Decoding Channel Success - Kameron Olsen - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #1
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 Rabon:Hey, everybody. Welcome to the channel Security Secrets podcast. I'm Lou Rabin, but today's guest is really interesting. I'm really excited to speak to him. He's actually this is our first episode is and he's our first guest, a good buddy as well.
Lou Rabon:He's a pioneer and recognized leader in the technology and communications sector with over fifteen years of experience driving innovation. He's a featured voice in the channel speaking events like IT Expo twenty twenty five. He's also host of another podcast, the channel2.0 podcast, where he meets industry experts and explores the trends shaping the channel ecosystem. He founded a powerhouse company in the technology solutions space and empowers suppliers and accelerates revenue across the TSD community. Please welcome the president at Channel Advisors, Cameron Olson.
Lou Rabon:Welcome to the show.
Kameron Olsen:Thanks, Lou. I couldn't, I couldn't think of a bigger honor than being your kickoff guest for this really cool podcast. So thank you. Thank you for having me.
Lou Rabon:Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate you, going through all the the bumps here, helping me figure it out. So really appreciate it. Let's just jump right into it.
Lou Rabon:You know, what's the the first question I have is what is the biggest secret to your success in the in the channel?
Kameron Olsen:Hey. This is this is an interesting conversation and something I've been pondering on over the last couple years. Because as I started up the channel advisers, my goal with that organization was to teach people how to have success. I've been lucky, you know, in my channel career to, what I would say, trip over success. And so I had to spend some time really thinking back of, like, okay.
Kameron Olsen:If I was to teach somebody how to do this, what are the steps to do that? And so the first thing I think where things really started to change for me is when I sat down and really decided what my values were and what was important to me. Up to that point, I was a terrible sales rep. I would come in at 10:00, leave at three, and usually play golf or take a long lunch in the middle of that. And when I wasn't making any money, I had to sit down and think, okay.
Kameron Olsen:You know, what what do I really want out of this? And what I wanted to do is to provide for my family. And so I made the decision that I was gonna do whatever it takes to be successful in in in being a sales rep. Luckily, I found a company, and through the hard work, I think the second piece is is finding a mentor or a place where you can get education and training in the channel. It's kinda tough because there's not a whole lot out there, but finding a mentor was immense.
Kameron Olsen:And I think if you put in the hard work, they kinda find you. Anybody who who can see somebody who's willing to put in the work and the effort will typically gravitate and grab grab good people and pull them under the wing, and I think that's how this channel is built. And then I think the big piece is having an owner mentality. Like, I've rented out houses, and you can have two different rent renters. You can have people who've only rented houses, and you can have people who have owned houses.
Kameron Olsen:And people who own houses, when the light bulb is broke, they fix it, and renters call you and say, hey. Come fix it. And so having an owner mentality is like, I'm gonna own this stuff, and I'm gonna do whatever it takes to fix it and and do it. I think asking lots of questions is super important. And then I think the last piece where I really spend a lot of my time, if you've ever read the book Ray Ray Dalio's book principles, there is a process of try something, and when you fail, diagnose why you fail, redesign the process, and try again.
Kameron Olsen:And the faster you can do that over and over again, I think that's where success comes from. So that's kinda like my five step process to to finding success in the
Lou Rabon:That's that's awesome. And it's true. I think, you know, first, you talked about luck and kinda tripping over luck and success. But, you know, the process you just described is essentially the road to success, which is, you know, I always quote Winston Churchill on this. Success is going from failure to failure with no lack of enthusiasm, and that's pretty much it.
Lou Rabon:Celebrating failure? Yes.
Kameron Olsen:I failed. I figured out how not to do it.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. And Ray Dalio, I love he's he's done little infographics and stuff. He posts on LinkedIn a lot. He's got, like, a telegram channel that I've I've subscribed to. He has a new book out now too, so he's, like, really very out there.
Lou Rabon:But, yeah, it's true. It's the problem is a lot of people, they stop. Right? They they they start they get that first hurdle, and then they're like, well, no. That's a that's a a roadblock.
Lou Rabon:That's not just a roadblock. It's a huge wall, and they they don't wanna climb it. And then it as you go through successive failures and blocks, you start to see them not as walls, but as speed bumps or, you know, obstructions that you need to get around versus, know, okay. That's it. So taking that owner mentality, I love that analogy too about the owner versus renter.
Lou Rabon:Been there, done that. And if I told you about my last the the way my last tenant treated my place, nightmare, but we won't get into that.
