really can't grasp all that we
(12:30):
can do without knowing that. Exactly.
I, I love it. I, I, I think that is the, that
is The funny thing about this business is surely everybody
knows all the things that we canhelp them with.
And you, you put yourself empathetically in their shoes
and we are just a sliver. We are 30 minutes in their 12
hour day depending on how much time we get right.
(12:51):
So they only know what. So I love the I love the
approach of, Hey, you asked for this.
This is how we look at things. And I think, I mean, that's
that's why we wanted you on thissession because this whole story
is about how do you go your yourstory is about transitioning in
a windy path and, and just constant progression,
progression, progression. And I think that that'll get us
(13:11):
into we're we're going to get tosome more of that, you know, the
evolving role in the cross selling things here in a second.
Maybe one, one final thought on this.
I always love asking this question.
Hard won wisdom over the last, you know, 15 plus years.
Something that you learned really hard yourself.
Great lesson from a mentor. What's what's been your stand
out? Get rid of your ego immediately.
(13:36):
Like when you come into this, there's no way to be a just a
top level expert on all of it. So listen, you know, listen, go
to these events, get rid of yourego, understand that there's a
lot that you do not know in thisindustry and, and constantly be
listening to others because their, their path is giving, you
(13:59):
know, giving them wisdom that you may not have another hard
one. Wisdom, you know, don't have all
of your eggs in one basket. We mentioned Compass Bank
earlier. BBVAA Brazilian company came
over and bought Compass Bank. So I went from A50 technician
business to hey, we don't have our one major customer anymore.
(14:23):
And it was the first really hardkick in the gut that I had to
get myself up off the floor fromtruthfully, because it was, it
was, it was devastating at the time it was.
So don't have all your eggs in one basket for sure.
And then as far as other like a mentor type wisdom that was
(14:48):
given was Dan Henderson was alsoa, a, as I was making the
transition over from in house personal trainer, fitness guru
to the technology world, I was explaining, you know, I, I
developed relationships with allof my, my, my fitness customers.
And, and he was a, you know, thepeople that could afford it were
(15:11):
usually CEO type individuals that, that were bringing me into
their home. And so we would have deep
personal conversations a lot of the time while we were doing
what we were doing. And he just, you know, he had,
he had, he had mentioned to me and he saw my drive and he just
said, you know, no matter what happens to you in life, your
(15:35):
word is all that you have. You know, your, your word is all
that you have and stay true to that.
And I kind of added some stuff, you know, since then, it's just,
you know, say what you mean and mean what you say.
You know, always try to make that person in front of you feel
better than when they first approached you and in any
(15:56):
situation. And then, you know, another
thing is just always do the right thing when nobody's
looking. You know, no matter what this,
this industry, it seems like to me, there are, there's room for
not so good activities, right? I mean, there's room for that.
(16:16):
And, and as long as you can stick with that no matter what,
do the right thing when nobody'slooking, you're always going to
be in the clear and and good to go.
So I love it. Those are great.
All right, let's, let's get in. Let's get into this idea of, you
know, you've got some secrets here.
(16:36):
We're talking about selling cross-platform, cross technology
stack. So from your perspective, what's
the what's the right, what's theeffective strategy if I start
with cloud and I move to security or I start with network
and I want to move to cloud? How are you positioning that
overall conversation? Walk us through some more of
that. So usually when we come in,
(16:57):
there is a need. We, we do a lot of referral
based relationships, right? If we go into a customer and
they're happy with what we've done, I asked for five referrals
every single time. You know, hey, if you, if you
liked what you saw here and we brought value to the table, pick
out five of your peers that you would like us to come in front
(17:22):
of and do the same exact thing we did for you over here with
them. And so as far as the transition,
for me, it's, it's all about listening to that customer and,
and, and finding out those needs, asking the questions,
making sure they know all that you can do.
And then the flow, the information flow will go with
(17:46):
that. You know, if it's, if it's a
budget issue, usually we're coming in saying, hey, you know,
if, if we're looking at cybersecurity, let's, and you
don't have the budget for what'sneeded on cybersecurity.
Let us look at the network piece, the UCAS piece.
Let's create some budget so thatyou can spend on the cyber
(18:08):
security needs and or cloud needs that are there that you
know, you have to have, but there's a budget issue.
So, you know, let us create thatbudget for you or at least look
into it and and potentially takethat, but you know the budget
savings and spend it over here where you where your must haves
are. Is that when you do that?
I mean, to me it seems so simplistic, but I don't think a
(18:30):
lot of customers think like this.
I mean, what's the reaction whenyou think like when you get the
customer thinking down that path?
The reaction, I, I would say that there's not a whole lot of,
of businesses out there that truly understand what we do.
