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Winning Cyber Practitioners’ Trust, Standing Out in the Job Market, and Innovation with Chas Larios!
165 Plays1 year ago
This week, Chas Larios of Anvilogic joins the show to about her approach to winning practitioners' trust through respect for their time and attention.
George K and George A talk to Chas about:
🚀 Building brands on principles and the importance of giving back to the cyber community
🧠 How her technical Infosec background informs her marketing
😳 How she hires, and why resumes are the LAST thing she looks at
🎙️ Changes in the market and favorite bands, as turns the table and interviews the Georges!
This episode is full of insights for founders, CEOs, vendors, and sellers. Sharpen those pencils and get out your notebooks, school’s in session!
This month: All profits from Pride shirt sales will be donated to LGBTQ organizations!
Shop today: www.bkbtpodcast.shop
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Transcript
Building Trust in Cybersecurity
00:00:00
Speaker
I think that it is building trust, not only with your cybersecurity buyers and your ICP, but with the cybersecurity community giving back, understanding how to you know sell through word of mouth in private cybersecurity communities, evidence-based security that doesn't sell on black box promises or snake oil. If I had to summarize all of that, it would be marketing teams who respect cybersecurity buyers who respect our security community and who give back. So not more F1s.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, this is Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax, the cybersecurity podcast that tackles all the messy human bits in the industry. Trust, respect and all the rest. I'm George Kay with the vendor side. And I'm George, a Chief Information Security Officer.
Guest Introduction: Chaz Larios
00:01:03
Speaker
And today our guest is Chaz Larios, VP of Marketing at Anvil Logic. What a powerhouse. I gotta tell you, this has to be one of the most value-filled episodes i've I've ever been a part of with you, George. um If you are on the sales side, if you're a marketer, you really need to listen to this. You could probably do an entire course based on on the themes that she kind of brought up and on the ideas she brought up. We talk about innovation in our industry and actually doing the people thing better. She does it better. She is an innovator. She is a real thought leader and she's pretty darn cool too.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, she's got the most technical chops, I think, of any marketer I know. And she brings that to bear. So as you were saying, y'all need to take some notes. Even if you're a startup founder, CEO, you could also do
Chaz's Journey into Cybersecurity
00:01:55
Speaker
with a lesson here. We also talk about community. We talk about giving back, building brands on principles, and just really, really understanding what it's like in the life of a security practitioner. But that is enough of us. Let's hand it over to Chaz. Chas Larios, welcome to Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax. Hey, thanks for having me on the show. I've been a listener for quite some time, kind of scoured through some of your episodes. So excited to be here. Great. And you still agreed to be on the show, so we're doing something right. um Let's start in the place where we always do, which is what is your quick and dirty history of how you got into this crazy business that we call cybersecurity?
00:02:36
Speaker
Yes. So you know it's been over a decade. I think any of us who have been doing this for that long probably fell into it by accident. ah Same for me. As soon as I fell into it, i I was immediately in love with the industry and I i never left. But um I'm from Austin. I went to the University of Texas at Austin. I guess not originally from here, but I i never left after college. My first job outside of college was at the Travis County District Attorney's Office working for the felony mental health unit. We were setting up a new program where we tried to get people who had a
00:03:12
Speaker
DSM-1 diagnosis like schizophrenia and they committed a felony. We tried to get them out of jail and reduce recidivism rates. And I found myself um extremely interested in you know setting up the infrastructure for how we measure that and what all those signals were and being able to crunch the numbers to determine if we were successful and how you set up all the the databases and the infrastructure to track that. And so I volunteered to do this RFP project and kind of ah participate in that. We were getting a vendor to come in and help us revamp the IT infrastructure. um And I ended up going and working for one of the government consultants that I had met in that process. So then for a short time, I became a government consultant to a a lot of tech companies that were trying to win contracts with federal, state, local.
00:04:01
Speaker
um my master my My bachelor's degree is actually in government and philosophy. So at one point in time, I thought, hey, maybe I'll go get a PhD and be a philosophy professor. But then I wound up in tech. um And i ended after that, I jumped into product management. And I loved product management. I'm really a product person at heart. um getting into the strategy and understanding ideal customer profile and diving into buyer needs, etc. So I went to go work as a product manager at Dell. um At the time we had just made an acquisition of an encryption company. So that was my first experience in security.
00:04:40
Speaker
It was data security. This was over a decade ago. We were partnering with Dropbox, so I was flying back and forth between Austin and San Francisco, ah working on some public cloud encryption technology and partnership that we had. um And then I heard about SecureWorks, Dell had just recently acquired SecureWorks and it was my first experience in security operations. I was owning,
Experience in Security Operations
00:05:06
Speaker
by this time I had switched over into product marketing and I was owning a lot of messaging for Dell's security business back in the day.
