The Road to Product Market Fit: Strategies for Cybersecurity Startups with Baber Amin, COO of Veridium

In today's episode, we have the pleasure of being joined by Baber Amin, the Chief Product & Operating Officer at Veridium. Baber brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, and in this conversation, he delves into the importance of building partnerships that go beyond mere reselling opportunities. We'll explore the significance of investing in training for consultants to provide top-notch service to customers and how being a true partner means embedding into the partner's existing ecosystem.

But that's not all! We'll also dive into the concept of Product Market Fit and how it's a gradual process rather than an instant transition. Baber uses the analogy of traveling from San Francisco to New York to illustrate the journey of finding Product Market Fit, emphasizing the need for continuous learning and adaptation along the way. Additionally, we'll discover the evolving messaging around passwordless authentication and the importance of clearly communicating its benefits to customers.

Hold on tight as Baber takes us through Veridium's innovative approach to deploying phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, their new product developments to enhance biometrics, and the role of channel partners in expanding their reach. We'll explore how Veridium is staying current with industry trends and customer demands, and how they're bridging the gap between technical details and outcomes to drive success.

So, whether you're a cybersecurity enthusiast, a startup founder, or just curious about the latest industry insights, this episode is for you. Get ready to gain valuable perspectives on revenue generation, scaling a company, and elevating cybersecurity discussions to a business level. Let's dive in!

Veridium
Baber Amin on LinkedIn

Transcript

Andrew Monaghan [00:00:00]:

In this episode, we revisit a company we talked to last year, which is Veridium in the passwordless space. And we talked to Baber Amin, the COO. In the last year, they've coupled transformations they've been going through. One is around an emphasis and refocusing on the channel. We talk about how they went about doing that and what it meant for the business. And then secondly, we talk about the change they made from being a mid-level technical sale into much more of a business impact and executive sale and how they went about doing that. Great Episode. Really Practical. Don't go away. Welcome to the Cybersecurity Revenue Growth podcast, where we help cybersecurity companies grow sales faster. I am your host. Andrew Monaghan. Our guest today is Baber Amin, chief product and operating officer at Veridium.  Baber,  welcome to the podcast.

Baber Amin [00:00:57]:

Hi, Andrew. Thank you for having me.

Andrew Monaghan [00:00:59]:

Yeah. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Looking at your background. Baber, you're a longtime product leader, product executive. I'm looking at your resume there. You got Novell, CA ping companies like that in there. So you've got a rich history in product and cybersecurity products. And I talked with Veridium last year and I'm keen to understand how things have been going and what's going on. Last time we talked that you were prepping for the next stage of growth for Veridium. So this will be a good update and insight and learnings for all of us on the podcast today. Well, listen, let's move on to the business side. I do want to go back to one thing about your background. So you were at CA, which was bought by Broadcom. The last company I worked for before I did all my consulting was I worked for Semantic, which got bought by Broadcom as well. I kind of wonder how many people really, truly understand the Broadcom model and what they're doing, and the success they're having. I don't know if you want any comments on that experience and realizing what they're trying to do with Broadcom.

Baber Amin [00:02:07]:

I don't know what they're trying to do, but I know that their model is very successful and works for Broadcom. I know a lot of my friends are still there, and they do a good job at Focus. So they're focusing on their customers and really paying attention to those customers and making sure that those customers are getting the maximum value out of their investment. So I think that is a great approach.

Andrew Monaghan [00:02:37]:

Yeah, I remember when Symantec was acquired and I forget the CEO's name, but he was pretty direct in all the announcements internally and through the process that they want to semantic because it's a business that they would drive up their own revenue per account. They don't want to hugely innovate and create new products. They want to add more products into the mix and say, let's take whoever picks a company. I Don't Know If Walmart Is A Customer Or Not, let's Take Them from 25 million a year to 35 million a year to 45 million a year by doing licensing deals for more products and things like that. And we're not trying to make the most amazing product in ten years' time. We're trying to get really good at this one thing we're doing at the moment. And some people were kind of upset, right? They thought, well, I want to innovate. We got these cool things, I've got cool ideas and cool products and cool, cool. And the was like, yeah, that's not really what we do here at Broadcom. And then people gave him a bit of a pushback. He said just look how successful we are and tell me I've got it wrong.