Kameron Olsen:I mean, that was something I learned early on when I moved from Salt Lake City to Dallas, and I rented out my home here because we worked there because we weren't sure this was a permanent thing. Like, somebody finally told me, you gotta find people who are used to owning homes, not just permanent renters. And so, yeah, it was a huge a huge thing for me. I think the other thing that's really important to understand specifically in sales in general is besides being an entrepreneur or a CEO, it's the only position and job where you have to create your own job. Right?
Kameron Olsen:It's it's it's not something you can just sit back and be responsive to, although there is plenty of times of being responsive, but a lot of it is generating generating your job. And I think that's hard for most people to understand.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Man, I have so much more respect for sales and salespeople in the last two years. I I came at it as a practitioner. You know, I'm obviously been doing security for for most of my career. And so I came in thinking probably what people, based on what you're saying, come in as salespeople like, hey.
Lou Rabon:Just have to be really friendly, have to, you know, maybe some steak dinners and and buy some drinks, etcetera, and then success. And it's so much more than that. I mean, it's it's probably as hard to be good at sales as is in any other career. The problem is it's just a low barrier to entry. And so people are like, hey.
Lou Rabon:I don't need, you know, any special qualifications. I can just speak and have a good maybe Rolodex, but not not the case anymore. You really have to for anything, you have to put the hard yards in. And it's funny because you have kids, I know, and and same here. Anyone with kids is, you know, you recognize that and try to tell your kids, listen.
Lou Rabon:You can't just go my kids, the way they speak to me, oh my god. Like, they're like, dad, no. I'm not gonna do that. Blah blah blah. I'm like, you guys know I'm the CEO.
Lou Rabon:Like, people don't speak to me like this.
Kameron Olsen:Nothing nothing could test nothing could test your patience as much as the is, interacting with your kids. Right?
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. Teenage teenage sons, especially. And it's like, guys, you know, I'm not used to this. I like, I'm not saying that people do what I do nor am I, you know, implying that I'm, like, some kind of nasty leader directing everyone.
Lou Rabon:But still, it's kinda like, you know, you go in and or whatever. As an expert, you open your mouth and people listen. Whereas when you have teenage kids, they're like, yeah. Why should I listen to you?
Kameron Olsen:So Yeah. They know everything. Why should they listen?
Lou Rabon:Totally. Totally.
Kameron Olsen:But you're just you're just an old boomer. What what do you know in this Yeah.
Lou Rabon:And and so, you know, when I going back to where you're trying to give these lessons to the, you know, salespeople that are maybe just starting out, it's kinda like having kids. Right? It's like, hey. We've been there, done that. So and and that's where I wanna talk more about what you're doing at Channel Advisors because I think that that there's value there where you're you're kinda trying to guide people to say, hey.
Lou Rabon:This is a new thing. Even if you've been in sales for a while, the channel's a whole different experience. But let's before we go into that, I wanna kind of ask you something else about I wanna go back to the security stuff. Like, what's what's the number one piece of advice you might give to a trusted adviser about that hasn't sold security before that wants to. You know?
Lou Rabon:And and maybe there's even a before you answer that question, I just thought of another one, which is even more important is how do you find it to sell security? Let's go to that first. How is selling security in the channel? Do you think it's difficult? Yeah.
Lou Rabon:It's tough, man.
Kameron Olsen:It is tough. I think we have to back up a little bit to to lay the groundwork and the foundation of of cybersecurity in the channel. Like, what most people don't realize when they come chat to me is there's two channels. Right? You have your DSDMSP channel, and then you have your TSDTA channel.
Kameron Olsen:The MSP DSD channel does support. Right? I I always said somebody in customer service or technical support, when they go start a business, they go start an MSP. And somebody who is in technical sales, when they go start a company, they go start a TA. Right?
Kameron Olsen:So a little bit of two different mindsets. And and when both of these side got started, the MSP started with network, LAN. They started with cybersecurity. They started with cloud. They started with firewall switches, routers, those types of things.
Kameron Olsen:And when the TAs got into the space, they did Internet and long distance and dial tone. Well, within the last four or five, maybe six years, TAs have started to pick up cloud and cybersecurity, and the MSPs have started picking up Internet connections and UCaaS and CCaaS. And so now there's this kind of overlap. And I think the place where trusted advisers go wrong with cybersecurity is they think it's a SKU or a product just like a UCaaS seat or just like an Internet connection, and it's not. It's not necessarily a product.