00:05:13
Speaker
And once I met the threat intelligence team at SecureWorks and really understood what they did, I became obsessed with wanting to be in security operations and you know dive into all there is to learn and understand and know. um And those found really quickly, those are my people. Those are my type of people that I like hanging out with. ah So I moved into secure works and became their head of product marketing for several years. um And I really never left security operations after that. um I don't think I ever will leave cybersecurity, but
00:05:50
Speaker
security operations specifically is so attractive to me. ah so Then after that, I went and I worked with um Carbon Black right after they got acquired by VMware for a little while, ah learned the whole marketing operation side, and I had to make this choice did I want to end up going the practitioner route or did I want to go into the marketing route? Because my master's degree, um I went and got a master's in public administration, but I studied cybersecurity in the public sector and and the problems that Texas cities were facing with cybersecurity. So I had kind of this fork in the road moment where I met with some mentors and decided, I'm going to go the marketing route because I'm really technical on the cyber side and I feel like I can make more impact and change here. ah So then I went and I led
00:06:36
Speaker
ah Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks. I was their head of marketing. um Still love that team. Threat intelligence, incident response, et cetera. And now I am at Anvilogic, and I'm the VP of marketing. We are also in security operations. We are a ah SaaS product in the SIEM space, and ah we just closed CREC funding. So that's kind of how I how i landed here. Yeah, I knew some of that, but I will say I was looking at George's face. You might be the most technically astute marketer that we've ever interviewed. I mean, like you got a master's in it. You were like.
00:07:20
Speaker
in like quite half operator life. I don't know. That's very impressive. i I think you're like the only CMO I know who's done that journey. So kudos to you. But you are on the vendor side, which means that the CISO gets first crack. So over to you, George. Yeah, that was like really cool. ah That was amazing. I was like, shit, you got my job, man. You're more qualified than me. um Tell me a little bit. I, by the way, really appreciate the work you did at unit 42 in my early career. Um, especially when some of those like oil rig campaigns and some of those like, uh, oil and gas, uh, uh, targeting groups for coming out. Um, I was doing consulting at that time for big oil and Alberta and Canada. So I was like, just reliant to the teat on everything you guys are putting out. So, uh, my humblest thank you for that. Cause you guys ah made my clients super happy and I made bonus that year. So.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, that, that team, it still gives me chills thinking about working with, with all of them. I mean, even through, you
Role of Technical Leads in Decision-Making
00:08:23
Speaker
know, Russia, Ukraine, through, and through all the log for shell, ah all the things log for Jay, um, everyone on that team is just so incredibly committed to giving back to the community and making the world a better place in whatever way possible. So, you know, there are a lot of late nights where we are working 80, 90 hours a week, whenever we were responding to some of those big threats. But every person that I worked with on the Unit 42 team did it because you know this was their calling. This is what they wanted to give back to the world. Thanks. So shout out to Talos. So while I was at Ashley, I'll actually ask you about, excuse me if I know my words.
00:09:00
Speaker
um Okay, so there's something that you kind of harp on a bit and and you know without having known you or even seen your work, I was kind of already on the same logic and and how I deal with my sellers. And that is don't sell to me, sell to my technical leads who have to actually use your shit, right? Like that's the biggest thing. And I think a lot of times like sales and marketing folks, they're targeting the executive, they're they're they're targeting the CSO or the CIO, they're targeting the decision maker, But the reality is, you can give me your demo, you can give me your deck. I'm still going to turn to my TL's and be like, hey, dudes, what do you guys think? So talk about that. Where did you, like me as as ah as ah as a buyer, having to run my team and and be in charge of budget and explain ROI and you know explain utilization to my board where like if I buy a tool and no one likes to use it, I really have to explain to my board, why do we spend you know hundreds of thousands of dollars on this thing no one likes?
00:09:58
Speaker
Explain to me how you came to that logic and and how you're seeing articulated today on your side of the table.