Baber Amin [00:03:36]:

Yeah. And I always tell people you need people like that too because they are really helping their customers get the most value out of the portfolio that they have and making sure everything is working together. So that makes sense. I think they provide a lot of value to their customers from that perspective.

Andrew Monaghan [00:03:56]:

Yeah, I think it's one of these things that seems to work all right, but it's so different from what you usually hear, that it was kind of jarring in cybersecurity. It's all about the next thing and the new attacks and new technologies and things like that. And he was like, yeah, not my thing and by the way, my way works for what we do. So I thought it was kind of interesting.

Baber Amin [00:04:17]:

They can always buy their way into new innovations.

Andrew Monaghan [00:04:21]:

Yes. Right. Well, when I last talked with anyone at Ridium, it was probably about a year ago. My impression at that time was really cool technology and the company was ready for that next step. So if I got that right, was that my impression correct and how are things going?

Baber Amin [00:04:40]:

No, that's definitely the correct impression. Things are going well. So since the last time you had this conversation, we've got a few new offerings. On the product side, we had been incubating our ability to curate signals from devices, basically bringing more of the human-device interaction together. And we've been curating that for a year, over a year, to make sure that that can provide a good enough signal from a risk perspective so that you could use that in your process for continuous authentication in your process for looking to see what is happening and maybe even feed that signal into it, into your Itdr systems so that you can create a feedback loop out of that. So that is now deployed at customers and we're getting a lot of valuable feedback from that. The customers are actually becoming partners in making that taking to the next level. So that's exciting. On the go-to-market side, we adding more salespeople so bringing in more sales executives, and also having a more well-defined channel program now. So we've added new channel partners in a couple of geographies and what that does is obviously is allowing us to have more feet on the street from an indirect perspective, but it also gives us the ability to leverage those channel partners as professional services partners. So these are not just resellers, right? These are true partners who understand the technology. They can take us to market, they understand the local customs, the local geography, what is the local requirements and they can translate that not just from a language perspective, but also from a cultural perspective. So that has been good from that perspective.

Andrew Monaghan [00:06:50]:

So a lot of changes, a lot of forward momentum or movement on both those sides. Let's go back a couple of years though. I'm kind of interested in what was happening with Viridium in the market. That said, we need to kind of think again and just realize that they might be a different direction for us. What was the realization and how did that change come around?

Baber Amin [00:07:10]:

Yeah, I wouldn't say it was a different direction. I would call it a focus.

Andrew Monaghan [00:07:16]:

Right.

Baber Amin [00:07:16]:

So as you're probably even more aware than I am on this, when you first create a product and you're trying to find Product Market Fit, you want to find that ideal customer who is an early adopter. And that customer needs to be your partner really. Right. They become your development partner and they help you get to that point and then you replicate that to another customer. And if you can replicate that three or four times, then you start to see, okay, you know what? I do have a product-market fit here. People are wanting that. So a few years ago we were at that stage, we were trying to find our footing, trying to find our Product Market Fit. And once we found that product market Fit and found those early customers, then now it's time to scale that. Right. Now it's time to find partners, find channels, and grow the sales team. Because now we are understanding who is our ideal customer, what are scenarios where we are unique and we fit in and we solve that problem versus other people, what we can do better than others, and where we can provide more value.

Andrew Monaghan [00:08:30]:

Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I think that we talk about Product Market Fit as if one day you don't have it, the next day you do. And I don't think that's a reality. Let's say for every whiz that's out there, there's 500 companies which are sort of kind of got Product Market Fit and they're moving forward and they're going to learn along the way. And I kind of liken it to you were trying to get from San Francisco to New York. There are 45 different ways to do it and different modes of transport and all this sort of stuff. But you should at least all be on the same freeway, right? You might have slightly different lanes and you might not be quite in the right lane for what you need but at least you're on the right freeway. And then as you get on the freeway and you move forward, you start finding the right inside outside speeds, things like that. And I think somewhere along those lines, as you're going through that journey, what people find is that suddenly the freeway changes a little bit, right? They need to respond and things come at them a little bit. Something's a big accident and they need to go, well, let's go a different route for a little bit so all these things happen. And I think that's a great realization that you guys have. Well, we need to just make sure that what got us here might not get us to the next stage. And if we want to get there, how do we go about doing that?