Kameron Olsen:It's more of a mentality or a process or a system, and and I think the trusted advisers in the TSD space really kinda struggle with that sales mentality in that process.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. It's a solution. It's it's not a a product sale for sure. So that's that's the the problem in the skew, the transactional nature of that. But wouldn't you say any sale?
Lou Rabon:Like, that's the thing. I mean, full disclosure, I'm learning the channel myself. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast. I wanna speak to smart people like you to teach me what the heck's going on here. So, you know, is there, like, a transactional nature?
Lou Rabon:Where like, isn't maybe there's some TAs that are better at that transactional SKU stuff and some TAs that are better at the solution sale, or do you think they all need to understand solution selling?
Kameron Olsen:Trusted advisers are like snowflakes. There's no two trusted advisers alike, and then you have a a really broad gamut of of that spectrum. You have everybody who is a very transactional, hey. I have a website. You can click on what you need, and we'll get you pricing, all the way through where I know some cybersecurity trusted advisers that are executives or board members of some of these cybersecurity companies.
Kameron Olsen:Right? They they they understand not only the cyber product, but they understand how the business needs protecting and how to build a business around the product. And and so, the answer is yes and no. Like, there are some out there who who really understand it, and they do amazing. They do amazing things selling the product, and there's other people who are struggling.
Kameron Olsen:So if I had one word of advice for trusted advisers, it's like, this is not a product you can just know the SKU numbers and what it does. It's it's it's a deep dive into understanding the mentality of cybersecurity frameworks, NIST, all of that type of stuff In order for you to be a true consultant, you can't just come in and say, hey. Do you need cybersecurity? Because the customers are gonna be like, well, I have a firewall. And if you don't know anything that's that, then you're gonna be like, oh, okay.
Kameron Olsen:See you later. And so, yeah, it really requires you to be a true consultant, to to the whole nature of that word.
Lou Rabon:I think you just hit on the the one of the main problems though is that I think because security is can also be kind of very esoteric and, like, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, black box kind of stuff, and all these things, I think some trusted advisers are afraid to, like, bring it up. If it does, to your point, they start to say, hey, firewall. Oh, forget firewall. We need MDR, EDR, DSPM, you know? And then it's like, woah.
Lou Rabon:Okay. Then they and they don't wanna feel like that. They don't wanna feel, like, completely out of their depth, so they kind of avoid it. Are you seeing that too?
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. When you go in and your and your value prop or your value pitch is, hey. I know all things technical. And then all of a sudden you ask a question and you can't answer basic responses. It puts you in kind of a weird a weird position.
Kameron Olsen:And so there are I think there are different ways of selling it where you don't have to get into those crazy conversations or lose your value based on the fact that you can't answer questions. Right? Really, really, I think a trusted adviser job is to be a connector into the ecosystem and and find the right resources and help them overcome and understand the technology and bring in the right products and the right people at the right time to answer the right questions to get the the problems fixed. I think we're what trusted advisers in the channel does really well is it translates. Right?
Kameron Olsen:So SaaS and telco and cyber providers have a product. You mentioned EDR, MDR, you know, all of those types of things. We talk about ransomware and whatever other problems there are out there. Business owners don't know what EDR is. They're never gonna come up to you, especially on the small business side and say, I need an EDR solution or, hey.
Kameron Olsen:I need an MDR solution or, hey. Do you have a sore or a sock? They're not gonna ask those questions. They're gonna say, hey. I have real concerns that competitors or bad actors or somebody's gonna come in and cause issues to my business.
Kameron Olsen:How do I how do I make sure that that doesn't happen? And if you don't know how to translate those conversations from one side to the other, then it's gonna be it's it's gonna be hard for you to sell it.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So so the solution would be, you know, other than educating themselves because they may already, you know, have limited time or not the interest to really get deep into cybersecurity. What I'm hearing you say is that they can say, listen. Not my area of expertise, but I know I got a guy or I got someone, you know, kind of thing. Is that right?
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. I think I think you got a guy is perfect, but you also have to know where your guy is.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Guy being a vendor or supplier.
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. Guy, gal. Like, let's not be sexist. Right? There's there's plenty of really smart people on both sides of that fence.
Kameron Olsen:But, and then you have to know enough about the technology. And I think where our industry could do better is when we go to events, instead of suppliers, going to an event and saying, hey. I paid $20 to be here. I paid $10 to be here, so I'm just gonna throw a commercial at you. It's, hey.
