Curiosity as a Sales Advantage - Jacob Friedman - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #9
Welcome to Channel Security Secrets. I'm Lou Raban. On this show, we expose the untold secrets and critical insights from the people shaping the future of cybersecurity sales in the trusted adviser channel. If you're looking to up your game around selling security, stick around. Channel Security Secrets is brought to you by Cyber Defense Group on a mission to shift cybersecurity from reactive to resilient.
Lou:I'm thrilled to chat with
Lou:our guest today. He's a disruptive tech evangelist, technology matchmaker, and award winning sales leader. He's an active member of InfraGard and the Israeli startup advisory network. In 2021, he placed second in POA Futures Club for generating the second highest revenue company wide. Today, he serves as his company's lead tech scout for cybersecurity, driving innovation and shaping strategic partnerships.
Lou:He's the strategic account director at Three Tree Tech. Jacob Friedman, welcome to the show.
Jacob:Awesome. Thanks, Lou. Happy to be here.
Lou:Yeah. So Jacob, let's just jump right into it. What's the biggest secret to your success in security sales in the channel?
Jacob:Well, there's a lot of different ways we can go with that. I think that one of the first lessons that I learned was that when I used to work at a VAR, the way that you viewed security was very different. They essentially shoved one MDR solution in front of us, one SOC as a service solution, and said, this is security. Top to bottom, this is cybersecurity. And I think that part of just being continually curious, you start to understand that security is achieved through defense in-depth.
Jacob:There's a lot of layers to it, and there's a lot of different things that have to work well together. Starting to understand that and understand who exists in the marketplace and how they feed into each other is important for making any sort of recommendation to any size of company.
Lou:So understanding the landscape, essentially?
Jacob:Yeah. Like, understanding who exists, how do they compare, recommending people meet with up and coming vendors all the time because there's a lot of interesting point solutions that might fly under your radar. But in terms of if you're gonna be selling to some sort of security executive and you wanna push this one specific managed detection and response company, you should be prepared to talk about how they compare to the other 10 options or even if you can just reference the top five other ones that maybe if they're well more more well known than the one you're pushing. That will build credibility for you with these security leaders that you're meeting with. Because chances are they've probably met with multiple vendors.
Jacob:And if you're completely if your whole view of security is siloed to this one vendor's opinion of it, you might not give that air of credibility when speaking with a leader.
Lou:Yeah. Okay. So that's for you as someone who's been selling security for a while, understands it really well. What about, know, in this channel, there's a lot of trusted advisors that are just getting into security. So how do you suggest that they maybe operate in a way that they may not actually understand the differences between all the MDR vendors?
Jacob:I would say first, you know, one thing that was helpful for me is find a champion and or mentor that is in the security space. Start to understand their opinions on certain vendors, why, what has their experience has been, start to survey some of your other customers and relationships that you have. What do they think of who exists in the industry? What has their experience been implementing people, etcetera? I think one thing that a lot of people fail to consider is that also the personality type of people in security is often different than if you're selling telecom or contact center or many of the other realms of technology that you have access to if you're an agent within the channel.
Jacob:And so blunt candor and the willingness to say I don't know to certain things rather than pretending like you do know, I think also goes a long way. Like, trust is your currency and security, and you can lose it very quickly.
Lou:That's great advice, and and I think it's a theme that comes up often in other guests that I've I've spoken to, which is it's acceptable to say I don't know. And trust being the currency, I I love that. That's that's absolutely accurate. You mentioned curiosity too when you talked about kind of the secret to security sales. So being curious about how this all fits together and what's better and what's not, know, what what is your kind of go to for getting that kind of information?
Jacob:There's a lot of different resources out there. Obviously, Gartner has those quadrants and they have various vendors in there. There's varied opinions on how valid their placements are based marketing contributions, but it still gives you high level of awareness of people that are in mid to late stage of their adoption journey within technology. You get to see who exists in the quadrant. It's not gonna be the best for early stage, but in terms of knowing who's established players, it can be a good starting point.
