Ep.138-Mastering Cybersecurity Sales with Proven Strategies for Fortune 500-Level Success Pt. 3/3 with Vic Cardona
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Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success in selling technology solutions. I’m your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus, and this is Next Level BizTech.
Everybody, welcome back. Today, we are wrapping up a security track. We’re talking how to master cybersecurity with some proven strategies that work at Fortune 500 level success. Who better to have on? Mr. Vic Cardona of SecureX, President and CEO. Welcome on, man. Long time, no see.
Yeah, Josh. Good to see you, brother. Thanks for having us on. We were able to escape Atlanta in one piece, so that was fun.
No hurricanes today on this call. Fingers crossed. Let’s get in, man. First off, let’s just start off your story, windy path, linear path. How did you get here? Then we’ll get into a little bit about who SecureX is.
Yeah, for sure. I don’t think any path is a straight path, but went to school for business, got out, started selling copiers, hated it, but really showed me the hustle behind just sales in general, one on one, a little structure and organization.
I went to, I think it was Monster.com at the time back in the day, and saw a couple of postings for telecom entry level sales positions and went to a small organization called One Communications. I got old school, got acquired by Windstream, and definitely remember the interview like it was yesterday. I had a black jacket with off-black pants, and the sales manager at the time says, “Dude, I don’t know why I’m hiring you, but I am. Just don’t make me look like an idiot.” And fast forward from there, that was my first foray in outside selling, and I hit President’s Club three out of the four years I was there, and went over to a large Fortune 500 to run enterprise sales after that. And I was there for 13 years, saw the writing on the wall around connectivity, infrastructure,
and telco, and wanted to learn security. So went to run the East Coast for a startup security company, fell in love with security, and now we’re here. Right, decided to start this organization about a year and a half in, and just having a great time.
I love it. Love the good path, love the lessons learned in there, and love that you still remember what you wore on that.
I had a mustard shirt on too, by the way.
You would have a mustard shirt on. Not a lot of us can pull a mustard shirt off.
Yeah, this is before I married a Kardashian, and she showed me how to dress, so.
There you go.
All right, so tell us a little bit about then, you know, Securex, how you go to market, how you focus. You guys have, you know, you’ve got great relationships out there, proven, and just walk us through who you guys are.
Yeah, for sure. So we are in the traditional kind of TSD community, but we have a security first lens wrapper, you know, an approach. So we do all the traditional things that, you know, a TA would do, right? General connectivity, cloud infrastructure, mobility to lephony. But we always say that we lead with security. We love security. We’re passionate about it. The way we go to market is we’re security first IT transformation firm. So every project, engagement, email, discussion, anything we’re doing has a security first wrapper, right? So that’s how we go to market. And yeah, it’s been working.
So tell us a little bit about that evolution, right? You grew up in kind of that connectivity space. You saw some writing of some of the commoditization.
But how has this, how has the demand for this evolved, right? Growing security demand kind of what did you see there?
Yeah, man. So I’ll tell you, I started off like probably everybody else in the TSD community, right? Selling connectivity,
cloud and, you know, infrastructure to lephony. And I’m not knocking it by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, that it pays the bills, right? But I’ve learned early that you have to adapt, right, to the to the growing change and the growing market. And I’ve also learned that it’s not the big that eats small. It’s the fast that eat the slow. So I was like, you know what, I got to get out there and get first to market, learn this, be uncomfortable, right? And figure this out. Right. So that’s why I left that Fortune 500 company where I was very well off. I was one of the top executives there. Love the organization. But I took a step back to learn security. And, you know, I immersed myself in security because I’m pretty stupid. Quite frankly, I’m not that smart. I have to literally immerse myself in something to learn it because that’s the only way I retain info. So I took that step and it was the best thing, quite frankly, that I ever did. And I do think securities, it’s always going to be evolving. Right. Like I’m like I said, I’m no genius. I’m not an expert in this, but I do dive in, you know, with with no parachute on and just figure it out on the way down, because that’s what served me my whole life from a security standpoint. Yeah, man. I mean, back in the day, it was it was the firewall. It’s like, don’t let anybody in your house. But what are you going to do now that they’re in your house? And how are you going to figure out ways to to to move that mousetrap or whatever? So that’s we’re just figuring out new ways and leveraging some of our ecosystem, like even with you guys, right. And some of your architects, which I love to really gain momentum there.