Baber Amin [00:09:45]:

Yeah, so I mean, what we found, I agree with you, right, that sometimes you have to take a detour. And what we found was that look, we are really good, for example, at providing end-to-end, phishing-resistant multifactor authentication for VDI. There is a huge deployment of VDI virtual desktops out there and people struggle to have that consistent experience for their virtual desktop users, which by the way, became the VDI usage patterns grew during the pandemic and they haven't come down from that perspective. A lot of financial institutions use virtual desktops. We also learned that identity-bound biometrics, especially non-reversible biometrics, is unique and it's important. So when I have biometrics on my phone and I authenticate using my phone, using my iPhone's biometrics, it's not really proving that it's me on the other end of that phone. All you know is that the phone is there, right? It's really telling you that the device is there, but it really didn't tell you that I unlocked that device because I can enroll my wife's print on there too. So that's not really identity bound biometric, right? So what we do, this is the realization, and our customers realize that too, that when we use biometrics as a factor for triggering authentication, it is tightly bound to that user. We always know who that user is and then with our behavior capability or gesture signals we're even creating a tighter binding between the user and the device and the session and that whole experience so that we can bring that to bear as a better authentication, a higher probability of knowing that that is the person on the other end of that digital cone, for lack of a better word.

Andrew Monaghan [00:11:51]:

So were you advancing the product at the same time as you learned more about what was needed in the market? And that was part of the decision to pause a little bit and make sure everything was lined up for the next ten years?

Baber Amin [00:12:02]:

We were, because we were taking feedback from customers and at the same time there are changes happening in the market also. So we're responding to that. So example, right, we're enhancing the product on the biometric front because technology is constantly changing there and new equipment comes out. So that allows us to do new things, new algorithms come out that allow us to be more efficient and faster and do more edge processing in the industry. We're seeing a shift in the industry happening around all things called Fido, right? The Fido Alliance is continuously improving with pass keys and other things. So making sure that we stay current with that and provide that value to our customers, is important. And then at the same time working with those customers, we get real-time feedback. So they say, hey, you know what, this is great, right? This is helping me with my zero trust strategy because authentication is step one of zero trust. But I want to do continuous authentication. So how can I leverage your product or your signals to do continuous authentication? Or how can I leverage these signals and pass them into my Itdr system and create a more complete picture across the board so that also drives the product because that tells us, hey, you know what, the is more value like, even if we're not thinking about it, we're thinking, hey, we're just doing authentication? Our customers are driving us to that point where saying, no, yes, you have huge value for authentication, but you have 30 plus contextual signals that I can use and use them to create downstream value from that. So those customers are also driving that. Sometimes we might not be thinking about that. So all of those things kind of work together in my mind. Some of the things are driven by industry, some of the things are driven by customers and some of the things are driven by the improvement of technology in general and all those changes.

Andrew Monaghan [00:14:09]:

Baba, what did that mean as you went to market? Did you have to change messaging? Did you think about the right people in the sales team and roles and things like that to make sure they're all aligned?

Baber Amin [00:14:20]:

Excellent question. You hit it on as we're changing all these aspects. Yes, the messaging had to evolve. We used to talk about identity verification and passwordless authentication and we still do those things, but the conversation has evolved to say, you know what, password authentication is a ceremony or is a distinct activity. What does that mean to the customer? Right? So from a messaging perspective, that means how does it relate to the customers, what they're trying to do? What are they trying to solve? They're trying to solve their board and their C suite is asking them to solve for a reduction in cyber insurance. They're asking the to reduce the danger of getting fish. They're asking him to make sure that they are immune to ransomware. So our messaging needs to be able to convey those benefits because those benefits still exist and they always existed. But messaging-wise, if we're not saying that, we're asking the customer to create that link in their mind and putting a lot of cognitive load on them versus explaining to them to say look, if you deploy a phishing-resistant MFA, your cyber insurance premiums could go down. You might actually be able to get cyber insurance renewal because a lot of cyber insurance is going down that path where they're saying if you don't have this checklist done, I'm not even touching you. And when you're trying to follow and create zero-trust strategies across your organization, where can that help? So helping those customers see that your Help Desk calls are going to go down I can guarantee that the reduction in cost for Help Desk is at least 50% and by just deploying that you're 99% immune to a phishing attack.

Andrew Monaghan [00:16:17]:

Right?

Baber Amin [00:16:17]:

And that's not my number. This number is coming from Microsoft. They did a study and Google did a study and so by deploying MFA, and especially the MFA that we bring to the table, which is removing that phishable credential completely out of the picture, you're better than 99% phishing proof at that point. This also means that the ability for you to get hit by ransomware goes down considerably. Pretty much to zero, at least from that one angle. Now if somebody still plugs a bad USB stick, I can't really help you with that. But this also helps even lateral movement within the organization, right? If something gets in it can't move laterally. If somebody gets in they can't move laterally because each system is asking for the same kind of validation.

Andrew Monaghan [00:17:09]:

It sounds like as you're describing all this baba that beforehand it might have been quite a technical sale, right? Passwordless and identity and things like that and then you're moving to much more of a business or a business-aligned sale. I always wonder when that happens, what that means for the sales team. Right? Because they might be very comfortable talking about products and features and speeds and feeds and password lists and things like that. And now what they suddenly have to do is talk about many different things. How did you help them make that bridge?

Baber Amin [00:17:40]:

That's a great point and we did have to go through that. Actually. I would say we're still constantly evolving because the sales team is technically oriented because we're a product company. But at the same time, these folks are also extremely smart and fast learners. So they see how those dots are connecting and it's really getting them more comfortable to talk about the outcome rather than the process. So our goal was to say, look, let's talk about outcomes. What is it that the customer wants to achieve and what is it that the outcome is going to be? If they act on your recommendation to deploy this solution, what is the outcome that they're going to get, and is that outcome aligned with their expectation and their board's expectation? And how is this going to help them? So focus on the outcome and not on the shiny object that is going to get you to that outcome. And that was really the AHA moment for the sales team. Once they understood that, let's focus on outcomes, it was an easier conversation.

Andrew Monaghan [00:18:59]:

I'm an ex salesperson. I was on quota and everything for 20-plus years. And you make it sound like maybe a little bit more simple than I know it might be. I'm wondering what resistance or what barriers you had that kind of came along the way as you were helping the team kind of evolve.

Baber Amin [00:19:15]:

No, I am trying to make it simpler, but you're right. So the main resistance we always get, and I've seen this not only here, but even in my past life when we've tried to do these kinds of transformation or change, the main resistance is, well, that's not the conversation that the person I'm having wants to listen, right? They want to talk about ones and zeros. And I never tell people, well, you're talking to the wrong people. No, because those people are also the people we need to talk with and get their support. So there are no wrong people to talk to, first of all. But you have a different conversation at that level. If you're only having the conversation at the one and zero level, then your sales process is going to be much longer and you might not actually succeed. You might get stalled out, you might get hung up on feature-by-feature comparison, right? If you're having the conversation at the one and zero level and also having a conversation at the outcome level, then you can act as a bridge between those because sometimes those organizations don't have that internal conversation. Even so, by becoming that bridge between the organization itself, you actually make the organization talk to each other and say, look, yes, you are deploying the one and zero and you care about that. By the way, this is proven technology and you can prove it yourself. So you're happy, right? Because I'm not trying to just give you something. This is not snake oil. But at the same time, your leadership is looking for this outcome. So why don't we work together to achieve that outcome? And that makes it somewhat easier because one, you're incorporating, at least my belief is, and it has worked for me, you're bringing everybody into the conversation rather than excluding and saying, no, you're just talking to the wrong people if they won't want to listen to this. Because there are no wrong people. Everybody has a part to play. And the goal really is to create an environment where you bridge the different conversations and really partner with them to go to the next step. I don't know. I'll ask you if you have a similar experience and you obviously see a lot more. I can talk about five different companies, but you've seen a lot more. So what is your experience?