Community Building in Marketing
00:10:05
Speaker
You bet. so One of the benefits of working on the vendor side, especially um you know at SecureWorks and at Unit 42 is i I got to spend a lot of my time side by side with practitioners in the SOC that were you know running security operations for some of the biggest companies in the world, um thousands of them, and doing incident response engagement. so My time learning cybersecurity was side by side in the trenches with a lot of these practitioners and just being friends with them and understanding them and hearing their perspective about all the different types of technologies that we use to do all of that. And I realized really quickly
00:10:44
Speaker
For the longest time, the industry has been very focused on you know the coveted CSO. Go after the CSO. And it's a little bit shameful to be cold calling any CSO, right? But ah that's especially what most people go after, especially the bigger vendors. And the reality is ah they're going to look at their right-hand, left-hand person and say, Is this a good CISO will? Is this a technology that we actually need? Is this something that your team is going to love using? um And I'm a huge proponent that security practitioners have a seat on the buying committee and that on the vendor side, we don't just sell straight to the CISO and package it up into some big platform deal and kind of shove it down the security practitioner's throat. So I'm committed to always working on the vendor side for a vendor that has a product that
00:11:34
Speaker
is loved by security practitioners and loved by the security community. um so But I think there's different ways to do that, right? So if you're only targeting the CISO, it's a very different way of marketing than if you're trying to win over and enable security practitioners. So for security practitioners to effectively have the spot on the buying committee they want to do their own research. you know they're They're already inclined to be this type of persona that is learning and and wants to touch and feel and understand the product as much as possible. So that means that you need to be as clear as possible on your website exactly what the product does. You need to have a frictionless buying experience where
00:12:16
Speaker
the practitioners can go to your website, they can look at a product or they can sign up for a free trial and kind of test things out on their own, even if they're not putting their own data in there, but they can, they can educate themselves on their own. Um, and then of course they all buy and in different communities. And so, Having that community love and really focusing on community and working for companies with a product that is loved by practitioners is the way I feel like you can really target security practitioners and make sure that you're respecting them and you're not doing aggressive outreach to them, but you're really making it as easy as possible for them to very quickly come in and determine, is this product
00:12:58
Speaker
going to fit our needs or is it not? Because they're some of the most busy people in the world and we want to respect their time, right? So make it a frictionless buying experience. I would say though, that's you've hit on a really good point that I think listeners should be aware of. Marketing to the CSO or to the executive is actually a much more intimate type of experience, right? And and George kind of sees it now with his new work with CSO Society. That is really all about, you know, a reference from a peer that kind of brings you in the door. They're like, you know, those guys are cool. You should check them out.
00:13:29
Speaker
And it's like the the the one-on-one conversation, the strength of of building trust, whereas the team would probably take more the the big box convention-style marketing and the website, the external research, because they're not necessarily have the time or opportunity to meet you until the point of sale or until you're starting that process. But you need to have exactly what you're talking about, a website that's clear and concise of what your value proposition is, ah ideally a freeware sample where you can actually test out the thing. And then even better than that, If you guys actually having that conversation, if you guys make it easy to have a POC that doesn't have a contract negotiation tied to it, that makes things a lot less pressure on the buyer side where it's like, cool, we're going to test you guys out, see if we like you. Not, okay, we're going to test you guys out, but this is kind of sketchy. I don't really like it. It starts negative connotation from the start of the testing. I think that's a really important point. and It's a nuance that a lot of people seem to miss.
00:14:25
Speaker
No, spot on. I agree. at the I think at the center of everything is trust. And that trust manifests itself differently depending if you are a you know practitioner or if you're a CISO. It's still trust at the end of the day, but you know that trust also means community. And they're buying through communities and through references and through peer-to-peer conversations the way that you're just saying. But for a CISO, I think that marketers get stuck in this mindset where It's such a high level message. um it's It's really difficult to understand exactly what it is. ah But when you're when you're trying to get practitioners on board and enable them on, you know, the solution that you have or trying to help them solve their problems, it's got to get past the surface level. It's got to be more technical.
00:15:16
Speaker
It's got to be more straight up to the point, and it's it's got to be that friction-free process. And then whenever they're ready to reach out to you and they're interested in your solution, they will come, but you can't really force that. And so I think at the end of the day, trust on top of community, um even though the communities might be different, where CISOs are more into this type of community and the security practitioners maybe have more ah Reddit threads and you know private Slack channels, et cetera. At the end of the day, it's all built on trust. Yeah. So I think we've talked around the edges here. You've given us your ideology and your approach. I would say you actually your philosophy.
Innovative Marketing Approaches
00:15:58
Speaker
But if I gave you for like 90 seconds, like what is your view on the state of cybersecurity marketing? Like you're out there kind of surveying the landscape practices and what is your diagnosis?
00:16:16
Speaker
Yes, so I've thought about this a lot. I'm a little bit of a an against the grain type of CMO. I think we have a lot to improve on really around respecting cybersecurity buyers. So you know gone are the days where you're just spraying and praying and getting as many boost scans as possible and you know gating all of your content and collecting emails. To me, we have to get so much better at selling via communities and being very transparent in our messaging and straight up to the point and respecting buyer's time, especially in cybersecurity when they're some of the most busiest people in the world. I feel like we often don't innovate as quickly as other industries outside of cyber.