Jacob:A lot of venture capital groups, if you wanna know about what is hot in terms of the emerging security space, one resource that a lot of people can form relationships in is the venture capital community. And that's because, you know, they're looking for their next golden horse to give a little bit more investment to and watch the next rocket ship essentially bloom. And keeping an eye on who's giving money and where and who's really excited about what can help you stay a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of, wow, we're hearing amazing things by these people and they just, received a pretty impressive funding round from these three people who have a track record of investing in success. It might be worth taking a demo with them and just seeing if that's something that partnership wise would make sense for your clients. And so, I just advocate for people to be curious.
Jacob:RSA in black hat, they have various innovation contests. Pay attention to who places well, what are they doing, what are the buzzwords being talked about at conferences? Do you know about who exists in those spaces? I think that would lend you to being more aware of that landscape of who's shaking and moving within the space.
Lou:Yeah. And and you mentioned, a mentor as well. Suppliers can fill that role too. Right? That's often where we find ourselves, speaking to trusted advisers that are trying sell more security.
Lou:They have the relationships, but they may not have the knowledge, so we try to guide them through that, you know, in an agnostic way, which is, I think, probably one of the other reasons that if you don't get a supplier that's agnostic, then you definitely wanna find a mentor. To your point, where where would you recommend if it's not a supplier, you know, that these these trusted advisers find mentors that can kinda help them navigate security landscape?
Jacob:I would say, like, focus on building positive relationships. Go to where the community is. The security is a very healthy community, whether it's at conferences, whether it's wherever city you're in, there's local meetups of various organizations, whether that's ISSA, ISACA. There's a lot of different groups that bring security people together. And then don't sell them, just look to understand their opinion and perspective on the market.
Jacob:Obviously, I don't think there's any one person with a unanimously correct view of the market, but a lot of people have different lived experiences and might have a different perspective to share with you based on what they've seen, who's done well, what their peers have told them. I think that's another relatively untapped web is that once you have a champion, a lot of people in security hold their cards very tight to their chest and understanding who are their friends. Because a lot of these people, in addition to where they look at news source wise, they ask their peers. If you can leverage that peer network as well, I think that that would be a source of value. But once you've gotten to a level of trust though, that is.
Lou:Right. Right. So there's an element of kind of self education in the beginning, you know, doing kind of the hard yards of of figuring out, you know, what is security? What are the things in the landscape that I can sell? Who should I go to?
Lou:Who are the vendors that I can trust? You know, what what do you think when they when they start to have these security conversations? I think a lot of TAs are get concerned that they might be looked at as the expert or that they might be asked a question that they can't answer. I mean, going back to your original answer about, I don't know. I think that's probably a logical thing.
Lou:But, you know, what do you say to the TAs that are, a little bit nervous about even opening the conversation because they they don't wanna get it over their heads?
Jacob:Yeah. I mean, I think those nerves will settle over time. I do think those nerves are justified because security is one of the hardest spaces to sell in based on how technical it can often be, the risk that is associated with it, the tempers that can flare up, how the business impact. It's a scary space to operate in both as an operator and as a seller. I think that you gotta kind of own that you don't know, and this comes back to a different point of caring about the outcome for your customers.
Jacob:Because what is your value proposition? If you're gonna engage in a security conversation and you're new to security, you might not wanna tout yourself as the security extraordinaire mister influencer guy. Right? You might wanna build your value prop on the fact that, you know, you've been doing great business with clients for many years. People love to do business with you because you care about the outcome.
Jacob:When escalations need to be happened, you know you as a trusted advisor are all over that. You are lockstep and key throughout the entire sales process as well as post sale. They know that you're someone they can count on to bring the right people in the room to have the conversation resolved. You don't need to I think a lot of TAs try to be the guy, whereas a lot of times you can be the connector of the people.
Lou:That's great advice. And, you know, it's it's also relevant for the supplier side. We we wanna work with trusted advisers that will, follow-up, that have good relationships, that are transparent about the process, that are not just trying to get quotes from us, but that want to, look at solutions. And I think that that's another area where, the traditional trusted adviser has, struggled from what we've seen. If when I say traditional, mean, if you're looking at, you know, or CX or things that might have been voiced, there's solutions behind it, but it's pretty commoditized at this point.