Andrew Monaghan [00:21:36]:

Well, I think that that sort of transformation in how to sell in general, I think a lot of people can do it, but I think the first thing is, do they actually want to do it right? And naturally, making those changes, what I've seen is it's not for a few people. They are much more comfortable doing more of a technical sale all the way around. Right. They're enterprise executive-level sellers and then something you ask them to be like a technical seller. Not for me. Right. So anytime you make that change, there's going to be people that say yay or nay to making it. And I think the thing that I found really useful is looking for the right people to make the road inroads, to then get some successes so you can highlight the successes, right? So you can say, look, I know this is tough, we're going to support you, we're going to train you, we're going to enable you, things like that. But look what Jim has done already. What Jim did was he went to and he had this conversation and involved these people and things like that, right? It's much more of a positive environment you're building at that point, right? Where the success in the future, they can see down the tunnel and say, yes, I see the light, I see the possibility someone I know and trust is already starting to have some success. I want to be on that train right there. I don't want to necessarily be on the train I've been on for the past couple of years and at that point I find that support the heck out of people, right? Because people think it's just so easy. But salespeople are humans too, believe it or not, and we have our own fears and frustrations and desires and all the rest of it and we want to make sure that we support people through those changes. But when it happens, though, to your point, when it happens, it's awesome. Right? Because I think cybersecurity in general is a very technical world and the more that we elevate it into a business conversation, good things happen, right? Business value is where it's at. Especially right now, people are very concerned about ROI, TCO, I don't know, all these types of three-letter words to describe how we spend our money and whether are we doing it well. And I think if you can get into those conversations, it's going to be a lot better. So I think it's an interesting transformation you made.

Baber Amin [00:23:51]:

Yeah. So I totally agree with you about basically connecting to and attaching people together and showing what somebody else has already done. And we did that at my last job at Viridium. We do that slightly differently because we don't have that many. Our salesforce isn't that big to say, hey, you know what, look at Jim doing something. So I end up playing that role a lot because as part of my support to the sales organization, I'll go on a call with the sales executive and I can play that role in real time by helping them. See the change of the conversation and the supporting them at the same time, so that next time around, they see the value of that and they say, oh, you know what? Yes, I can have the conversation that way too. And to your point, we're fortunate that the sales team that we have, are the types of people who can lean both ways, right? They can talk the technical language and they understand that, but they can also talk about value and creating a relationship and creating that connection because people still buy from people at the end of the day.

Andrew Monaghan [00:25:06]:

Yeah, for sure. That's so important to remember. Yeah. I always think about these things that people buy with emotion and justify with logic, and we've got to think about how we tap into both sides and not just the logical side. Bobber, before we go any further, though, let's get to know a little bit more about you. I'm going to ask you to pick the numbers between one and 35, and I'll read out some corresponding questions.

Baber Amin [00:25:31]:

One and 35. Let's go for 1818.

Andrew Monaghan [00:25:36]:

Tea or coffee?

Baber Amin [00:25:37]:

Coffee.

Andrew Monaghan [00:25:38]:

What kind of coffee do you like?

Baber Amin [00:25:40]:

I used to do a lot of bulletproof coffee, and now I've been doing a lot of mushroom coffee, and sometimes I mix my bulletproof and my mushroom coffee together.

Andrew Monaghan [00:25:52]:

So are you Tim Ferriss Hooverman sort of biohacker person or do you dabble more than invest your whole life towards it?

Baber Amin [00:26:03]:

I follow him to the extent of drinking his style of coffee, yes.