00:17:05
Speaker
And I see a lot of other industries doing this in cybersecurity. I get it. It's hard. You have to have the subject matter expertise and you also have to have the marketing and the sales expertise, et cetera. But we have a long way to go. And I, you know, I've contributed with Ross on his book, if I'm sure everyone on this call has read it. We talk a lot about this, but I i love partnering with people like Ross because I feel like This movement is happening. It's happening slowly and I want to put gasoline and fuel to that fire to make it happen even faster So that we all enjoy what we do every single day Nice. All right. Well, we're gonna I'm gonna revisit that in a moment, but I'll turn it back over to George Yeah, shout out Ross great guy. We were just partying with him at RSA ah So I want to ask you about kind of ah an interesting thing um you've kind of touched on some of your content is non-traditional partnerships and
00:17:59
Speaker
or looking in an outside direction. And I want to talk about it specifically in a product marketing standpoint, because um you know I deal with it in my job. I work in a dating space, if ah if you don't know. um And so one of the ideas i I've kind of had and and it's tough, it's tough when you're like a CISO and you have like a mind for sales and you're like, oh cool, we could make more money doing this. And then they're just like, no, we're going to look at our, we're going to look at our sheets and we're going to look at like what the business intelligence is saying. And like, you know, when you get like, like data people become the marketing people and all they want to do is data and you're just like, okay, cool, but we're selling a thing to people. So in my world as just an example,
00:18:38
Speaker
I'm like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if for our site we co-branded with a sex toy maker and we actually got sex toys with our branding on them, right? And we actually got t-shirts and mugs, but like realistically one goes in the other. Like you want to hook up. Everyone uses toys. You get that branding in there. You get that out there. And like there's a logic there. like I'm not a marketing specialist anywhere near your level of quality or knowledge or experience or George's. But I know enough to know that's a fucking idea that works. So like like i really I like this idea of thinking outside the box. So talk to me about your kind of philosophy on non-traditional approaches in product marketing. Yeah, so this is a very interesting question.
00:19:24
Speaker
That's right. We pivoted from sex toys to product marketing. Go but cybersecurity. How are they all connected? Um, I would say first it starts about, it starts with your brand. And and to me, brand is like, what do people say about your company? Uh, when you're not in the room, how do people feel about you? What do they say in private communities, et cetera? So to me, I think non-traditional partnerships definitely have a role to play. There's a lot of innovative ways to do it. um And so when i I think about building a brand, I think about what are those
00:19:59
Speaker
key pillars and principles that we stand for that we want to champion in the world. So I'll give you an example. um We partner with George with the Mindover Cyber stuff that we did at RSA. It was the first time that that Mindover Cyber had done something like that and you had a lot of really cool vendors that sponsored our mindfulness ah day that we had. And to me, when I think about the principles that we're trying to build at Anvilogic and the principles that me and as well as the the security leadership leadership that or the leadership team that we have at Anvilogic that they really believe in, it is around you know mental health. It's around um making the world a better place. It's around
00:20:42
Speaker
giving security practitioners the tools they need that make their life better and easier. And we started listing a lot of these principles, right? So that type of partnership with Mind Over Cyber, for example, it's not about you know signing up and getting leads and we're gonna we're going to do this ah joint partnership and get a ton of leads. It's more about you know being able to support the things that we really value and that we wanna be known for and that we stand for and that we want to support.
00:21:13
Speaker
Regardless if the leads come in or not, it's kind of about doing the right thing and then taking the audience that George is building with Mind Over Cyber and a lot of the like-minded people that are interested in that movement are likely going to be interested in the things that that we may be building because we're on similar ground with the principles that we're going after, right? But I do think there's and there's this movement right now, especially with subject matter experts in the industry that are thought leaders. and we're just now starting to experiment with you know a vendor that is partnering with a thought leader in the industry and how do we do, how do we co-create content? How do we um get the message out, messages for both and kind of co-create that storyline together um in a way that is going to be impactful? And the measurement of it is a whole different story, right? But I think we're just scratching the surface on
00:22:08
Speaker
How do we do those partnerships with industry experts that have a big following? um And that we also have a following and we're trying to tap into that equally for both people. I think there's there's a lot of stuff that we haven't explored. We're just scratching the surface on. I'm open-minded to a lot of things. Yeah. So that's the thread that I want to pull on. So thank you for teeing me up. um What are the industries that you're looking towards? Like when you're looking over the walled garden of cybersecurity for inspiration, you know, where are you looking? And and maybe it's not just marketing. It could just be sort of a multidisciplinary approach. Sure. So I have a lot of ah inspiration outside of cyber that
00:22:51
Speaker
I think keeps me on my toes and makes sure that I'm, you know, and I also surround myself with a lot of people who come from different industries as well so that I don't get stagnant and I can think more innovatively and kind of move past my roadblocks. But one of those is developer marketing. I think that cybersecurity buyers are so different from other industries. um So developer marketing, though, there's some similarities there. So you know developers are very allergic to ah sales and marketing, just like cybersecurity buyers are. And if you think about cybersecurity buyers, they're typically skeptical skeptical of new solutions. They've been burned in the past by
00:23:36
Speaker
you know, some vendor whose product capabilities didn't live up to the hype and they are time poor, similar to developers. They like to do their own research. They're very community focused. Um, and they're repelled against aggressive outreach tactics. So I think developer marketing is interesting. It moves very fast, but it also has this very transparent approach to sales and marketing, um, that I take inspiration from. and cybersecurity to try to you know adopt some of these more innovative practices that that that they're doing in these community building type of practices that they're doing and bring that into cyber. That's one. Another one is with ah surprisingly is with MarTech, the MarTech industry. yeah so no i'm I'm more of ah of a technical ah CMO, but I think about how I buy MarTech
00:24:30
Speaker
stacks and more tech technology and I'm on the more technical side, I want to do all the research on my own before I ever talk to a salesperson. And then on that first call, whenever I hop on the call with them, if the salesperson isn't as technical and not as technical, but can't answer my basic questions, you know, I've already done my due diligence of my research and I want to get down to the brass tacks of exactly how does this work, how does it function. I want to be with a senior person on my first call um where they can answer those questions for me and you know we can shorten the sales cycle. It's beneficial for me, it's beneficial for them.