You know, I mean, it's, we come in, we, we, we explain to them,
(18:51):
hey, they, they're looking at you as that salesperson.
And and I constantly reiterate to those customers, not a
salesperson, I'm not here selling widgets, OK, This is a
non transactional experience. This Is Us coming in and sitting
on your side of the table and helping you navigate this
(19:13):
humongous knowledge gap that's out there.
And this is, you know, seasoned CIOCTOS, doesn't matter.
They're busy running their business.
And so we're there to stay on that bleeding edge so that they
don't have to. And so once they see that we're
coming in and bringing value andwe're sitting on their side of
(19:34):
the table, the to me, the trick is to get them to realize that
we are a partner with them. We are not that salesperson
trying to get them to buy everything under the sun.
We want to find out what it is the needs are.
And then once we find out those needs, we can navigate with
them, not for them, but with them down that path.
(19:54):
I. Love it.
So want to talk about, you know,your stories about growth and
and kind of where you've come from, where you started.
When we when we got together a while back, couple years ago, we
we were talking, you know, obviously we talk a lot about
certifications. We love certifications at
Telaris. You know, we think it's it's
(20:15):
helpful in in staying in tune with what's happening in the
industry as we get into discovery calls all all those
reasons that we talk about you recently.
I found out, picked up a pretty interesting certification and I,
I love hearing this and kind of hearing what your plan is, but
walk us through maybe why you set your sights on that and, and
(20:37):
now really let's talk about, youknow, what drove that and how
you plan on leveraging that and what is this cert?
So I did and it was, it was a very fun, brutal path, I will
tell you that. And, and what made me, it's kind
of along the lines with that, that military experience, right?
(20:57):
I went and I was like, OK, I'm going to join.
I'm going to go into the military.
And immediately my mindset is which one is supposedly, I don't
want to offend anyone in other branches, but which one is
supposedly the hardest, right? And, and for, you know, the, the
opinion is usually that the Marine Corps is the hardest.
And that's where I've been, I'm going to the Marine Corps.
(21:19):
Same situation with this. You know, what's the hardest
subject that we deal with? Being a trusted advisor.
To me, it seems to be cybersecurity.
And then immediately ask myself,what's the hardest certification
in cybersecurity to get? And the from what I've seen, the
(21:40):
opinion is, is the CISSP or Certified Information Security
Services professional is the toughest 1.
And so I just decided that that's the one that I was going
to go. After.
Why not? Why not?
Yeah, why not? And, and so when I decided that
of course, I was on Teleris University and to take as much
(22:04):
free knowledge that's out there like that as I could before, I
decided to go after the CSSP. Well, I had done a couple of
courses on there and thought, man, I'm pretty good.
You know, I feel pretty good about this.
So I sign up to take this test and I go in and I'm sitting down
palm scans, you know, they're just all, you know, very strict
(22:26):
on this test and sat down. And after that, three hours,
actually about 30 minutes in, I thought I had signed up for the
wrong test. And so once I realized that it
is that hard and there's so muchmore knowledge involved behind
the aspects of the CIS SP, I washooked.
(22:48):
I was hooked. So then after that experience,
I, I went and then knew I neededto dive in pretty hard and, and
started getting up at at 4:30 inthe morning, studying from 5:00
to 8:00 a little bit every single day, going to bed,
reading about it. Where was I, where were the gaps
(23:09):
in my knowledge? I would stick, you know,
strictly on that until I could talk to my wife or others about
it and teach them about it. And if I couldn't do that, I've.
I've read that Common Book of Knowledge four Times Now.
That's what it took for me. Yeah, but, but, but it's an
interesting read. If there's one thing I suggest
(23:30):
to all the partners out there isgo grab a copy of that book and
read it. Because if you're in this
industry, if you never want to try to get that certification,
that Common Book of Knowledge goes over the enterprise complex
circulatory system right from start to finish.
(23:51):
And it really opened my eyes up to how much more I needed to
learn not only about cybersecurity, not only about
the inner workings of the enterprise, but just as a whole,
how it all fits together. And so that would be a
suggestion for all partners is hey, go grab a copy of that, go
(24:12):
to Amazon and read that cover tocover one time and it will help
further everything you do with your business discussions.
Love it big. Big congratulations was super
excited to hear that you knockedthat one out.
And I think it will, it will pay, it will pay dividends.
And I, you know, I, I guess I don't want to put words in your
(24:33):
mouth, but I'm curious because I've seen how this can be
effective in conversations. But what's your plan like when
you, you, you, you've mastered this body of knowledge, you feel
that you, you know, I like your example, the enterprise
circulatory system. What's, how does, how does that
change when you go into a discovery conversation with a
(24:54):
customer before and how do you go into a maybe a security
conversation after? What, what does that change in
your frame up? So.