Lou:So it's kinda like, here are the three quotes. You know what you're getting. Security is a solution sale, and, you know, it's it doesn't really lend itself to here here's a couple of quotes, especially because, you know, you're talking about outcomes. That's what we we push outcomes based security, and we wanna know what is the problem that we're trying to solve. Like, hey.
Lou:We want a pen test. Why? Why do you want a pen test? What what is behind that? Because the deeper understanding will lead to not only a larger, you know, engagement, but also more trust.
Lou:So, you know, the solutions, I think, are, that you're talking about, it's kind of a it's definitely a mindset shift for a lot of TAs. So, is that something that you've had your whole career, or is that something that you kind of developed or came to over time?
Jacob:I think I've always been curious. I've always, you know, wanted to understand what I'm quote unquote selling. Right? It's really important in my opinion for me to feel confident to talk about it. I gotta understand it.
Jacob:I might not need to know it down to the protocol level, but understanding conceptually what is the goal, is it trying to accomplish, what are things I need to be aware of, how do I essentially be the facilitator. Those are a lot of areas that I'm really passionate about understanding in terms of the solutionscape. I think that Three Tree, know, me joining them almost four years ago, really amped that up because a lot of the leaders that are struggling in the security space is because when you compare it to like a telecom where a lot of the other agencies start, the rate of innovation is a lot slower. And in security, there's new acronyms all the time. There's new solutions.
Jacob:There's new, you know, platform plays, and there's point solutions. How does it all fit together? A lot of the pain points for these leaders are cutting through the noise because they have a day job, right? And I think that Three Tree really emphasized, you know, to me that, you know, it's important to understand who exists and be able to kind of just be aware of the acronym soup that is continuously evolving. Because that's that's part of our our value prop to a lot of these leaders is that they trust us to advise them, you know, which directions they should potentially pursue, which ones maybe aren't right for their company culture, operations, etcetera.
Jacob:And I think that that just overall industry knowledge isn't gained overnight, but is super important for your success in long term security.
Lou:That makes a lot of sense. By the way, the acronym STOOP, I I just wanna make a point about that. We're notoriously bad in security for for having. And, unfortunately, I don't see any end in sight because we've got CSPM, DSPM. You know, we're it just continues, and we're guilty of it sometimes ourselves.
Lou:But, yeah. What what do you think? What what are some of the conversations now? I I imagine there's a bunch of AI popping out at you, like AI conversations around security.
Jacob:Yeah. I mean, AI is popping up across the whole technology landscape. It's not just security. You know, you're seeing it in being able to automate the entire customer engagement process from chatbot to customer journey mapping to, you know, maybe, for example, like a real estate company that I was working with automating the engagement and leasing process for new residents using an AI agent. There's a lot of ways to improve the speed of processes, reduce the risk, etcetera.
Jacob:It comes with AI, but a counterpoint on that is that a lot of times, the AI that's being put in their environment, it's like, it brings a capability and then it also adds an additional risk that you have to govern. And so, I'm seeing kind of within the security space, there's one hot topic is the automated SOC. You know, there's AI coming in from an agentic perspective to really take off those tier one, tier two tasks from your internal SOC team or even MSSPs. Now, with a lot of these bigger companies, it's okay, well, we see value in that trimming down our alerts, handling a lot of the surface level things, but how do we make sure that it stays on mission and isn't doing things that we don't want it to do and causing potential business disruption? So I think there's solutions coming on both sides in the AI angle across the whole tech stack of what is something new that we can do that's better, faster, cheaper, and then how do we make sure that it doesn't light our train on fire while doing so.
Lou:Yeah. Did you go to Black Hat this year?
Jacob:I did.
Lou:Actually, I think I saw you. We ran into each other. Yeah. I mean, did you walk around the perimeter and see some of those it it seemed to me like almost every vendor well, everyone had AI. They had it's it was obligatory, but also they had AI stocks.
Lou:Like, even vendors just who are just right next to each other. I don't know if you walked this floor.
