Audience 1st

[BEST OF] What CISOs Love That Vendors Do

After I came back from Black Hat, I had some time to evaluate what vendors were doing on the exhibition floors and map that back to what I’d heard from my previous podcast guest.
Some analysis and episode cutting developed a beautiful creature of an episode:
The Best of What CISOs Love That Vendors Do.
What does that mean?
In every episode I ask my guest one critical question:
"What's one thing a vendor has done that has made you feel good?"
So, I've compiled a pretty sweet list of things that make CISOs and security practitioners happy.
Even if you don’t win on customer acquisition today, if you make people feel good, they’ll remember you forever.
It’s a win-win!
So, do me a favor, have a listen.
And, as always, apply those insights.
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Cut the Bull & Focus to Speed Up the Cybersecurity Buying Process | Tal Arad

Cybersecurity buyers do not have a lot of time to review long RFPs with hundreds of pages. Instead, provide technical diagrams, high-level explanations, and a few slides that provide a focused message.
Buyers are going to read as little as possible to make a decision.
No one is going to read a hundred pages. They don't have the time and the capacity. No one can digest that.
So cut the bullshit and provide as much focused information as possible. That will really help everyone make a decision.
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Why to Use the Compliance Framework in Your Messaging & Positioning | Gary Hayslip

I get the fact that you're talking about the offensive framework, but you should really talk about the compliance framework, which a lot of CISOs, unfortunately, have to live in. Show them that too.
In this episode, I had a brutally honest conversation with Gary Hayslip, Global CISO for SoftBank Investment Advisers & SoftBank Group International, about his challenges, goals, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.
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How a Cybersecurity Marketer Buys | The Buyer Centric Revenue Model Podcast

I've been interviewing cybersecurity buyers about why and how they buy for 4 months. The tables have turned. Nelson Gilliat, host of The Buyer Centric Revenue Model Podcast asked me how and why I buy.
In this episode of Audience 1st, Nick digs in deep to understand:
The methods that get me to look at a vendor or solution.
Platforms I trust to learn about new vendors or solutions.
How I learn about and research vendors.
The % I take a demo from marketing promotions.
The % split preference for getting information from marketing versus sales.
The preference for working with one salesperson versus multiple salespeople.
What turns me off and causes me to tune out.
And more!
Check out the Buyer Centric Revenue Model: https://www.linkedin.com/company/buyer-centric-revenue-model/
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From Salesperson → Business Value Analyst: How to Help CISOs | Dmitriy Sokolovskiy

Dmitriy’s tenure as a CISO for the last four years has been a drastic transformation in the way he thinks about cybersecurity, specifically risk management, in general, and, more importantly, how that ties into the whole business flow of a company; not a technical entity, but a business in a company.
Words like:
Business value
Return on investment
Long term planning
…have a very different meaning to executives and the boards than what CISOs (techies) think.
How does a CISO present to their board without killing them with numbers?
And why are CISOs not getting help from the sales side - the people seemingly more attuned to business acumen than them?
In this episode of Audience 1st, I have a brutally honest conversation with Dmitriy Sokolovskiy, CISO of Avid, a Software Development company, about his challenges, how to build relationship capital, and tangible ways to help CISOs do their job better.
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Building a False Sense of Trust vs. Trusted Advisor Status | Joshua Marpet

The way you build trust can take you in different directions:
Down a destructive path of ruined reputation or up a rewarding road of unlimited relationships and referrals.
What do you choose?
In this episode, I had a brutally honest conversation with Joshua Marpet, CEO of MJM Growth, about his challenges, goals, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.
Josh is an ex-cop, ex-fireman, ex-blacksmith, and ex-horse dentist (not a joke).
He has also worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, has advised the largest companies in the world, and runs conferences through BSides Delaware along with his wife and business partners.
He is also on the board of BSides DC and previously served on the board of BSides Las Vegas and Hackers for Charity.
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Building a Hacker Mindset and Why It’s Important | Ferd Hagethorn

Building the community, building the right mindset, the hacker mindset is super important. Here's why.
Everybody's spread thin and it’s very difficult to train people to free time of security experts.
In this episode, I had a brutally honest conversation with Ferd Hagethorn, Director of Security Services at Planit Testing, about his challenges, goals, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.
Ferd heads the cybersecurity practice for Planit Global.
Planit is a quality assurance company operating in Australia, New Zealand, India and the UK.
This is where he defined and established the Security Testing practice and services clients both nationally and worldwide from windy and beautiful Wellington, New Zealand.
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Are You Turning Off Buyers with Jargon and Geek Speak? | Jenny Botton

There are too many people who think that if you fall into jargon and start spouting geek speak that you're going to impress people.
In fact, the opposite is true.
In this episode, I had a brutally honest conversation with Jenny Botton, Head of Corporate Information Security at CCL, about her challenges, goals, what vendors do that piss her off, and the alternatives.
Jenny is interested in the human brain, human psychology and human behavior is a fan of crime and home and garden makeover shows, and has a secret desire to be a superhero and save the world.
That’s why she does what she does in her career as a cybersecurity practitioner.
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3 Massive Problems That Hinder Cybersecurity Marketers & Salespeople

“Name a problem in the security world.”
That was one loaded question Mike Krass, owner of MKG Marketing and host of “What’s the Problem?” Podcast, asked me.
That request got me thinking and sifting through the 101 problems I had listed when prepping for our call. (Remind me to share that with you another time.)
Three main issues stand out to me as a marketer and professional in the cybersecurity industry.
We’ll dig into that today (or you can just listen to the problems I unravel in Mike’s episode).
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[BEST OF] What CISOs Hate + The Alternative

Dear cybersecurity vendors, please stop doing this. Do THIS instead.
Today, I'm doing something special because, well, it's my birthday weekend.
I wanted to celebrate and gift you with a nice, little package of the best of the worst.
What does that mean?
Well, in every episode I ask my guest one critical question:
"What's the worst thing you've experienced from a vendor?"
So, I've compiled a nice little sh*tlist.
What's more, I always ask my guest:
"What's the alternative?"
Because what does it help us to hear complaints without learning how to do things better?
So, do me a favor, have a listen.
And if you want to spoil me for my birthday, apply those insights.
Join Audience 1st Today
Join 450+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/