Audience 1st

In this episode of Phishy Business, we discuss how cybersecurity marketing, sales, and support are for the most part inadequate, and how there can be a big disconnect between how marketers market and how technology professionals buy.
 
We talk more about how marketing should consider the customer experience and how marketing departments should not only market their products and services but should also be active listeners and understand what their buyers need and want.
 
Our special guest is cybersecurity marketing expert and podcaster Dani Woolf, who spent the past decade running high impact marketing departments for technology startups.
 
She has since started Audience 1st to help cybersecurity vendors understand what CIOs and CISOs really want from them.
 
Dani helps cybersecurity marketers better understand their buyers so they can sell more. In ‘Marketing as Customer Experience – Be an Active Listener’, we discuss:

• How cybersecurity can help solve very complex problems.


• Vendors should have a ‘mission over money’ mindset.


• Some traditional demand- and lead-gen techniques that don’t work with a cybersecurity audience.


• Why CISOs tend to be a more cynical and less trustworthy audience, which is understandable because of the high stakes and stressful nature of the job.


• Co-creating with influencers who have polarizing opinions in the market is a good strategy in cybersecurity marketing.


• How the cybersecurity community values concise and clear content.


• The fact that technology leaders want marketing to be authentic and to cut through the ‘noise’.


• The mass over use of buzzwords that is all too common and alarming in the sector.


• How the cybersecurity community is open to giving feedback and taking feedback and how not a lot of vendors take advantage of this.


• That in order to be successful, marketing mindset needs to shift from product first to customer first.

This podcast was originally published on Phishy Business Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2D1VVBsdis20XZGQoxa6SX

About Phishy Business

Fed up with the same old cybersecurity stories?

Come with us on a journey that explores the lesser-known side. Whether it’s social engineering, taking criminals to court or the journalists hunting down hackers — our new podcast series, Phishy Business, looks for new ways to think about cybersecurity. Mimecast’s very own Brian Pinnock and Alice Jeffery are joined by guests from a range of unique security specialisms. Each episode explores tales of risk, reward and just a dash of ridiculousness to learn how we can all improve in the fight to stay safe. For more tales of risk, reward and ridiculousness, subscribe to Phishy Business on iTunes, Spotify, Anchor or wherever you get your podcasts: www.mimecast.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

In a startup, the CISO role is far more intense and it's more intense for a whole slew of reasons. 
Startups don't have a lot of money. But knowing that we're building a product, it is really important to have security built in from the ground up, because it is a priority. 
So you're a CISO but you're a security architect and you're security engineer and you're analyst. And your ability was compliance and privacy. 
And you're doing everything and you're trying to do it on a shoestring budget and the creativeness and your ability to squeeze the lemon for every single last piece of dues is so critical.

Brutally honest insights from James J Azar, CISO/CTO and a host of Cyber Hub podcast, CISO Talk, Good by Privacy and Daily Cyber Hub podcast.

In this episode, Dani Woolf had a conversation with James about his challenges, goals, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives, along with:

• The difference between a startup CISO and a CISO within an enterprise organization


• Why is the maturity of security teams a real thing?


• Why defining security maturity in larger enterprises is difficult


• What is a startup CISO's bleeding neck challenge?


• The main factors in the decision-making process that trigger a startup CISO to buy a cybersecurity tool, product or service


• What are differences or anomalies in the cybersecurity market that partners can take advantage of to stand out?


• Why is podcasting still valuable in the cybersecurity community?


• Cardinal rules cybersecurity vendors are breaking in the eyes of a security practitioner

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 750+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/newsletter

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Welcome to the last episode of Audience 1st for 2022! Wow, when I first started the show back in March, I created it as a tool for myself to better learn about the audiences that I wanted to engage and persuade.

Little did I know it would resonate so well with the cybersecurity community - both from the practitioner side and the go-to-market and business side.

So, I want to THANK all of my loyal followers, 700 strong and growing within the A1 community, and my awesoem guests, who took time out of their busy schedules to tell me the brutally honest truth.

Why? So that I and WE can get better at how we engage, persuade, and acquire and retain customers in this complex industry.

Alright, what’s this episode about? Well, these past 9 months have been one large curation exercise. I compiled the best nuggets from all 23 interviews with cybersecurity buyers. They did not hold back. And neither did I.

SO, enjoy this show. Thanks for a successful and fruitful 2022 and…..here’s to an even better '23!

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 700+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Vendors need to start building relationships.

Instead of looking at lead filters or lead generation.

They need to start integrating with the community a bit more.

And they need to start learning from the people on the ground, just building communities, essentially, because those communities are going to be filled with potential leaders of the future.

And if you can get really good relationships with them now, that's going to influence buying decisions in the future.

Brutally honest insights from Jay Jay Davey, SOC Client Lead, Chief Educational Support Officer, and Advisor.