Jacob:I wasn't able to walk the Expo Forward this year. I did at RSA earlier in April, and I had some colleagues that did walk the floor at Black Hat this year. But I don't doubt it. I mean, it's whenever there's a hot buzzword that people are, you know, focused on, you know, there's a lot of funding being put that way. Boards are saying we want capabilities, we want AI, we want all the different things.
Jacob:Like, you know, where the money flows, so does attention. And I think that, you know, these vendors in their marketing departments are doing the best they can to kinda ride that wave.
Lou:So what what about some other challenges that AI know, we gotta speak about AI, but are you seeing companies evolve past the kinda like just basic stack of MDR, you know, endpoint, maybe some compliance regime, and really looking at improving their programs and, you know, getting deeper, tying it to business outcomes, things like that?
Jacob:Yeah. I mean, it kinda depends on how mature of companies we're talking about. Like, there's a lot of interesting up and coming disruptors that are maybe in seed stage, maybe getting to to series a that are, like one that I met with earlier today is creating digital employees that essentially are, have verticalized skill sets from an agentic perspective to emulate one domain of security. So, that's like a virtual GRC manager, and then it can automate the entire lifecycle of various accounts. It can automate evidence collection and report generation.
Jacob:There's like, there's a lot and there's like different aspects of how it's applied to security operations versus, you know, like, it it really kinda depends, but I am seeing a lot of unique, interesting capabilities that are coming out for sure.
Lou:I mean, what about, like, just the basics for for your the customers that you're working with? Do you find that they've got those covered pretty well? You know, I don't I don't know what area. You're you're mid market to enterprise. Is that right?
Lou:Or are you
Jacob:Yeah.
Lou:SMB too?
Jacob:You know, we have a couple sellers on our team that that work with some SMB accounts, but my personal primary focus is is low to upper enterprise. And obviously, each segment of company will have different needs and risk appetite and different levels of how do they even have a security team versus how big is their security team. That will really affect what they're interested and why. And not to mention just also by industry, right? Like there's certain industries that might be later adopters than other.
Jacob:Like Historically, manufacturing isn't necessarily at the forefront, especially with their aged OT systems, right? So I think that conversation kind of depends on the client's positioning.
Lou:Traditionally, it's been healthcare and finance, right? They're regulated. There's a very obvious risk and a very obvious impact if something bad happens, manufacturing, etcetera, and especially even more, like, oil and gas and stuff. I I've worked with them many years, but it's always been, hey. We pull, dead dinosaur stuff.
Lou:We we don't need it. And then all of a sudden, you ask questions like, well, do you have, you know, monitors on the wells? Do you are there you know, how are you seeing what's going on remotely? And they're like, oh, yeah. Yeah.
Lou:We actually do have that. And then, you know, as you start to dig every company is a pet company these days. So more more and more are coming to mind. So, you know, as far as, again, with the the TAs, and and any messages or or knowledge you could drop with them, We've got we've spoken about how they can get a mentor. We've spoken about how they should be curious.
Lou:You know, maybe finding good suppliers that can kinda lead them on the journey as well, understanding the solutions. Yeah, I mean, getting into local events, ISSA, Resaca and stuff like that. Those are definitely good entry points in any market. Any other advice you'd give to someone listening?
Jacob:Yeah, I would say that one thing that you definitely need to make sure to do and that will start to elevate how much the customer trusts you is understanding what is their role within the organization. Because as you move upmarket, the political landscape and who reports to who, who gets along with who, who's in charge of what gets to be a bigger level of consideration. And so understanding, you know, are you working with the decision maker who at this point in his career is nontechnical versus are you meeting with someone who's leading the architecture design versus someone who's the hands on keyboard analyst trying to stop threats? You know, what's important to them and how you make them a champion within their own organization is gonna be a bit different. So I think that once again, your primary goal, and this comes back to Three Trees, honestly, mission statement being empower leaders, go out and figure out how to empower your champion.
Jacob:At the end of the day, they're owning the risk, not you. Their butts on the line, not you. You need to make sure that you understand how are they scored within the organization, what's really the objective and impact of this project, And what resources do you have at your, you know, your disposal to make them look like a hero? And really, if you can if you can consider, you know, consistently bring them wins that help them accomplish their vision and be that kind of enabler, that's how you build the level of trust to where maybe, you know, no one's There's a lot more job hopping these days and a lot more people float between companies and you wanna make sure that you've done such a good job for them that you're clearly gonna be there for their first call when they go to a new spot. And I think that focusing on how you empower them is a good way to do that.