Yeah. I mean, you call it a great point. You know, nobody nobody punches you in the face and says, hey, paradigm shift is here. I go back to the lobster of the pot example. Right. If you if you boil him, he doesn’t know. But if you throw him in, he freaks out. Right. And and how do you what do you look for? What do you what would you coach somebody on looking for of, hey, these things are happening around you? This is a much bigger thing than you realize it is.
Yeah, I mean, listen, dude, it’s it’s you got to listen to your customers. Right. What are your customers saying? That’s that’s first and foremost. Everybody I ask, whether you’re a CIO, a CTO, a vice president of infrastructure, a network of collaboration. Security is always top of mind. Like it just always is. You can’t get away from it even if you want to. And you got to adapt. Like you got to learn this stuff. And if you don’t, you’re going to be left behind. And that’s just that’s just the natural truth. And I have, you know, I live with five women. I have a very big nut and I have big expenses. I cannot be left behind. It’s just I can’t. So I’m forced to learn this. I told you, it’s just you got to do what you got to do. And if not, quite frankly, like I said, you’re done. Right. It’s just it is what it is. And, you know, we’re talking sales. I’m not super technical, but, you know, you got to adapt. You got to adapt to the change. And if you don’t and you’re done.
All right. So before we get into some of these kind of pro tips here, we’ve got a couple of questions for you coming up. But yeah, tell us if you flash back these last 15 years or so, either lesson learned the hard way or something you got from a great mentor that you want to share.
Yeah, for sure. So for me, dude, I’m super high and it’s going to be more philosophical than like anything else. But there’s two things that I mentioned it again. It’s like adapt or die, right? Like everybody knows Blockbuster, everybody knows Myspace, Kodak. I don’t need to beat the dead on. Everybody’s heard the stories, right? If you’re not adapting, you’re going to die. Like it’s as simple as that. And, you know, if I just decided to sell ethernet and fiber and circuits and connectivity my whole career, will I do well? Yes. Would I be top five of what I want to do? And probably not. Right. Price per bandwidth is going down. It’s becoming super commoditized. You’re not going to make the same amount of money that you did five years ago. Oh, and by the way, inflation, right? So things are becoming more expensive and you need to figure out ways to make more money. So you have to adapt and you have to learn this. And then the second tip I remember, I was working at Sephora. I was working part time selling women’s perfume, believe it or not. And some some dude told me some dude came in looking for cologne, whatever. And I went to the men’s section and he was basically just told me, dude, you look like you’re having a bad day. I’m like, he goes, are you OK? And I’m like, yeah, I’m all right. And we were just talking, you know, just tell him a little bit about what’s going on. He goes, let me let me give you a piece of advice. And this is from somebody that I met at Willowbrook Mall in New Jersey at a Sephora never heard from this guy again. He goes, great story, but nobody gives a S.H.I.T. about your issues until you win. So you go out there and win because that’s when you can really influence people. So that’s always stuck with me to this day. Nobody cares about my past, my issues, if I’m tired, if the deal got stolen from me, nobody, I can’t understand security. Somebody is going to understand it and somebody is going to sell it and you’re going to be left in the dust. Awesome.
All right. Let’s talk about Fortune 500 tips. So you’ve proven that you know how to navigate anything from SMB to large enterprise. So regardless of where a partner might be focusing here, of any of those listening, whether it’s big customers, small customers, prospects,
three strategies that you think people need to embody to have that level of success.