00:25:07
Speaker
But also, i was I was having this conversation at our at the Cyber for Builders party that that we threw with Ross at RSA. It was a great party. It was awesome. Great food. George, you may you may have been in this conversation, but I was having a conversation with one of the the startup founders there. And he said, oh, yeah, you're so you're a kind of a data-driven technical type of CMO. That must give you an advantage in security operations. And I laughed because, I've only come across a few people who really understand the similarities. He's one of them.
00:25:40
Speaker
um There are so many different similarities in marketing operations and security operations. It's a big data challenge. yeah It's it's you know all of these signals that you're trying to put into a model to surface the most important signals that you can react to. um And we had this conversation about one of the startups recently that came out, and they were all formerly marketing ops, smart tech vendors from a company called Segment. Uh, so I see a lot of inspiration there of like, how would I want to buy a big data solution like this? If I'm a, if I'm a CMO or if I'm a CISO or a security practitioner. And I think a lot of those things are connected.
Advice for Aspiring Marketers
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. All right. Well, I also love that you said brass tacks because we are going to take a short break and then we will be back for that portion of the show.
00:26:38
Speaker
Hey listeners, George K here. Pride Month is here, and new Pride t-shirts are in the Veronuckles and Brass Tax swag store, and we are raising money for community organizations helping the queer community in cyber. All profits from all sales of Pride t-shirts this month will be donated to Out in Tech and a scholarship for LGBTQ plus students pursuing cybersecurity education programs. Get yours today at bkbtpodcast.shop or follow the link in the show notes. And now back to the interview.
00:27:19
Speaker
So where would you say, ah where should the new generation of tech marketers or want to be tech marketers gain the skills in order to make it? Like to you, based on where you are right now in your experiences, what does the perfect junior marketing hire of today or tomorrow look like to you? Oh, that's a good question. Oh, this is a great one. I've recently been told um by our our CEO that I have a knack for hiring good talent like this. So to me,
00:27:53
Speaker
I've hired several people on my current team that fit this model that I love watching them grow and and be successful. It's someone that comes with a growth mindset. um So whenever I, before I even interview someone, I'm going and I'm looking at their footprint online. I'm looking at their LinkedIn. Are they following the same people that have taught me something new? Are they posting online where I'm learning something new from them? where they're hungry for that information to always constantly grow and get better. So they're not going to be stuck in a mindset that maybe is set in the past or that was you know back in 2015. So they're constantly hungry and voracious for that information. I think the second thing is do they have that drive where
00:28:48
Speaker
I'm not the one that has to ever micromanage them. They have this learning mindset, so they're just obsessed with the problem and they enjoy finding solutions and they're very curious about how to approach this and they're open-minded to new ideas about how to approach it. And those are some of the the best employees that I've hired because they're they're innately driven just based on their curiosity. And I think the third one is that you know they're enjoyable to work with. ah They like partnering with other people and they like helping other people so that you know we can form this team and this camaraderie where it's just a joy to work with everybody on the day-to-day. We all have each other's back. We're all you know running in the same direction. But where do you acquire some of these skills? That's a that's a really good question.
00:29:37
Speaker
I want to tell you to add on to that and maybe it's something that we can add on with the ah with the episode when we post it or another post will do about it. How do you take that package that and articulate it on a CV so that a hiring manager in marketing who's dealing with thousands of these things can actually pick you out? You know what? I'm going to have a, I'm going to have a different answer than you properly think.