In this episode, I had a conversation with Jay Jay about his challenges, goals, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 700+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Every time a vendor comes through the door, what they're looking at is just a closure of a deal.

After a project is delivered, feedback is something which is missing and which I think vendors can take advantage of.

Having frequent service evaluation calls or catch up calls with us so that they can serve us better is not only beneficial to security practitioners, but for the vendors themselves.

The industry moving in that direction, but currently this service-based mindset is largely missing in cybersecurity.

Rich insights from Dheeraj Pandey, CISO & Head of Organization at Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, India.

In this episode, I had a brutally honest conversation with Dheeraj about his challenges, goals, the value of community and peer to peer engagement, how to best leverage community as a vendor, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 700+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Customer advocacy and loyalty. Lots of people talk about how important it is.

Not many talk about how to actually successfully achieve it in the cybersecurity industry.

In this third (and last) session of the CISO + Sellers Mashup Series: Building Relationship Capital, we're going to uncover the methods to turn CISOs into loyal customers, not just within your organization, but throughout your entire career.

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 650+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

You’ve established the first connection with a CISO.

How do you now retain that relationship?

In this second session of the Audience 1st CISO Sellers Mashup Series, Erika Eakins, Dmitriy Sokolovskiy, CISSP, QTE, Carlos Guerrero, Chris Roberts, and Dani Woolf uncover how to keep a valuable bi-directional partnership with CISOs without...well...screwing it up.

Resonate with Buyers: Discover how to communicate in terms that are important to cybersecurity buyers and your customers.

Establish Advisor Status: Learn ways you can demonstrate value to your customers to maintain a lasting and ROI-driven relationship.

Create Loyal, Long-Term Partnerships: Explore ways to increase your potential annual recurring revenue (PARR) by keeping your customers as advocates and loyal partners

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 650+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Shady or unclear outreach techniques, lack of soft skills, buyer difficulty to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The more cybersecurity vendors and technologies are created, the less effective communication techniques are and the stronger the disconnection between buyer and seller becomes, making it harder for buyers to trust sellers and purchase new tech.

In this first session of the CISO Sellers Mashup Series, we are going deep on how to start meaningful conversations with the people that you care about.

What's in it for you?

• Understand cybersecurity buyers challenges & what will make you likable as a professional in the industry


• Learn what it means to actively listen to your audience, what you should be listening for, and how to apply it.


• Learn how to initiate conversations with cybersecurity buyers, what resonates with them, and what upsets them.

BONUS: Join us live to get the opportunity to ask the panel any questions you may have.

Thanks to our panelist:
Carlos Guerrero
Chris Roberts
Dmitriy Sokolovskiy
Erika Eakins

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 650+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Peer to peer and community is so valuable in the cybersecurity industry.

Buyers cannot just rely on vendors to tell them their product is “the best thing since sliced bread.”

It’s best to ask for advice because buyers’ peers have experience with tools and openly share them.

That feedback and those stories helps drive them towards a POC.

Because a POC is so limited. Buyers cannot identify the value and problems in a short 30-60 day POC.

Rich insights from Cecil Pineda, SVP/CISO for a Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Company.

In this episode, I had a brutally honest conversation with Cecil about his challenges, goals, the value of community and peer to peer engagement, how to best leverage community as a vendor, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 600+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you and your go-to-market team:

1. Conduct a one-to-one interview with an existing or ideal customer and extract the most useful insights and recommendations for action.

2. Connect you with our CISO Panel to validate an idea, trend, message, service or product.

3. Plan and facilitate a customer advisory board (CAB) with your key customers to drive loyalty for your company's brand.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com

Dani Woolf, Founder and CEO of Audience 1st, brings her marketing expertise to Hacker Valley to talk about what’s broken in the marketer-buyer relationship. Dani’s tried and true methods of cybersecurity marketing involve clear messaging, authentic communication, and building trust in an industry where not trusting anyone is the norm. How can cyber marketers break through the negative stereotypes and show cybersecurity buyers that they’re authentic?

Time-coded Guide:
[00:00] Fixing the broken relationship between cyber marketers, sellers, & buyers
[04:58] Unrealistic marketing goals vs incorrect marketer perspectives
[10:23] Better conversations between marketers & practitioners with Audience First
[15:12] Connecting with curious cyber practitioners instead of dismissing them
[23:37] Advice for cyber marketers looking to start fresh with content

Visit the full episode page on Hacker Valley Studio here: https://hackervalleystudio.podbean.com/e/putting-your-cyber-marketing-audience-first-with-dani-wolfe/

Follow Hacker Valley Media on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hackervalleystudio/ 

Join Audience 1st Today

Join 570+ cybersecurity marketers and sellers mastering security buyer research to better understand their audience and turn them into loyal customers: https://www.audience1st.fm/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit audience1st.substack.com