Lou:Yeah. Yeah. And I think the navigation of that org chart, that's really relevant because that's also another strength for bringing security into the conversation because one of those aspects that touches every, you know, part of the organization. Right? So, typically, when we'll go in, we're going in usually at c level or maybe director level.
Lou:Anything below that, we you know, there's not really an influence there. And even if they like us, you know, we need to move up. But when we get to that director level or even c level, like a chief information security officer, a lot of times people need a help in that area. So we're gonna help them look like heroes, and, and then you get better exposure to the c suite, and then you can sell more stuff as well because they trust you and you earn that trusted adviser moniker. So, I think that's really relevant.
Lou:I'm glad you brought that up at at being, understanding the org chart, understanding how to work it, who are you speaking to, and then, you know, tactfully getting up to speak to maybe higher levels. Do do you have any kind of tips or secrets about, let's say, you're coming into the IT manager and you want to speak to, you know, the CTO. How do you navigate that?
Jacob:Yeah. I think that you gotta elevate past a technical conversation and more into a business discussion. And a lot of times when you're dealing with the c level for technology decision makers, a lot of their job in terms of even getting approval for budget is then justifying, okay, we spent this much money. What did it do? And in security, it can be especially hard because when things are quiet, that's when they're good.
Jacob:Unless it's like, oh, we spent money on an engagement to get us compliant to this benchmarks that we can win this RFP for another client that's dependent on us getting to this compliance standard. Right? Outside of that, a lot of CISOs that I work with, they struggle. They have a lot smaller budgets than their IT peers. And so how do you make them a champion?
Jacob:And a lot of times it's there's various ways of doing it with products, etcetera, but how do you help them create business cases to justify additional investment as well as doing your job as a TA during QBRs and kind of justifying, you know, you spent your money on this, this is kind of what it's done. You know, how do you quantify at least some sort of risk that was reduced and or, you know, business advantage gained through whatever investment they spent? And I think also another way is once again compliance tends to touch a lot of people's interests, you know, because you can talk about, oh, niche solution within security that in the invasion state miner helps re hook your EDR so that it's specifically for anti ransomware disruption, right? And that might be really important and interesting to a security decision maker, but you talk to like a CTO, CIO, like what? Whereas if you're like, okay, the way that you even talk about that to them is gonna be a bit different of, okay, on your worst day ish, a threat actor's in your environment and was able to encrypt your systems and exfiltrate data, how much would a day of downtime cost?
Jacob:How much would four days of downtime cost? How expensive is your data? What would happen reputationally if this data leaked? What if you had a solution that could potentially throttle the amount of data being willing to leave your environment until it was approved and or grab decryption keys the moment they're generated so you don't even have to negotiate with ransomware actors? There's ways of approaching that conversation from a more of, like, a business context perspective than just a technical capability.
Jacob:That makes sense.
Lou:Yeah. And absolutely. And then it's also wins less. I mean, to the tabletop to to determine that. And yet, also, the sales pipeline, there's so many soft costs that are not accounted for in breaches, and we've done a calculator.
Lou:The hard costs are you gotta get legal. You gotta get an IR firm. You got, you know, maybe an IT firm to do recoveries, blah blah blah. But then there's a How hard is it as a salesperson to build pipeline, and how easy is it to lose it to your competitors? Especially, they they jump all over that.
Lou:Like, oh, did you see, you know, Widgets Inc. Just got hacked? You know, you might have been looking at them as a solution. Here know, we'll give you a discount if you jump over to us, and you're probably able to break your contract or, you know, not sign that, etcetera. So we've seen it.
Lou:And so there's a lot of, you know, quote, soft cost, things that are not gonna they're gonna hit the bottom line, but they're not necessarily gonna be a line item in your, p and l. You know? That's that's a good good conversation to have, and you wanna have it proactively. The worst days for any of the c suite are when it's reactive, and then they're like, shoulda coulda won out or, you know, they may even come to you and say, you know, why didn't we do something about this sooner as a trusted adviser? I mean, that that's another question, Jacob.