00:30:04
Speaker
Your resume is not the first thing that I look at. Your resume is just a checkbox at the end of a very long process before I determine if I'm going to hire you or not. In fact, the last last two roles that I've had, I don't even think I updated my resume. Same. Yeah, i I feel like the resume is an outdated thing. It's just a check the box upload. I barely even skim it. For me, I'm out there doing my own prospecting and hearing about people from word of mouth. And I probably, if I'm following you and you've already taught me something new, you're on my list to recruit to work for me one day or to work with me or or partner with me on something.
00:30:45
Speaker
um So I think it's more like showing up on LinkedIn and posting things that make me think about the problem in a different way or that make me learn something new. I'm always out to find someone ah to work with that is smarter than me, that I can you know learn new tricks from and and innovate with and and get ah gain a new mindset on the problem or different approach. So to me, it's not about your resume at all. It's about have you published any kind of content? ah For me, it's on LinkedIn, typically, um or podcasts like this, where I I learned something new and then I share that on a private Slack channel and share it with my team and say, check this out. How can we incorporate this? What are your thoughts on this? So that'd be my answer to that. Very cool. Damn, I love that answer. i I love it because it takes
00:31:35
Speaker
the onus and puts it on the person to basically publicly demonstrate learning out loud, right, which we've we advocated on the show many times, like, if you just sort of like sit back and assume that this resume artifact is going to do the work for you. I just think that that's like the wrong way to go about things these days. It's like you were saying, like, What are people saying about you in the rooms that you're not in? And some of that has to be the work. So you have talked a lot about innovative approaches. ah And I think the biggest question that I have for you is I think a lot of marketers have this.
00:32:18
Speaker
pain in their stomach. I think they sense exactly what you were talking about, that this big blowout trade show, Legion, Gate, all the things methodology is falling beneath their feet, but they're having a hard time getting executive leadership buy-in because a lot of those founders are either serial entrepreneurs or they have this mindset that like, well, I did this in 2016 and this is the way that leader did it, so I just sort of expect that. There's just a momentum and a cultural inertia there that you're swimming against. So what is your advice to other marketers who are trying to think outside the box and how they're winning that argument? you know like How do you make the play for brand when people are like, well, you spent X amount of money, like how many leads are coming from that event? How do you manage that?
Shifting Marketing Strategies
00:33:09
Speaker
Sure. so I think it depends on if you're at a big company or if you're at a startup. It's much easier to do at a startup. um especially if you are you know Whenever I'm interviewing at startups, I'm interviewing the founder and the CEO just as much as they're interviewing me to understand, is this a place where I can really innovate and do what I know is right? um but I think at the at the basic basis of all of it, I'm a data-driven person, so i I do start with the data. um you know Attribution is is broken in a lot of different ways. We all know that, but for me,
00:33:50
Speaker
I think there's a clear way to articulate and show the difference between a traditional Legion model versus moving to a demand gen, community-oriented type of of marketing strategy. And you can show if you do a full funnel analysis of just a Legion model where you scan a badge, you know scan all the badges at events, and then you um you know put them into an email nurture journey, and then you have ah SDRs cold call on them, cold call on them. And you if you actually follow that through to did it turn into opportunity, did it turn into pipeline, did it turn into revenue, then you'll see the dollars in for those leads versus what actually comes out on the other end. And revenue is is extremely inefficient compared to if you just have a frictionless process where you are doing true demand generation.
00:34:41
Speaker
You're creating constant value-led um content out there to teach your audience something new, to help them in their day-to-day job, and to not spray and pray, but really only do that outreach to your ICP, your ideal customer profile, who you know your solution may help, But once they've gotten exposure to your brand, they've learned something new, they understand kind of what you stand for and then to do that outreach and then have them come to your website. We don't gate any ah any of the content that we have out on the Anvilogic website. You'll see that. ah But they raise their hand and they say, OK, now I want a demo. And then you measure the effectiveness of that. It's it's you know over time, over less than six months, you can show quantitatively from a business case how it just makes more sense.
00:35:26
Speaker
But starting off, it doesn't feel that way, you know? Yeah, I've I've said it. um I have personally winnowed RSA lead list down from three ninety six. And then once you cut the other vendors, the students and the consultants and the trick or treaters, I don't remember the number, but I know it was below 90.
Generational Shifts in Cybersecurity Buying
00:35:47
Speaker
So and the number of those that turn into ops and goose egg, probably. Okay, so Chaz, we're gonna try something new here. So you are going to be the guinea pig. We're gonna do a lightning round. So we're gonna go hard and fast. And hopefully, we'll learn something new. George, kick us off. All right, Chaz. For Constance, this question, you are an employed marketer, right? You've been assigned to work a product. What if your product fundamentally sucks? What do you do?