Kameron Olsen:Let's sit down and talk about the product, what pain points it solves, how to identify the opportunities to capture the attentions of the trusted advisers and those that wanna lean in and find or have customers or have verticals they go after that that would be great for the cyber product to sit down with those suppliers, and then suppliers have to create better sales enablement tools. And sales enablement tools aren't email campaigns. Sometimes they're educational tracks. Sometimes they're certifications. Sometimes they're, you know, things to help the trusted adviser really grasp the concepts of the things you're trying to fix.
Lou Rabon:You think the TSDs are doing a good job at that right now?
Kameron Olsen:I think there's always room to improve.
Lou Rabon:We won't we're not naming any names here.
Kameron Olsen:No. There there are there are brilliant there are brilliant people in our industry. Right? There are people that know this stuff like the back of their hand, although I don't know the back of my hand really well, better than the back of their hands, that that can talk circles around these things. They just know the insides and the outs, but you have to find them, and you have to know who to trust.
Kameron Olsen:Right? Because not all people understand the product, and not all people understand the channel. And it's it's hard to find somebody who understands the channel and the product all at the same time and bring those together to make it a great experience for everybody.
Lou Rabon:I I have to give a shout out to my buddy, Stefan Semmelroth, who's gonna be on this working for Arvon. He he's always giving me shout outs, so I'm giving him a shout out. He is the man. Everyone knows this. He's great.
Lou Rabon:And he is the you're like, when you talk about that person, I always think of him. He's phenomenal. So
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. I think the other thing and and, Lou, I'll give you a shout out. I think sometimes what's missing is I say I I said you have to be like a true consultant. And I think there is a really big space within our channel for people to bring in consultants. Like, if you are not the expert, but you have relationships that are untapped and un un you haven't had conversations with them around this topic, finding somebody like you and your organization that can come in and have the agnostic approach, have the framework discussion, have the check boxes that I call it the jiffy loop checklist of, hey.
Kameron Olsen:Do you have this? Do you have this? Do you have this? And when the answer is no, learning how to, like, dive in and dig into that particular topic, I think we should have more organizations like what you provide into the channel.
Lou Rabon:I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks, Cameron. Yeah. It's listen.
Lou Rabon:At the end of the day, it's what we're finding in cybersecurity. These point products don't work. And there's a lot of, you know, the MSP model of just like is kind of like what you were talking about with TAs. Do you want fries with that kind of thing? That that doesn't work.
Lou Rabon:You're you're and especially now, because, as you know, we do incident response too. We're seeing a lot of hacks that are basically just configuration errors. I. T. Dropped the ball.
Lou Rabon:The last three or four we've done are I. T. Dropped the ball. Either they were sharing passwords or, you know, really basic hygiene stuff. And so what what customers are finding out is they can't they can't do it like that anymore, especially if they're mid market.
Lou Rabon:You know, enterprise has a lot of money to spend on this, and they've got their own problems. Enterprises by no means completely locked down. That's a misconception. But mid market is where a lot of the bad guys are going because they know they have the money, and they don't have the teams that the enterprise has. And so and then, you know, SMB is just a disaster.
Lou Rabon:I don't wanna and not by their own. They just don't have the money or and there's no real provider for them. But that's what's happening to your point is, like, what companies everyone has to start learning is this is a programmatic thing. This is not a let me drop to you know? Yeah.
Lou Rabon:You got this point product, that point product, MDR, EDR, whatever. Check. You got your SOC two certification. Joke. I'm sorry.
Lou Rabon:But, you know, any of this, you know, like SOC two, even ISO, all that stuff. ISO's a lot better. Won't get into geeking out about this right now. But but the point is that there needs to be more. So I appreciate the, you know, the the the kudos.
Lou Rabon:Hopefully, that's where the industry is going because, you know, of course, we wanna make money and dominate and all that stuff, but we also wanna secure we have to secure this stuff. This is not just it's no longer commercial, but it's also defense. It's home defense. I
Kameron Olsen:mean, everybody knows the book Who Moved My Cheese. Right? Like, it's it's easy to say, but in practice, I don't think it's really easy to live. I think the problem with cybersecurity, it is a massive game of cat and mouse. As soon as you fill a hole, the bad actors find another one, and it is a constant moving target.
Kameron Olsen:So, I mean, I would guess in your your years of of selling cybersecurity, it's never been a target that you're able to hit. It's always a moving target you gotta go you gotta go fill. Is that right?
Lou Rabon:That's right. Yeah. That's why it's gotta be programmatic. It's not like you know, the we use so many analogies, cars or human bodies, etcetera. Like, you can never go to the doctor and and they say, okay.