Yeah, for sure. So
conviction is number one, I would say for me, it’s, you know, like, I don’t know, do you like the chutzpah, the boldness, the certainty of who you are and what you do? Because people will see right through that, especially when you’re talking to a sophisticated C-level executive at a Fortune 2000 firm, right? You got to know what you’re talking about to a certain extent, right? So we’re in sales, right? I’m not a technical architect. I’m not an SE, but I know enough about what I’m talking about to generate interest. Right. And if and you better be able to follow up with that second or third question when they ask, because I feel like most guys can get to that meeting and generate interest. But then when they peel the onion a little bit, right, that’s when they kind of, you know, oh, I don’t know. Let me get back to you. Right. The conviction. I mean, we’re talking Fortune 500. This isn’t as prevalent in small, medium. But if you’re talking to these large enterprises,
obviously, these guys are super busy, right? They don’t have time to be meeting with a million advisors, salespeople. So have that conviction, have that chutzpah, have that boldness. And don’t be afraid to challenge them. I think that’s a huge, huge, huge advice. Don’t just yes, men, men to death. Challenge them if there’s something to be challenged, but be sure that you can back it up. So conviction, I say to and this is super prevalent in the enterprise space is how to structure a deal. Right. So there’s a lot of dependencies in some of these larger deals,
different stakeholders, different OEM providers, different MSP providers, where you have to get buy in from up to seven or eight different stakeholders. Right. So learning how to structure a deal where everybody gets what they want, I think, is an arc. Right. And that goes back to the relationship that you build with each one, because it is a long term gate, it is in a short term sale.
And I probably and obviously we could talk about some examples if you want. But I would say those are the major things for me, the conviction. Right. Knowing who you are, having that boldness when you talk to these guys, don’t be afraid of challenge, right? Because they like a challenge for the most part. Most do. Right. And then learning how to structure a deal and basically manage all the personalities within these Fortune 500 companies.
Love it. Good, good stuff. The challenge thing is interesting, I think, so often as we get into some of these new technologies that we haven’t done before, we’re afraid to do that. And the reality is sometimes we stumble into the challenge unintentionally when we ask, why are you doing that? And the answer is, I don’t know. My CEO said we should. Well, is that really the right thing? And you go, no, it’s not. I’ve been wanting to say it, but I wasn’t sure how, you know. Yeah.
Yeah. No, I agree. I agree that it’s funny. I try to I try to challenge everybody on every call. Right. Whether it’s a vendor, a client, a prospect. Right. Because I do want to come out of that call with with, you know, with some type of like, oh, like I remember that from, you know, I want I want to stand out a little bit, as you can imagine, with my shirt on. But I like to stand out. So I’d like to stand out when I am talking to these guys and and really, like I said, just challenge whatever the normal, you know, the norm has been for the last five years. To your point, why are you doing what you’re doing?
So we’ll come back to I’m going to take you up on this idea of an example here in just a sec. But while we’re on this track,
let’s flip this. So in conversations that you’ve seen or mistakes that have been made, what’s a big what’s a big mistake there? Something that you see people doing that that drives the customer away, kills the deal. What’s the things to avoid?
Yeah. So the whole notion of lose fast, you know, when you know, lose fast, I think works in the SMB to mid market. But when you’re talking fortune and you’re talking to large enterprises, there’s no such thing as lose fast. Right. Every single deal is complex. Like every single deal, like I said, has many dependencies, many stakeholders. So I think the lack of creativity, I think, is pretty is pretty prevalent in this space with some of the sales teams. Like they’re so hellbent on one or two ways on doing things that when they hit when they hit a roadblock, they’re just like freaking out. Right. Oh, this isn’t a good this isn’t a good deal. Like this isn’t what we do. This isn’t really black and white. Like no deal is black and white in the enterprise space. There’s going to be some type of professional services, some type of creativeness that you’re going to have to essentially encounter and figure it out. Because I’m not you’re not going to lose the deal. And I mean, you’re not going to win the deal. So if you’re not being creative, somebody else is right. Someone else is getting creative on the way to win this deal. So be creative.
Don’t take don’t take the first no as a hard no. Right. To your point, challenge that and figure out ways around it. And same thing with the vendors. Right. Because most of the vendors that they play in, they’re super black and white with what they do. But hey, if you want part of this deal, we got to get creative here. What can we do? Don’t just take the first no or the first email from a deal registration that it’s not a good deal or it’s not a good fit for us. Figure it out.