00:36:21
Speaker
I go work for a vendor that has an amazing product that was built by security practitioners. ah True story. flip table um What does bad marketing look like to you? Ooh, yes, I can list a lot of things. Gated e-books to collect as many emails as possible from people who don't intend to buy. Spray and pray and base of cold calling. ah Spamming those leads with emails, promoting a product using over-hyped jargon-filled messaging. Any kind of messaging that uses hyperbole, like you know eliminate all risk, complete protection, 100% MITRE ATTACK coverage. I could go on and on.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, I would just, just a quick pause that the CISO had his head in his hands during that segment for our listeners, but back over to you. So I can turn Keith, fuck my life. um Jazz, what does great marketing look like to you? I think that it is building trust, not only with your cybersecurity buyers and your ICP, but with the cybersecurity community, giving back, understanding how to you know sell through word of mouth in private cybersecurity communities.
00:37:35
Speaker
evidence-based security that doesn't sell on black box promises or snake oil, but that it actually has quantifiable pilots that show you what you're going to get when you buy this product this product that's very transparent. um you know Being able to look at a vendor's um LinkedIn profile and all of their their thought leaders that they have at the company that are teaching out loud and that are posting value-led content that gives back to the community and helps all of us learn how to do this better. um and I would say marketing teams who are creative, but by the summarize all of that, it would be marketing teams who respect cybersecurity buyers, who respect our security community, and who give back.
00:38:21
Speaker
So not more F ones.
00:38:26
Speaker
so your ah Yeah. All right. Last question is actually. Do you have a question for us? This is the first time we've done this return. Turn the but tables. Ah, yes, I do. How do you think ah different generations now that are are you know reaching leadership roles in cybersecurity. How do you think different generations are affecting the buying process between vendors and security practitioners?
00:38:58
Speaker
Yes, this is amazing question. And um I have a theory that there are three forces at work that are fundamentally changing this economic model and ecosystem. One of them is the changing buyer, right? So I arbitrarily assigned the SAS 2.0 era to kind of like 2012 to 2019. And I think the reason those tactics are failing now is as you point out, a different generation of buyers coming in. I also think that as a community, we have not fully taken stock of what COVID did to security teams.
00:39:39
Speaker
right It was sort of like everything sucked a lot and then we sort of got through it. And then we all pretended we went back to normal, but there was a lot of burnout, a lot of churn. And the move from the office to home means like, contextually, I do not want to get phone calls on my cell phone, right? Like when I was in the office, I remember getting calls from MarTech vendors and it was sort of like, oh, this is just like the cost of doing business. But when you're spoofing my area code and I think is it the schools or the doctor or whatever like and I'm not in a mindset. So I think that behavior changed and we have not reckoned with it or people are refusing to reckon with it. And then I think as you have said and I know personally.
00:40:20
Speaker
people congregate in social spaces where marketers are not. And I i think it's like a joke to think that marketers also talk in CMO channels and amongst each other, and you don't think that your buyers are also doing the same thing. So if your name is mud, Like you might have torched your chances before you even got to the door, you know And um, I think that that as you point out is a reckoning that has to happen and that behavior is indicative of just like the natural social behavior that younger people are inured to or acculturated to I think as well too there's something to be said for the the change of our of our generations contacts and then the kind of the
00:41:02
Speaker
the fractional geopolitical nature that is now our existence where so many people are are a little bit ideological in their camps. And so you deal with certain people who take on that ideology, so they take it on every bit of their lifestyle. So how you approach them, you know if if i'm with ah if I'm trying to deal with people who will say like to wear red hats with acronyms on them, right? That kind of marketing is going to be a little bit more into that 2.0 style marketing because they want that experience. They want to go to the RSAs. They want to have like the really cheesy like marketing stuff there. They want to get pitched in that traditional way that, you know, the people they look up to when they were starting out or they were trying to get into industry, they want that similar experience because that's kind of like the thing that that they do. They replicate.
00:41:54
Speaker
Whereas folks that are a little bit more kind of progressive minded in their thinking and they're a little bit more outside the box, they absolutely reject that traditional style of of marketing. They want something authentic. They want something legitimate. They want to know that you know them, that you care about them, that you're selling to them specifically. um And maybe it's a time thing, too. It's a budget thing. We're all under the pressure of some kind of board, whether it's an ah ROI on a purchase or whether it's a CRO that's trying to actually meet numbers. We all have that that downward pressure. So you compound that with the fact that we all have quotas and deadlines to meet.
00:42:32
Speaker
you have a smaller window of time with less money, because now that the interest rates have blown up the way they have, money isn't just being printed anymore like it was like in 2020, 2021, things become a lot more scrutinizing. And so how you make that decision, like you you have a lot less runway to fail with, I think, if you're a seller. So you kind of really have to take the research and time to know the target audience. And you're talking about the ICP, I don't think It's gonna sound really bad, but a lot of the marketing I deal with, they don't give a shit about ICP. I mean, I get i get people trying to market to me that think I'm a CIO. but They can't even take the time to read my job title. right They're just fitting in like my employer in a pre-script and my name, and you know it. You know what it is. That's so disingenuous. like I have no time in the world for that. If anything, I'm gonna be upset that I that even open that message.