Before and and a lot of this andand that that path to get that
was about my confidence, my confidence in that I deserve to
(25:15):
be sitting at that table. I didn't have that.
I will be very honest. I'll get vulnerable about it.
I didn't have that I I and and just not having the background
of technology right. I was always questioning myself,
did I know enough to go have an enterprise level conversation
(25:35):
with C-Suite executives? And one of the main reasons why
I was so dedicated to getting that is that allowed me to have
the confidence to know that I deserve to have a seat at any
table. And so that was the biggest
boost for me. And I think it will transition
over to the business conversations being had with
(25:58):
with C-Suite executives. You know, there's no more
jockeying for, you know, hey, who knows more about this?
Who no more, you know, who knowsmore about that, which I see a
lot in this industry. And it's, hey, here, I've got
this. It also allows those C-Suite
executives to believe in you andso that belief helps and just
(26:19):
piles on to that confidence and and it shows in the
conversations you have with these guys.
Awesome. Let's go let's go to an example
here. So walk us through a customer
that you got brought into maybe what was the tech stack?
I mean, this is about kind of cross selling, you know, going
different paths. What was the what was the
environment before and then whatwere the problems and kind of
(26:41):
how did it look after? Yep.
Am I allowed to mention names? I guess if you want it's.
Up to you SO. So we've got a large customer
Sarah Automotive dealership, oneof the top ten dealerships in
the country and and when we first went in, you know, it was
(27:02):
a Internet connectivity, right, Internet connectivity.
They needed this. Well, they are running a very
lean IT center I will say and simply asking the questions, you
know, going in with Internet connectivity, we ended up they
hadn't they hadn't looked at their Internet connectivity in
(27:24):
years and we ended up saving them mass amounts of money,
which gave them competent confidence in us to be able to
look at other services. And truthfully, the cross
selling is, is, is every single time we go into a customer, not
only Sarah Automotive, but everysingle one we're asking, you
(27:44):
know, hey, let us look at all ofyour services, not just this
Internet connectivity. Doesn't matter what it is.
You're, you know, where, where do you stand today?
Where are you having issues in your knowledge today on the
services that you have? And most people are just, you
know, minus the minus the large enterprise, they don't have the
(28:06):
money to spend on the IT services side and especially
for, for labor. And so us going in, we are
looking, we and we tell people when we first come in, we want
to see the entire stack. The more you give us, the more
we can put on a spreadsheet for you, the more we can compare
pricing. Even if you don't get it from
(28:28):
us, right, at least you'll have an idea of what it is that's out
there. And when you do need it, you're
going to come back to us. So that's, that's really, I
think the most important thing to, to me was, was once we
realized and once I realized that that all of these services,
services can and should be facilitated.
(28:52):
I, I get away from the sales word.
People are so against sales, right?
And so I just tell I'm not a sales, I'm an expert
facilitator. I'm going to help you down this
path and, and so asking those questions each and every time,
no matter if it's a one phone doctor's office or a healthcare
organization with 10,000 people,ask the question.
(29:14):
Can I, you know, you like what we've done here, You know, let
us look at your, your other services, whether it's
cybersecurity, what are you doing for your, you know, your
access points. Let's take a look at that, make
sure they're secured properly. What are you doing?
Have you, have you migrated to the cloud yet?
Are you looking to do so? The AI question now, of course,
(29:39):
you know, how are you integrating AI?
Have you integrated AI into yourcustomer experience model or
your your contact center? You know, just just question
after question. You need to have these questions
imprinted into your mind so thatyou are asking them every single
time. I love it.
(30:02):
I, that's the, I was going to talk about kind of some of the
roadblocks that I see out there,but I think you kind of called
it out in that, it the, the onlytime where we've seen advisors
not be successful is just because they didn't ask or they
didn't think that maybe they didn't know that that was in the
portfolio to, to, to have at their, at their, you know, at
(30:22):
their beck and call. They didn't know that that arrow
was in the quiver. And so I love that you've got
this programmatized to just ask every single time.
And, and I, I think if you run that discipline process and
you've got your CRMI, think the,the worst thing that happens out
of all of this is they go, hey, Steve, you know, that's great.
I, I love that you're asking us about that.
(30:43):
Let's work on this one thing right now.
But in we're stuck in contract for about 6 or nine months.
Great. Put it in the CRM, ping them
back in six months before anybody else does.
Just keep asking, keep asking, keep asking.
I love you mentioned the checklist, right?