Andrew Monaghan [00:26:09]:

That's awesome. Me too. I tried mushroom coffee before. I don't know, it was good and all, but I prefer the taste of coffee, so I could have gone back to that. And then I actually gave up caffeinated coffee last year. I found that the caffeine was giving me the withdrawal headaches and things like that that you sometimes get. I thought I just completely cut it out. So I'm off coffee, which well, off real coffee. I have decaf quite a bit, which is fine. It's kind of like having a nonalcoholic beer or something like that, but I enjoy the ritual of it, I guess, is my point.

Baber Amin [00:26:43]:

Yeah. So I tried the pure mushroom coffee and I didn't like it that much. But if you mix the sigmatic mushroom coffee with regular coffee and then do the whole bulletproof, and add butter to it, that works out pretty well.

Andrew Monaghan [00:27:02]:

I like that. I might have to give that a try. All right, another number. Team one in 35.

Baber Amin [00:27:06]:

Let's pick 24.

Andrew Monaghan [00:27:08]:

24. Do you have a favorite action movie or drama movie?

Baber Amin [00:27:14]:

Favorite action movie. I have to say, diehard. Like a movie for every Christmas.

Andrew Monaghan [00:27:20]:

It's a Christmas movie, right? It's one of those all-time classics. Every Christmas you get Tweets going out there with people saying, oh, watch out for Nakatomi Plaza.

Baber Amin [00:27:31]:

Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Monaghan [00:27:33]:

I love that movie. All right, the last number is between one and 35.

Baber Amin [00:27:37]:

Let's go for six.

Andrew Monaghan [00:27:39]:

Number six. How did you first make money? As a kid?

Baber Amin [00:27:43]:

I would have to say washing my dad's car for him. And that was always tricky because as a kid, you just want to just use a hose and you're more excited about using the hose than washing the car. And my dad was more concerned about me doing it properly so I don't scratch the paint job on the car.

Andrew Monaghan [00:28:03]:

Yes. You wanted the car washed not just.

Baber Amin [00:28:05]:

Splashed right or just the dirt spread around everywhere.

Andrew Monaghan [00:28:09]:

Right? Yeah. These people with standards, your kid it's right? It looks fine. I love that. Barbara, you said at the know that one of the initiatives you were doing was building out the channel, the channel as a channel, I guess, what are the main routes to market that you have right now, and what's really working for you?

Baber Amin [00:28:32]:

So we have two routes to market. We obviously have our direct route to market, which is our own sales team where we go touch the customers directly. The second route we have is a channel partner-led route. And in that case, we stay at arm's length and we work with our channel partners. And all of our channel partners are more than just resellers, right? These partners are trained on our product. So they understand how the product works, they understand how to do the demo, they understand how the run their own copies of that. That does two things. One, they become the face in front of the customer for multiple reasons. Right? So we have channel partners in different geographies and they understand the culture, they understand the selling cycle, they understand all of the local customs there. The other thing it does is that they provide huge amounts of valuable feedback to us both from a product perspective and what they're hearing back from their customers. Right. So it's actually twice the amount of feedback we get because when they are doing the demo, they're running it themselves. They kind of are a customer in that case kind of a highly specialized customer. So they not only do the groundwork, the presales work, the selling work, but they also do professional services in that case afterward to do the deployments and then they have the ability to support the customer from a run and operate perspective beyond that point. And they have created that relationship so then they can create upsell opportunities. So an example is somebody one of our channel partners is selling identity verification aspects for new account openings for banks. And they will start with Let's just do KYC know your customer type work. And that's the starting point. But once they have earned that business and earned that respect and that status with the customer, then they go back. In and they can say, hey, now let me take you create the second link here and you've already onboarded the users. So now let's implement multifactor authentication. Once you've done that, you can say, well, now let's bring in risk signaling and start incorporating this into your Itdr systems and kind of creating a more of a continuous authentication platform for you so you can see that it's a ladder approach at that point. And those partners and those channel partners are really adept at kind of taking one bite of the apple at a time and then growing that out. And that has been very successful. We have partners in Latin America, Mexico, Asia, Middle East, and sometimes they cross over a little bit. A lot of them stay within their region. There are some partners that do crossovers.