00:43:31
Speaker
um and And George and I have like a WhatsApp channel where we just blast this stuff all the time with each other. I think it comes down to, if you're a seller, you have to really narrow down the amount of of pitches that you do. friend or A good friend, Ben, again, mentioned him again, I love that he just narrows down his list. He only has a finite number of calls he makes per week, but the calls he does are much more substantive conversations. And I think, you know in a sheet or whatever, great. You do a hundred calls a day or a hundred calls a week, whatever your stat line is, but you only get like maybe one person actually answers or one person wants to demo out of it. That's not a win. you or or Sorry, if if you do 20 calls in a week, but you have you know four really substantive conversations and two that are moving into the next phase of a sales process,
00:44:21
Speaker
I would think that's a lot more appealing for someone managing a pipeline than just that spray and play ah blast approach.
Hosts' Personal Anecdotes: Concerts and Music
00:44:28
Speaker
So I think again, authenticity being more studied and understanding what your prospect is or what they aren't and and tailoring your approach to the individual prospect and not trying to sell out at scale. but So well said. I think the authenticity thing That really resonates with me. I think about, you know, all of us are probably around the same age when we started. If if you've ever worked in corporate over a decade ago for any company, you know, you got there and you you walked into work and you put in your company face and you're the corporate person and and it was business. And I remember I was even wearing skirts and hiding my tattoos, you know, not that I have a lot, but I was hiding them. And I feel like now,
00:45:15
Speaker
It's just cultural society, etc. Especially after COVID, we all feel so much more empowered to be authentic and to show up as ourselves at home, at work, and to have those real connections and real conversations that aren't just showing up and putting a mask on. So I totally agree. I think that change has happened a lot. And you can see it with the brands who come up and and show up authentically to give back to the community and to to really make a difference and to have a strong opinion about something rather than just being like a sea of vendors that all say the exact same thing. So I think that one's critical.
00:46:01
Speaker
Um, I have one more question for you, which I'll get to here in just a second, but so i reckon I recognize that we both entirely failed the lightning round part of that question. It was a very long answer. So we'll try to be more succinct. Okay. Well, so here's a couple more. Let me, let me lightning round question you both. I'm curious to know. All right, George's, uh, what was your first concert? Oasis. Oh, it's a good one. Third Eye Blind. Oh, okay. Yeah. I've been to a Third Eye Blind concert before.
00:46:37
Speaker
ah what What's your favorite band? Ooh, it's awesome. Oh, it's so hard. Living or Dead. ah Definitely Living or Dead. I mean, you see my vinyl collection back there. I think most everyone on my shelf is probably not with us today. Yeah. Um, I grew up on classic rock and I was a drummer for many years and I worship at the alters of both Keith moon and John Bonham. So it's a tie between the who and Led Zeppelin for the past. Oh yeah. We've talked about that. We've talked about that vinyl before but my favorite current might be run the jewels. I've seen them twice and it's killer every time. Okay. Yeah. Like them too.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah. So I'd say, um, if I were to go back in the past, they're not dead, but they're retired. Um, I'd say you rush for sure. A huge kneeil to yeah Neil. bur Yeah. Geddy Lee's pretty awesome. Um, and in terms of like. current, um you know, super Canadian, you guys probably wouldn't have heard of him. But Sam Roberts, I love Sam Roberts. I've seen that guy play probably three or four times. It's just the perfect like stoner music out in the field festival. Everyone's having a good time. That's Sam's vibe. If you haven't heard of him, I highly recommend his music to you. I've not heard of him. So I'm gonna have to check this out. Sam Roberts band. Love it. Love it.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:48:01
Speaker
Well, Chas, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us and share your experience and insights.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah, dude, you rock. That was awesome. Yeah, thanks for everything you're both doing. I appreciate it. All right. Well, we will talk to you soon. Bye, everyone.
00:48:21
Speaker
That wraps up this week's episode of Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax. If you liked this episode, please consider supporting the show by sharing an episode on LinkedIn, leaving a rating wherever you listen, shopping for some sick swag, or becoming a paying supporter. Many thanks to our latest supporter, Jessica Murzak. All money goes to support production of the show. New episodes of Bare Knuckles and Brass Tax drop every Monday. If you're already subscribed, thank you for your support and your swagger. If you're not, what are you waiting for? Go to wherever you get your podcasts and smash subscribe for weekly doses of humanity and cyber, insights, snark, and laughs. We'll catch you next week, but until then, stay real.