Lou:Like, how when you're trying to you're getting in let's say you're having lunch with a a CFO or or even a CTO, and they're like, oh, we don't we've got other priorities. We're working on other projects. How do you get them to, say, well, okay. Maybe we need to look at this proactively, you know, avoiding that that discomfort of a reactive situation.
Jacob:I think that there's two parts to it this. I mean, being good at storytelling and having real stories that you can reference, whether it's in the media or it's even more impactful when it was a client of yours and how a delayed decision led to some sort of outcome. But now, you know, post engagement, they what kind of positive effects they've seen. Being able to tell the story in a convincing and compelling way of why it would be worth, it would be in their best interest to pursue it, I think is one angle. I think the other thing that a lot of people mess up on is at the end of the day, you're not the decision maker.
Jacob:They are. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, and your job is to empower them. What is important to them and how do you help them get to their goals? You can give your opinion and your advice, but if you're trying to, especially if you're not intimately familiar with their business and what it takes to keep it afloat, if you're just pushing that you should approach security some this way because you think it's optimal way, It just comes across as like you're a salesman trying to hit quota. Right?
Jacob:So leverage stories, real world examples that you can that illustrate that it's in their best interest, but also know when to back away. And I would say never die on a hill for anyone. If anything, if you die on a hill for it and then they go with you and then they just kind of you kind of ruin the relationship over it, that's not good. Whereas, whereas if you're like, hey man, I gave you a recommendation but I totally respect it's not a priority of yours, you know, I'm here when you need me, and then something does happen, they're gonna call you and they're gonna be like, hey man, you're right. Sorry.
Jacob:What can we do? Right? So knowing that line and knowing when to walk away is important.
Lou:We've seen it, you know, and it's, it's unfortunate that it often takes that. However, when, it does happen, the, you know, the TA gets called, and they're like, yeah. You know, you've been talking to us about this. Sorry. We didn't do it sooner to your point.
Lou:So I think, you know, it's great advice to say don't die on the hill because if you do, then you've closed the door. You've possibly burnt a bridge where, you know, you're too pushy. Let's move to someone else or let's we'll talk in six months, and and they're like and then they're maybe even embarrassed to call you if it happens. But if you leave the door open, you're not too pushy. They're gonna call you.
Lou:You know, if they don't listen to your advice to your point, it's frustrating sometimes because, you know, for us, you know, we know the consequences having done, you know, tons of incident response, but you can't to your point. Let's let's not force their end because they're gonna just resent you for it, and you may be closing a door that later on would be, pretty lucrative, and it's their position.
Jacob:One other side note that I was thinking about, I was talking with our new CEO, Karek Stanwyck, about this today or the other day was that, you know, a lot of people throw around the word agnostic. And I personally don't like that word. I used to use it all the time because it's like, oh, yeah, no, we're not bound or beholden to anyone. But I feel like saying that you're agnostic to any solution means that you don't care about the outcome. Because in my opinion, once again, opinion, my soapbox, is that if you really do due diligence and you meet with a lot of different vendors, you might and you start to do projects with them and you see that the way that they run projects, what escalations look like post sale, those types of experiences over time will start to shape who you recommend to who and why.
Jacob:And I think leveraging that learned experience is really powerful. And I tell a lot of our customers, know, because they're like, oh, you're agnostic, right? I'm like, yes, to a degree, but a human being. I have my opinions and I'm gonna tell you, Oh, I mean technology wise, yeah, they're very similar, but in terms of when, forgive my friend, shit hit the fan and something needed to be escalated, the response was drastically different at this company versus this company. And I think that's important and worth knowing for these buyers.
Jacob:So one thing I would say is don't also die on the hill to say you're agnostic. You know, there's certain, in telecom, it's a lot more reasonable to be truly agnostic because they're all so similar, and you can have just like a pricing discussion. But in security, when the subject is as sensitive as it is, I think it's okay to have an opinion based on who you're seeing do good business.