Andrew Monaghan [00:31:30]:

What I really liked was what you said there are two things. One is that for the partners, it's more than just a resell opportunity, right? I think that sometimes they can swap vendors in and out very quickly if it's just a skew that they're selling, right? But if they've got the investment in training so that the consultants could go out and do a good job to like customers and make some money on that, then you're much more of a true partner to the reseller. And then secondly, you're embedding into their world all other things that they are doing to make you relevant for them as they are already, as opposed to thinking somehow that they're going to change their world just to fit you in. Which I think there are probably very few companies in cybersecurity that could say they could do that, right? We probably name them pretty quickly. So I love the way that you approach that. I often get asked by earlier-stage companies, how we use the channel. As they use the word use the channel, right? And it's a tough one to crack if what you're looking for is just someone to sell your SKUs. Not always the best way to approach it, correct?

Baber Amin [00:32:31]:

And I like what you just said there. I don't think we should be using the channel, right? We should be partnering with the channel. And I have to attribute my mindset on that to people I've worked with in the past. Folks like Lauren Russen, Andre Duran, Jim Taylor. These are some of the folks I have worked with in the past who have been great mentors and shown me and taught me how to think about the channel also in a lot of different ways. So I have to give a lot of credit to those folks because everything I learned, I learned from them.

Andrew Monaghan [00:33:13]:

Do you have questions for me, Baba, about any of this stuff and selling?

Baber Amin [00:33:17]:

Do you know, I see your background, you touch so many different organizations, right? So you see a very rich data set. So I would really like to know what are some of the best practices or maybe even what are some of the bad practices that people should avoid because we're still in the early stage of growing our sales team. So what should people like us and other companies that are early stage basically at the stage of expanding out and scaling out, what are some of the best practices to make sure that their sales teams stay focused? What are some of the practices they should avoid? You have so much more data points to share, so I'd love to hear your thoughts and I'm sure our listeners would be too.

Andrew Monaghan [00:34:05]:

Well, I think one of the foundations I always think about is that when it comes to scaling, it's not about scaling people or scaling revenue, or scaling the company. What it's really about is executing a repeatable sales process, right? You can't do that just by throwing heads at it and saying the salespeople will figure it out. So for me, it goes back to some fundamentals around have we memorialized the things that we are all doing and doing well into? Even with a loose playbook to say here's how we do discovery, we know this works very well. Here are the stories that we tell, and here are the objections that we know how to answer in an effective way. Here's the right way to use the deck that we have. Here's the right way to do a demo. And going back to some fundamentals on those things there is pretty key because as you bring people in unless you have some sort of North Star to go to, they're going to come with their own experiences and their own methodologies and BYOX BYO methodology, way of selling, way to describe, way to use a debt, whatever it might be. And suddenly what you thought was something that you could scale becomes lots of little almost like mini salesforces doing their own thing. And that is a recipe for disaster right there because something you'll look at and go, wow, our yield per rep is pretty terrible and we brought on five people this year, and all but one of them is failing, and things like that. So I think that the foundation is do we have something? When someone walks in the door to say this is how you're going to be successful? If you don't have that, then it's worthwhile going through some pretty fundamental exercises as a good market team to get very clear on ICP problems that you're solving impacts and different levels of talking to executives, managers, and operators at different levels like that. So that's one thing, right? And it requires someone to have some time to say actually we're going to do this properly and build this out right? The second thing that I found is that I'll leave it at two. The second thing I found is that as you bring new people in, the onboarding experience is critical in terms of getting them up to speed and going. So here's what I found is that if you put your sales leader or anyone in the room and said, okay, what does someone need to know as they come into Viridium, you'll very quickly get a list of 85 things that they need to know, right? All these things they do this, this and this, we need to do that. And it's all good stuff. It's only they don't need to know it, but they're not going to learn 85 things in the first week or two and be good at it and remember it by the time the third week starts, right? So I think the North Star to go with and this is what I work with my clients on is to say the two most important things are how soon can we get this new seller so that they can prospect into their network and say, hey, I've joined a new company. They have this value prop. They've got this unique thing they're positioning in the market, these big outcomes. Let me tell you a story. Why don't you and I meet with my boss, my head of sales, my CEO or it might be, and see if there's a fit for you guys, right? So how soon can they do that? And then the second thing is, what do they need to know, truly need to know, to be able to run that first meeting with a prospect, right? And if you have your whole orientation around bringing them on board, around, can they prospect and can they run a first meeting? It then becomes very clear what's actually needed right now and what can be put off until weeks three, four, five, whatever it might be or learned through experience or assimilation. I think one of the classic things is that people say, well, someone needs to know the price list, right? And I say, really, in the first two weeks, they need to know the price list. I don't think they do right. In all the right. Would you put that at the top or you put that down the bottom? Right. They need to know salesforce. They need to know our but they need to know how our professional service, the say do, but not right. And so I always kind of oriented people around. Be very clear, maybe your needs are a little bit different, but be very clear on one or two things that you want to say. I want this person to pass a certification to do a first meeting by the end of the week, whatever it might be. And I say week two, right? So I want everything to orientate around that. So at the end of week two, they come on board, and you or your sales leader will do some sort of role play with them and say, yeah, actually, this person can handle this, or no, they can't. They need to get better at this and that, and then you kind of help them out a little bit. So I think if you get the clarity on what that playbook is and you bring them in with a very clear way to onboard them like that, then you can get the repeatable motion going and have confidence as you bring people in. Yeah, I know we can get this person up and running if they're the right person. Right. It might turn out not to be at the end of the day, but if the right person is, then, yeah, we know what it takes for them to be up and running. So I would encourage you to look at those two things. What I found is that the natural thing is, yeah, we'll build the onboarding, but people don't want to go back and look at the fundamentals and put together a fundamental playbook about how to be successful. They feel like it might touch on some Holy Grail inside the company. Right. When you sit there and you get everyone in a room and say, what problems do we solve for people? And you got 15 different answers say, oh, God, we got some problems. Right. And people want to avoid maybe having those tough discussions about the fact that we don't know ourselves already what problems we solve and for who we need to fix that first, right? Yeah.

