Marketers of Technology
00:01:31 · Joe Cicero
[00:01:31] S0: Sure. I started off as a classroom teacher in Rochester, New York. Fell in love with what technology was providing my students. They were underserved. 80% got free or reduced lunch, and the idea of putting a laptop in every child's hand was really a a game changer at the time. And from there, that led me into my path to education technology. Then I was at Microsoft for some time doing the development of Intune, and then I switched over to the Microsoft Security Stack, launching Defender Experts. Then I went to the partner space. I found Security Risk Advisors. They have an office in my backyard in Rochester, New York. I saw the stuff that they were doing and I said, my goodness, I think I can help you grow a lot faster by harnessing the relationships I've built within Microsoft and the expertise you already have. So Security Risk Advisors, known to many as SRA, is a professional services company, been around for about fifteen years, headquartered out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We do everything from red teaming, which means that people pay us to break into their stuff, to blue teaming. They help us improve their security. And then we have a a service line called Scalar, and that is our managed security operations, everything from an XDR type environment to vulnerability management. If you're familiar with like the mythos story that was popular earlier in this year, helping our customers respond to that, and then just protect them on a daily basis from new and emerging threats.
00:03:07 · Andres Figuera
[00:03:07] S1: Okay. And Joe, in terms of marketing for a company from... Of this style, how has it been generating demand for what you guys do?
00:03:16 · Joe Cicero
[00:03:16] S0: You know, I... Sometimes it's like, wish we were a product company because then we could sell a box. Hey, go and buy this box off a shelf. I'm gonna link you here. Go put the item in your cart. And then all we have to do is flood the storefront and we'll have a conversion rate. For professional services, it's a little bit harder because everyone wants that bespoke connection, that bespoke solution to what their problem is. And especially when we're talking about cybersecurity, there's a lot of sensitivity around. If I share with you my problems, I'm sharing with you my vulnerabilities. And that doesn't happen in a go to the storefront and click a button. That's relationship building, that's several meetings, that's several points of contact. Obviously, brand gets you in the door, Word-of-mouth, someone knows who you are, but there's still that sniffing each other out, trying to figure out, do I trust you and can you serve my business? And then once that's agreed upon, it's then coming up with that bespoke solution. So we try to come up with cookie cutter solutions, but ultimately, every customer is a little bit different, and as a professional services customer or a professional services company, we have to come up with that and build that out. And that makes the marketing a little bit more challenging because it's not just, hey, buy this, it's let's get in rooms with decision makers and have long conversations and long sales cycles.
00:04:41 · Andres Figuera
[00:04:41] S1: No. And cybersecurity is a very precarious space because it's as you mentioned, like you need to be able to generate trust and when somebody's gonna tell you their flaws or their weaknesses, it's like, am I exposing myself to a company that could just take advantage of that? But then to that point specifically, Joe, do what has worked best for you in order to generate trust with these companies so that they use your services that you provide.
00:05:06 · Joe Cicero
[00:05:06] S0: I'm the chief marketing officer, so I'm probably supposed say, we have this ad campaign and it's so great, but that accounts for probably 50% of our growth. The other 50% is coming from just happy clients that move around, refer us in. Our main customer is CISO, the Chief Information Security Officer, and they tend to move around a little bit. They don't stay at one company. They might be leading a pharma company, then they go over to a manufacturing company being a CISO over there, and because we've served them well, we're one of the first calls that they make, and they tell their friends about us, especially in the age of all of this AI noise that exists of anyone can look big, strong, and awesome, but are they actually? Or do they just have AI making it look like that? And that's always been the case with marketing. So happy clients is always the number one way to do it. And then the second way, which I guess falls under my remit as a CMO, is just leading with thought leadership. So, yes, we do some ads. Yes, we do some targeted campaigns, but really giving away as much free stuff as possible so that folks can kick the tires at $00. Right? Attend our webinar. Read our blog, go test it out in your environment what we built and gave away. We do some open source stuff, we give a lot of things away for free, not just knowledge, but we get some platform stuff away for free too, and that's just showing that that we're real and that they can take a look without feeling that that high pressure we need you to buy today.
00:06:38 · Andres Figuera, Joe Cicero
[00:06:38] S1: I love that, man. And that really is a way to hook them and have them what you provide. And if they like it, it's like, I want to know more and I want to use more of this service and everything that SRA does. So I really feel it's something that places you in an authoritative place in whoever's mind is looking at whatever you provide. That way, you show that you have no issue telling them that and that you're really there to help them because if you put a price tag on everything that you're providing, it's a little bit... Like, people can get a little bit cynical into what the the company is doing. [00:07:08] S0: Yeah. And we're very lucky because we've existed for so many years now where we don't have that high pressure sales mentality and it's okay if a relationship takes thirty six months to develop. Obviously, we wanna wanna develop it as quickly as possible, but when we're talking about Fortune 100, Fortune 50 companies, there's a lot of touch points that have to take place before you start transacting. However, with our customers, because we do all this upfront work and then once they are transacting, we continue to delight them, The ability to grow the existing account is almost a given. Right? It's surprising if we're not growing our footprint just because of of what we're bringing to the table. Of course. Of course. [00:07:52] S1: And, Joe, do you only provide the services with CRA to SRA to The States or do you work globally or in certain regions?