Marketers of Technology
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?
00:07:52 · Andres Figuera, Joe Cicero
[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? [00:07:59] S0: Sure. So in addition to The United States, we have a lot of happy customers around the world. Canada, we have an office in Kilkenny, Ireland, so we service all of Europe. We have a surprising surprising amount of customers in Japan. That's cool. That was not intentional. That was just opportunistic, and it's just... It's growing, and that's word-of-mouth. We don't have any Japanese speakers at the time of this recording, but, like, it... It's working for us. We have a team in Australia as well, so obviously, we have customers there. We have a lucky team that's in Hawaii that allows us to offer that 24 by seven coverage wrapping around the globe. But, yeah, worldwide and surprisingly a a growing segment in Japan. [00:08:45] S1: That is crazy. So Japan was just organically led by word-of-mouth. Like, there was no strategic campaign directed [00:08:51] S0: to Japan [00:08:52] S1: or anything like that. [00:08:53] S0: Just like this where all of a sudden we were looking at CRM, and we connected CRM to our AI solution set and asking it, like, tell us things that we might not know. And it's... One of the things was like, do you know you have a fast growing stake in Japan? And it starts pointing out like, oh, I guess they are Japan headquartered or they have a big presence there and some of the things we weren't realizing. And that's great. We wanna grow everywhere. Right? So it's all good.
00:08:53 · Joe Cicero, Andres Figuera
[00:08:53] S0: Just like this where all of a sudden we were looking at CRM, and we connected CRM to our AI solution set and asking it, like, tell us things that we might not know. And it's... One of the things was like, do you know you have a fast growing stake in Japan? And it starts pointing out like, oh, I guess they are Japan headquartered or they have a big presence there and some of the things we weren't realizing. And that's great. We wanna grow everywhere. Right? So it's all good. [00:09:21] S1: Dude, I I feel that's amazing because in Japanese culture, I know they really value high detail things that work. And they... And then if they're using SRA services over there, it must mean that your product is very high quality. So congratulations for that. That's so cool. [00:09:36] S0: Yeah. I think it's the word-of-mouth from existing clients and then the partnership with Microsoft because we are tightly aligned with Microsoft and the credibility that they bring to the market. And when they bring us in, that co sell motion works as an endorsement. We know we're good. Our clients know that we're good. But to have a behemoth like Microsoft saying, hey, they're one of our top security partners, that gives us a lot of credibility. [00:10:00] S1: And, Joe, how is the experience marketing while being partnered to such a big company like Microsoft? Because I feel they must have certain guardrails, things you can and can't say. Is it... Is there like a little... What's it called? Are there requirements or things you gotta meet in order to keep being their partners?
00:10:00 · Andres Figuera, Joe Cicero
[00:10:00] S1: And, Joe, how is the experience marketing while being partnered to such a big company like Microsoft? Because I feel they must have certain guardrails, things you can and can't say. Is it... Is there like a little... What's it called? Are there requirements or things you gotta meet in order to keep being their partners? [00:10:17] S0: Sure. So I think anybody can be a Microsoft partner, but there's levels to that partnership of is... Are people assigned from Microsoft to manage the relationship? And we've grown to that point where we have about a team of six from Microsoft where their scorecard at Microsoft is our success. And Microsoft is gonna have a strict brand guideline of how we use their logo, how we talk about their product the same way we do. They're much bigger, so their enforcement mechanism is bigger. Coming from Microsoft makes it a lot easier to speak that corporate language and understand how they operate. And ultimately, we're aligned that Microsoft security is, in many cases, the best solution for our shared clients. So that makes it much easier. We're never going to say something that we don't believe, and we're not forced to. And I think Microsoft would say the exact same thing where we have our autonomy, we partner because it makes sense for our shared clients.
00:10:17 · Joe Cicero, Andres Figuera
[00:10:17] S0: Sure. So I think anybody can be a Microsoft partner, but there's levels to that partnership of is... Are people assigned from Microsoft to manage the relationship? And we've grown to that point where we have about a team of six from Microsoft where their scorecard at Microsoft is our success. And Microsoft is gonna have a strict brand guideline of how we use their logo, how we talk about their product the same way we do. They're much bigger, so their enforcement mechanism is bigger. Coming from Microsoft makes it a lot easier to speak that corporate language and understand how they operate. And ultimately, we're aligned that Microsoft security is, in many cases, the best solution for our shared clients. So that makes it much easier. We're never going to say something that we don't believe, and we're not forced to. And I think Microsoft would say the exact same thing where we have our autonomy, we partner because it makes sense for our shared clients. [00:11:14] S1: Of course. Of course. And does Microsoft help you out with, for example, distribution with the marketing? Do they repost and engage with what you guys do? Or do you just have the right to name them and place their logo and that is something that works really well because it all... It already gives you that credibility because you're a partner to them.
00:11:32 · Joe Cicero
[00:11:32] S0: Sure. Yeah. They do the the co marketing stuff. We have some co marketing investments where they'll help us promote webinars, but we also have weekly calls where it's drilling through pipeline and making sure, hey, are we helping here? Can we help here? Where are we at there? And the more that we collaborate, the more we help our customers because in most of the cases when we partner with Microsoft to help a client, there's Microsoft investment dollars that offset some of that cost, right? Because Microsoft wants its customers to use its products and to grow its use of products. And for us, our services are set up to enable those products and to manage them. And if Microsoft is willing to to co invest, that helps out our clients because it's rare that we talk to a CISO that says, I have unlimited budget. Right? They're always like, they're like trying to save money, everybody wants to do everything, help me understand all of it, and AI needs to be a part of the solution because that's what my board is telling me to do. And anytime we can partner with someone that they're already transacting with, right, it's very rare to find a Fortune 1,000 company that doesn't have a Microsoft deal. It's not... We're not selling Microsoft, we don't sell Microsoft, but we partner with them, we co sell our services with them, and Microsoft co invests in us as a partner, but they also co invest in our shared customers which makes that path to transaction a lot shorter because a customer can start consuming SRA services and Microsoft could be footing the bill to start it off, which makes customer acquisition a lot easier, right? Because if it's not your money