Lou Rabon:Take this pill, and you're good for everything for the rest of your life. You know? It's like, yeah.
Kameron Olsen:Nice. Let's hope with AI it brings us that.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Soon when we're plugged into a whole machine. But anyway yeah. You know, it's not just one pill. It's like you diet, exercise, genetics, all this other stuff.
Lou Rabon:Cyber is very similar in that it's a systematic programmatic approach.
Kameron Olsen:But It's a holistic holistic approach.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. I we we these are secrets, but I wanna veer back into the channel, side of it. And one other maybe question about that is how do you choose a vendor? So when you're looking at security vendors, what do you think? You know, what are the ones that you think are great?
Lou Rabon:What are the ones that you think you avoid? Not naming names, but conceptually.
Kameron Olsen:Let's throw people under the bus.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Kameron Olsen:The t listies have done a decent job of going out and finding companies who who provide a decent service. I think there's a couple issues in the cybersecurity landscape. Number one, I came from the the the the UCaaS side. So I owned a a UCaaS company, and what was interesting is when we first started building the organization is we went out and we found a multitenanted platform, but then you had to go buy a softphone, and then you had to go find a SIP phone, and then you had to bring in dial tone, and then you had to find somebody else to do video conferencing. And so you, like, had all of these, like, really disparaging systems, and then you had to bring them together.
Kameron Olsen:And the and the UCaaS provider's responsibilities was to make sure that they all work together. But, hey. If your Internet broke, you know, your SIP trunks didn't work. And so they would call you because your SIP trunks were working. Then you would point, like, I see that exact same system in cybersecurity.
Kameron Olsen:There are so many different systems doing different things that companies have have have tool sprawl that they bought so many things that overlap, but then they have huge gaping holes of things that that they need that they didn't even know that they have. And so I think over time and and we're starting to see a lot of m and a and a lot of people coming together and trying to build a holistic solution, but it's really tough because it's such a broad a broad term because we're no longer fighting wars with bombs and guns, although there is still some of that. It's bits and bytes now. Right? Cybersecurity providers are, for the most part, arms dealers.
Kameron Olsen:They're providing warfare tools for companies to fight bad actors, and it's a constant it's a constant thing. You gotta train your troops. You gotta provide the tools. You gotta be watching your gates. You gotta be, you know, making sure you have good locks.
Kameron Olsen:You gotta be, like, increasing your infrastructure. And so I think to answer your question, what do you look for in a good provider? I think it's somebody who's who's forward thinking, always iterating, somebody that you can trust, and trust is a big topic of a whole other segment, but somebody who you know and can stand behind that when things go wrong and technology does, and especially in cybersecurity, you're not unhackable if you have a cybersecurity solution. But when things go wrong, do you have a company that can stand behind you and make that tough phone call and let you know things are going wrong and and will make that phone call when your client's been hacked about the same type of enthusiasm as closing a 10 k deal.
Lou Rabon:Right?
Kameron Olsen:You you have to have somebody who's willing to do both.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Big time. And I that's great because also it's the why. You know, I think that that's really important is often we get a lot of inbound requests like, hey. They want a pen test, And and we're like, why?
Lou Rabon:Like, can we speak to them often? You know, sometimes TAs get a little bit they push back because they wanna protect that. And I don't blame them, by the way. You don't want your clients speaking to, like, 50 different providers. They're going to get fatigued pretty quickly.
Lou Rabon:And plus, that's the TA's job, right, is to filter that stuff. So I totally understand and I get it. But we often we have to ask why for exactly the reason that you're mentioning, which is they probably don't need a pen test. They probably actually need more of a you know, they need a whole security team. And instead of doing these things, like, one by one piecemeal throughout the year and not getting any results and spending as much, if not more, than they would if they just approach the problem the right way in the first place.
Lou Rabon:That's why we ask why often. And and I think if TA start asking, okay. You need a pen test, but, you know, and then we equip them. They've gotta have a bunch of questions. And I think getting past those questions, being able to ask the questions and not being intimidated, I mean, that's where they should pull in a vendor like us.
Lou Rabon:But if, they can't, maybe having enough ammunition. But the why is really important because, yeah, otherwise, it's just they're they're they're they're gonna lose trust. You you mentioned trust. I think trust is lost when, you know, a TA recommends someone obviously, and and it falls apart. That's always that's why we love going in because we're like, trust me.