I like that. Yeah. No. Beautiful tip. I love that one. So let’s let’s go back then. Walk me through an example. You know, what was the you talked about some of these wins, how to challenge, how to structure a deal, you know, either a win in that or, you know, just generalize from any of these pro tips, what it led to. Tech stack before and after. Anything that’s valuable here.
Yeah, for sure. So last last year, my first year in the business, we we closed a sizable deal with with you with your help. So appreciate that and your security team. It was a Fortune 200 account.
70 in the 70s thousand endpoints for a managed Sentinel One deal. Right. So on the EDR, right. So Sentinel One deal. So we came in. I’ve known the guy forever, one of the C-level executives and just kind of positioned who we are, what we’re doing, kind of kind of our road, you know, our model there. So very complex deal. And when I say this was probably my second largest deal that I that I worked on in my first year. So it freaked me the hell out, quite frankly. But you know what, it could work and we got it done and super happy about that. But to tell you with this particular deal, it’s a Fortune 200 C-level executive. It’s the head of his sock. It’s the head of his threat and vulnerability team. And then you had another four people that I had to individually sell every single meeting that we had, because I had this the C-level person literally in my pocket, like we knew each other. He trusted me. He’s like, Vic, I got to do whatever I can to help you. But you got to convince our team to work with you guys. Right. So in addition to meeting each and every one of those guys individually, one of the keys to my success and our team success is that we like to do in person meetings. And I don’t know why, dude, but people just like to stay behind Zoom and do their whole business behind Zoom. And that’s, hey, if it works for you, awesome. I’m not that good. Right. So I need to get in front of these people. I need to understand what makes them tick, get a beer in them, figure out, hey, what are we doing here? Right. Just be honest, be straight with me. So I’ve met with each and several each and every one of those stakeholders individually, one on one, me, myself. And I flew out to meet them. In addition to these deals, I mentioned they’re pretty complex. Right. And this enterprise space, you’ve got to deal and sell to the C-level executive. You’ve got to sell to his team. You also have to sell to the OEM guys. Right. They’re like, who the hell is this small company trying to get this deal reg for this Fortune 200 company? Like, good luck. Right. So this guy at this OEM, I’m not going to say any names, would not award deal reg, would not meet with us. Would not even answer an email if it came from me. It took an email from that C-level executive to this OEM. We are working with these guys who need to cooperate. And even after that, they still didn’t cooperate. So what did I do? I told you, we love in-person meetings. I found out where this guy lived. I flew out to Florida and said, hey, I’m going to be in town. I’m buying you a drink. Let’s grab some steak. Let’s talk about this deal. Got it done. He finally awarded deal reg 24 hours after I left Florida.
So in addition to that, now we have right in the TSD community, we’re not going to do the resale, right? But we’re going to need to work through an MSSP or somebody in the portfolio. We have to get tagged to that account. So we have to get awarded deal reg at the MSSP. And guess what? It got denied. So I had to figure out a way to get awarded the deal reg with the MSSP. I met with the rep as well, who was actually funny enough for Jersey guys. I was pretty excited about that. It was easy. I didn’t have to fly anywhere. But with these deals, like I said, you got to get creative. The the average rep would give up after one one of these stakeholders said no. Right. And they just freak out, throw their hands in the air. I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore. But all the effort, all the time, it was a four point eight million dollar deal. Largest at the time, the largest security deal in TSD history. So it was a good one and super proud of it. But yeah, like I said, guys, the boldness, the fear, you can’t have any fear when you’re doing this, right? You got to just go to your point all in at one point or another.
Yeah, I love that example, too. And, you know, it underscores something that I think it’s missed is this idea of the multi pronged approach, right? The bigger you go in accounts, the more multi pronged you need to be, because we’ve all been in that situation where the one person that we’re working with gets next, gets another job. But maybe that’s great for future business, right? We always see those, you know, follow on to, hey, let me help you at your next company. But then we go, oh, now I got to resell myself to this new contact. So I love your I really want to double down on your idea of this multi pronged approach,
you know, because you got a choice to make either a I’m going to develop a bunch of relationships with a bunch of SMB customers, or maybe I want to build my business around 10 or 15 customers. And in that instance, then to your point, you’ve got to be super multi pronged in all these and you, I think you nailed down what, six, seven, eight people in that account you had to get to know.