Baber Amin [00:39:46]:

Fortunately, we went through that, so we are at least good on that angle. But I love what you said about distilling it down to one or two, maybe three things. And then I love the idea of doing that role play to kind of do that mini certification. Right. It doesn't have to be a process, but just understanding if that person is ready and helping them get ready if they're not and focus on the right things versus focusing on I was laughing because I just heard that from somebody. Oh, yeah, you need to know Salesforce well. Yes, you do, but you're not going to be filling in Salesforce in week one.

Andrew Monaghan [00:40:26]:

I'm not going to teach you our forecasting methodology until you got something to forecast. Exactly, dear. Anyway, well, I'm glad you've already made steps then, that way in the past to get some of the fundamentals in place. So, yeah, it's fun doing it when you get into that level of the kind of fundamentals of the go-to-market. Last question for you, Bobber. So as you're looking at this year, where are you looking to make investments? What are the big things that you're doing? Sounds like the channel is really important. Is there anything else that you're thinking about?

Baber Amin [00:40:57]:

So demand generation marketing, demand generation, content creation, and growing the sales team, which includes both direct sales and continuing to nurture the partners. We might not add any more partners depending on how things go, but making sure that the current partners are getting the support they need and are able to take our message and basically multiply that using their own resources.

Andrew Monaghan [00:41:28]:

Lots of things you can be doing right in partners I'm sure, right? But I guess you got the right partners right now. Helping them be more successful might be the way to go. If someone wants to continue the conversation with you, Barber, get in touch. What's the best way to do that?

Baber Amin [00:41:40]:

Send me an email. Connect me over LinkedIn. Send me an email. My email address is just Baber my first name, is baber@veridiumid.com. So reach out to me. Send me an email. Connect with me over LinkedIn. Always happy to talk and exchange ideas.

Andrew Monaghan [00:42:01]:

Well, I've enjoyed our conversation today, and I wish you and the team every success for this year and next year as well.

Baber Amin [00:42:06]:

Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Likewise.