Lou:Agnostic with an opinion, basically. Exactly.
Jacob:Long winded summary.
Lou:No. That's great. It's important. It's funny because we are agnostic from a technology perspective, but we've got our our preferred vendors as well. I think that it's you're right.
Lou:It's almost abdication of a decision to pay, you know, we're agnostic. Pick who you want. We're not gonna force your hand. That's actually not what customer is looking for, I think.
Jacob:No. They want that guidance, and they wanna feel like the person they're engaging is helping to get them the optimal outcome. And if you truly don't care what vendor they pick, you know
Lou:That's not really advises. That's good. I that's great advice. I mean, this is this has been a lot of really, really good, feedback and advice for people that are listening. Let's pivot from, you know, nuts and bolts of work to more of a personal side.
Lou:You know, who's Jacob Friedman? Like, what what's your you're you're in Chicago. Yeah?
Jacob:Yep. Moved out here just over a year ago to open up and establish kind of the three tree presence out in this region. As you can see from the cat behind me, I'm a cat dad. But, you know, outside of work, you know, I've always been into mixed martial arts. I'm a big fan of the UFC.
Jacob:I'm, know, into fitness. I'm a foodie in Chicago. But, you know, coming back to, you know, kinda three tree life is you know, I've I've been worth them for a long time, seen a lot of ebbs and flows and changes in the industry. And I lead a lot of our engagements with the biggest global accounts and and their security teams, etcetera. That's kinda that's kinda me in a nutshell.
Lou:Yeah. And how'd you get, like, from doing sales? Did you do security at the beginning, or was that something you you just that your passions led you to?
Jacob:No. I mean, I started in door to door sales when I was 15, and I got bamboozled by a company called Trailblazers Marketing, where I was so excited for my first marketing internship. And it turned out on the day of you show up in a suit and then they change you into a khaki and t shirt in the back, and then you go door to door and sell CenturyLink. And that was one, that was a starting point for my sales career, but then I've held a lot of different positions. Throughout college, was one of the founding members for the Oregon State Sales Club, so I traveled all over The US to emulate and role play in various situations to win these sales competitions.
Jacob:And then got an internship when I was in college at my first kind of tech sales role at an amazing company called Pacific Office Automation. And they sell they're a value added reseller, and they sell a bunch of different things. And so surface level, I did get an introduction to security through them selling Arctic Wolf as an MDR service, but primarily, I was doing like printers, copiers, phone systems, security cameras, stuff like that. All like SMB office level technology. And that was kind of how, yeah, I got my start.
Lou:That's great. And it's so so really kind of from selling a vendor thing, wait. How does this vendor work? Going back to, you know, comment at the beginning of the podcast, which is be curious. You're like, wait a second.
Lou:What what's the security thing? And then you were like, wow. This is there's a lot to this rabbit hole. And where can people find you, connect with you?
Jacob:Yeah. You can find me on linkedin.com/jfreedmantech and or, I'm on a couple of the, podcasts over at infosec.live. They're a great group of people. They have their own podcast. Simon Lundstedt, the founder, has been super generous to let me cohost on there from time to time.
Jacob:They have a big cyber community spanning the The US and The UK, etcetera. I'm in between those places as well as, you know, I'm here local in Chicago trying to head to the various events, as well as the big conferences. So feel free to reach out. Always happy to to to have a chat. Yeah.
Lou:Jacob Freeman, it's been a real pleasure really getting your insights into security. I know you're one of the the the big hustlers out there with security getting it done. So thank you very much for for joining.
Jacob:Of course. Thanks, Lou. Appreciate your time.
Lou:Of course. So, thanks also to those that are watching and who are listening. If you learned something today, or laughed, please, tell someone about this podcast. Thanks again, Jacob, and this has been another exciting episode of Channel Security Secrets.
Lou:That's a wrap for this episode of Channel Security Secrets. Thanks for tuning in. For show notes, guest info, more episodes, visit us at channel security secrets dot com. Channel Security Secrets is sponsored by Cyber Defense Group. When it comes to protecting your business, don't settle for reactive.
Lou:Partner with experts who build resilience from the ground up.