Yeah, Josh, I’ll tell you, dude, it’s not about the deal, right? And I know this is going to sound counterintuitive to us as salespeople, but dude, listen, man, I’m 38. I’m not going to be at, I’m going to probably sell this company one day, right? Or we’re going to merge. I’m not going to be here forever, right? But I’m 38. I have a long way to go. I’m not retiring any time soon. I don’t care how much money I make. I’m not worried about this deal. It is the largest frigging deal that I ever sold. I’m worried about the relationship, right? So I’m going to go all in on each relationship, each stakeholder, because you never know where they’re going to be, where they’re going to go. So I’m thinking long term, every single step of the way. I’m not thinking about this deal. I’m thinking about, hey, I’m going to go all in, give it my all, right? And this SOC manager may be the CISO one day. This CISO is not going to be here forever, right? So I’m going to go all out, get super creative, right? And hopefully we win this deal. And that’s what I’m going for. But if we don’t, I built relationships with eight, nine, 10 people, plus the OEM, plus this MSSP that are going to remember the effort that went into this deal, when, when loser draw, right? So I’m thinking always long term and just, that’s all, that’s what it’s all about. Right? It’s the relationship. It’s the further business. It’s the stakeholders. It’s learning what makes these guys tick. Because they will remember that for the rest of their, hopefully for their security, as you build that relationship with them.
Yeah. And your OEM underscore two, I think is important. That’s as we get into these deals where the OEMs, where they start when the customer comes to us and says, hey, can you get me to this OEM? And we kind of figure it out from there. And maybe we can, maybe we look at an alternative. But as you get down these deals, to your point, I think that, that’s just something that growing up in this space, we never had to deal with. And now as we get into multi-pronged, a zillion OEMs, lots of products, lots of suppliers coming into the mix, that’s a beautiful strategy because you learn over time, those are the guys that hold the keys. I mean, you did it in your example, but I’ve seen it over and over and over again. Can’t underscore that enough too.
Yeah. And I’d say in the enterprise space too, man, you know, you know, because, you know, we’re in the TSD community, right? So everything, if not most of the stuff that we position are all considered a manager or a co-managed service, right? So I think one of the things we’re going to come up against is the idea that these large enterprise teams do it all in-house where they have the expertise, but you’d be surprised, right? So with this deal, yeah, they had a huge team, you know, not just security, but all around infrastructure networks. So the way we position is, hey, let’s do level one and level two as a managed service. And then level three, four is all internal, right? So it’s not a fully managed service. It’s just level one and level two. So, you know, support will be managed and the rest will be in-house. So they like that idea as well because it wasn’t a fully managed service. And obviously we know the providers that can do that, right? Some of the security architects here at Telars that can do that as well.
Good. All right. So final few thoughts here. If I’m a partner and I’m listening to this and I want to get deeper into security, you went down that path. What’s the, is it go to YouTube? Is it go to Udemy? Is it take a masterclass? Is it, you know, what do you recommend for somebody that wants to dive deep in this? Lean on suppliers. What do we do?
Yeah. So I think everybody’s different, right? So some people like to go to school. I don’t, I hated school, right? I’m not going to go back to get a million degrees. That’s just not my style. And I told you, I’m not that smart. So I needed to, I literally needed to quit a job to learn this full time and like get immersed in it to you to learn it. Right.