I, I'd envisioned it in the, youknow, door knocking days, like
that checklist would be plastered on my cubicle and just
(31:03):
just ask because if they don't, if they don't know that you do
it, they're never going to bringit up to you.
And and that's. One thing it being that that
when I jumped into this, I had zero knowledge, right, zero
knowledge, scared to death. And I think that's what happens
to partners that aren't asking the questions.
If you ask a question about contact center right and it the
(31:28):
partner themselves or or me, at least, I was scared that they
were going to ask a question back that I wouldn't know, you
know, I'm not going to know this.
But in reality, we've got so many people that are experts in
this. Ask the question and if they ask
you something simply say Hey I don't know this but I do have a
(31:49):
team of people that do and and bring them to the table to help
help you out and sell those complex systems.
Final couple thoughts here as weget towards the end.
I mean, if I'm a, if I'm a partner, you, you, I think you
covered this pretty good. But if, if I'm a partner and I'm
going all right, I'm, I'm boughtin Steve's got me hyped up.
(32:12):
I'm ready. I'm not afraid.
What's the, what's the best advice for partners to, to
continue to identify these and position themselves in that
correctly? How would you put a bow on kind
of some of these thoughts we've talked about?
Will be funny for a minute, but I, I think about this and, and I
think that the majority of partners have that fear of
(32:36):
rejection. I did as well, right?
And, and one of the best things I can tell you to do is start
singing karaoke. So if you can, so if you can
start singing karaoke and you'renot a good singer.
And this is something that I didbecause I was deathly afraid to
to speak publicly. I mean, I was, I was deathly
(32:58):
afraid of it. I don't know why.
I was just deathly afraid of it.And I was talking to somebody
and, and, and just said, you know what, I'm going to start
singing karaoke. And we would go out and I would
sing karaoke and was horrible atit.
And if you can make it through that, then you can, you know,
you cannot be afraid to ask those questions every single
time. But but on a more serious note
(33:20):
for partners themselves, they need to get engaged with every
piece of knowledge aspect out there so they don't have that
fear. Everything Telaris has to offer,
there's AI mean I would love to know the value, the quantitative
value of that Telaris universitythat is a free source of
(33:44):
knowledge and there's so much onthere in every aspect of what we
sell. You know, if I, I, I don't know
the quantitative amount that that would be worth, but it's a
lot. And so every event you can go to
that you can afford to go to go to every single virtual event
(34:05):
that you can go to, go to, you have to know the technology or
the theory behind the technology, as well as know
what's in the portfolio so that you can translate to your
customer of where to go. And so you need to know that
that portfolio backwards and forwards and get with your, you
(34:27):
know, your channel managers thatshould know that portfolio
backwards and forwards and, and simply ask, don't be afraid to
ask the questions and don't be afraid to jump in and snag all
of that, that free knowledge that's out there as much as you
can retain, as much as you physically can do so All right.
(34:47):
Final thoughts. So let's look into Steve's
crystal wall. You got the next 12 to 24
months. What are the innovations in the
market you're looking the most forward to that are just out
there products or just innovations in general?
Innovations. In general, quantum computing,
quantum computing has is, is fascinating to me.
You know, when, when Google cameout with that Willow chip and
(35:12):
did what frontier it would take them what I believe it was 10
septillion years and it does it in 5 minutes, you know, and
being that I dove head first into the cybersecurity realm,
where does that leave us in, in the cybersecurity realm with
the, with the cryptographic, youknow, analysis and everything
(35:34):
else? I mean, it's, I'm very
interested to see where that takes us and the evolution of a,
you know, how far will it go? I can't wait to see the the
robots that are helping us do our our everyday task, laundry
and cooking and everything else because it's coming, you know
it's coming and it's coming at avery fast pace.
(35:55):
Fair points. I love it.
Well, man, a lot of good stuff. Lots of lots of good stuff.
I appreciate you coming on. It's been a blast, man.
It's been a blast. Thank you very.
Much I'm honored to be on here and and you know we we watching
this industry grow has been fascinating it's taken me a
(36:15):
little while longer to ramp up than I would have liked, but
it's it's it's happening and it's fun and and I enjoy it and
thank all you guys and and. Oh, by the way too, thank you
for your service. We appreciate.
Oh, absolutely. So, yes, all right.
Everybody that wraps us up for this week.
As always, remember wherever you're coming to us from Apple
Music, Spotify follow subscribe so you get these as they drop
(36:39):
every Wednesday and don't miss any of them.
It has been tech stack mastery secrets to sell across cloud
connectivity and security. Steve Davis, network data
solutions. I'm your host, Josh La Presto
SVP of sales engineering at Solaris.
Until next time. Thank you this level Biztech has
been a production of Solaris Studio 19.
Please visit telaris.com For more information.
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