But for me, if, if the way I would kind of approach it and I still do it today is lean on your vendors, right? They’re willing to do lunch and learns with you guys and it asks the stupidest questions. Like don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions. Lean on your architects, right? Your engineers at Telars, right? I’m pretty tight with, with the guys here. And I always just ask stupid questions all the time. Cause like I said, I’m not that smart, but the vendors I think are huge because they want to meet with you, right? They want you to position them. So have a lunch and learn on security basics and what is MDR and what’s a SOC and what’s a seam and what’s a SOAR, right? And for me, I need to understand things philosophically in like a metaphors. Okay. So give me a metaphor, right? So like lateral security, like micro segmentations, somebody wants to tell me, it’s like, Hey, once they get inside the house, you need to stop them to keep them in that one room, right? So if they get in, they break into your kitchen, build guardrails so they can’t get out the kitchen, right? So that’s, to me, that’s how we kind of describe micro seg to me. And I’m like, Oh crap, that makes sense. And now I understand. So understanding ways, understanding the way security works, um, and metaphors to me helped a lot. Right. Like the castle, the fortress, like how do you protect it from the outside and they get in how once they get in, how do you protect it? Right. So understanding that for me has been huge just because like I said, I’m not that smart. Let’s say that again, right? But lean on your vendors and architects. I would say that 100% do a lunch and learn a week with a vendor, do a lunch and learn a week with an architect, take them out. Like, Hey, let me take you out for lunch. I just want to spit ball with you on whiteboard.
That’s what I would do. Love it. Um, all right. Any, we covered a lot of secrets, a lot of strategies. Did we miss anything, anything, uh, or out of all the ones that we covered, anything you want to double down, um, with regard to these ideas?
Yeah, for sure. I think the biggest one is fear, man. Like I, I’ll tell you, it’s not, I’m not special. Like I said, I started out like everyone else did. We just grew very quickly because I have no fear. Right. It’s like, what’s, what’s the worst that can happen? Ask a couple of security questions. They’re not going to think you’re stupid. Right. And if they do, who cares? Move on, move on to the next one. Right. If you do have a relationship as you claim you do, they’re not just going to discount you because you don’t know what a sock is. Right. Ask the right questions, right? Reach out, talk to your engineers, your vendors. Hey, what are some qualifying questions and just ask them. Like I’m telling you, if there was no fear in the channel, everybody would be selling security, but there’s two things. Some people really don’t have a relationship. They don’t have the relationship and they say they do. So build it. And then two is they’re just scared. Right. Why are you scared? Like that’s what I’m saying. You’re going to be left in the dust. And I mentioned it, all the other stuff we’ve been selling, it’s going to pay the bills. It’s great, but it’s getting cheaper. It’s becoming commoditized. There’s a lot more competition.
Now you have to get to somewhere where there’s not enough, a lot of competition. There isn’t as much competition as you think they are in this space, quite frankly. So just don’t be scared. Love it.
Final thought, then let’s look out for the future. We’re talking about, obviously, security. We didn’t talk a lot about products, per se. We dabbled in products. But I mean, just generally speaking,
any innovations you’re looking most forward to over the next 12 to 24 months? Is it doubling down on what we got cooking right now? And just focus? What’s your final thoughts there?
Yeah, so definitely double downing in what we’re doing today in security. And I think the innovations in really AI has been pretty interesting because everybody’s talking about it. Not a lot of people understand it. But I know we’ve only kind of scratched the surface on what we’re doing in AI. But I’m just grateful to the team at Telaris. You guys are always at the forefront of looking at what’s out there. And like I said, I lean heavily on your team and your guys for everything that we do as an organization. So if you guys are telling me to focus on it, I’m going to focus on it. So that’s what I would say at the end of the day. So obviously double down in security and just what’s happening in AI just across the board, not just in security, but in all the other facets.
Cool. All right, man. I’m questioned out, Vic. I really appreciate you coming on, buddy. This is good stuff. I’ve covered a lot of pro tips on here, a lot to unpack.
Yeah, no, I appreciate it, buddy. Thank you.
Awesome. All right, everybody. As always, catch this one. It drops every Wednesday, whether you’re coming to us from Spotify, Apple Music. Make sure you follow, get those notifications. I’m your host for today, SVP of Sales, Engineering, and Telarus, Josh Lupresto, Vic Cardone, and SecureX. Until next time.
Next Level BizTech has been a production of Telarus Studio 19. Please visit Telarus.com for more information.