Lou Rabon:They will love you. Bring us in, and and things will be good. And that's what the other vendors have to do, obviously, and not to your point, wait until you know, be really happy at the sale and then absent when something actually goes wrong. But, also, you know, they they just need to to to engage on a deeper level and and make sure that the the trust that the TA can bring the right solutions is there. So
Kameron Olsen:I've always loved I've always loved the analogy, like, when a customer says, hey. Let's do a PIN test, and the trust adviser is like, okay. I'll go find you a PIN test. It's like, first question should be with, like, well, do you have doors on your house? Have you added locks?
Kameron Olsen:Like, have you closed your windows?
Lou Rabon:Exactly. Let's make sure
Kameron Olsen:let's make sure you've done at least what the bare minimum is before we do a pen test because it's just gonna tell you all the things you know already just by looking at your network.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. We had we've had a couple inbound. It it's like why? What what you know, you're doing this pen test.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Just to tell you that things aren't the way. Well, we do it every year and we've gotta do it for compliance or or when we know, but we're gonna get to that. It's like, You really and and we started turning them down, you know, to be completely frank. In the beginning, I was like, you know, bring it.
Lou Rabon:We don't but, yeah, it's like, okay. You want go ahead. Do your pen test. When you're ready to do something, you know, really do security, then call us up. So
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. Yeah.
Lou Rabon:Let's talk about your biggest challenge. What's your biggest challenge today, you know, in the channel at least?
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. I think there's a couple things. I think I think number one, I think our biggest challenge is that we just don't have enough data. Right? I think we're a fairly young industry.
Kameron Olsen:I mean, we got started in the late nineties, so we're twenty five to thirty years old as an industry, which in industries is really young. Right? And the way that this industry was built was, you know, off off the backs of back end deals and spiffs and commissions and and gut feels. We went from 50 suppliers to 500 suppliers in the channel in five years, and you'd be shocked on the amount of suppliers in this space that don't have CRMs. They don't have basic tools to start tracking.
Kameron Olsen:And when you don't have tools and metrics to track, you don't know where things fall short. So when your revenue numbers start to dwindle or when things start to get tough, you don't know where to go plug those holes. So I'll say, like, numbers are cybersecurity for suppliers. It's like, okay. Let's go look at where our gaps are in our channel program.
Kameron Olsen:Hey. We're out there. We're bringing all sorts of, trusted advisers in the front door. They're looking at our product, but we can't get anybody to bring us an opportunity. Well, there's probably something wrong with But you don't know that if you don't see the numbers.
Kameron Olsen:Right? You're just like, hey. There's something wrong, and let's go work harder. And right? So you're going out and finding more partners, but that doesn't change the fact that very few of them actually like your product or your messaging or need your whatever.
Kameron Olsen:Right? So I think number one is is, metrics, I think, is a big piece. I think number two, there's not a lot of education and training. I haven't met hardly any members in the channel that are supplier focused that have had any sort of formal onboarding or training on what the channel is. So it's people who have come in and found a good mentor and have taken them under the wing and showed them how to do it.
Kameron Olsen:But what that's caused is it's very, very difficult to come into the channel with the huge expectations because channel managers are expensive, channel programs are expensive, and there needs to be immediate results, but we don't have the data. And so you get an eight or nine month ramp. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know that you have stuff coming in the pipe, and there's very little tolerance for failure before they start churning over. And so being able to bring in some new fresh blood, teach them how to run a channel program, I think will do wonders for the trusted adviser.
Kameron Olsen:Having somebody here here's here's the biggest eye opener for me in the last couple months. I have interviewed now about 10 field sales rep on the TSD side and about 10 trusted advisers, And I asked them if you could pinpoint the single thing that makes a a channel manager successful or not, what is it? And all of them all of them have said they follow-up. That's simple. They follow-up.
Kameron Olsen:Like, that's the minimum barrier to entry. And if that's the minimum barrier to entry, it tells me that there's just not enough people knowing how to do this particular job. So I think it's those two things. I think it's numbers, and I think it's training.
Lou Rabon:That's great. I this this is like gold here because that's what you do at the channel advisers. Right? This is you're basically teaching both sides, right, how to operate. So tell me more.
Lou Rabon:Like, what's your engagement model? How do you, you know, approach, you know, what what does it look like?
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. So typically, what I get is there's such a huge gold rush of suppliers who are wanting to get into the channel. So a lot of the times, I get a phone call or an email and say, hey. So and so told me to reach out to you. I wanna get into the channel.
Kameron Olsen:And the first thing I said is, why do you wanna get into the channel? And they say, well, I have this one guy who sells my product, and he usually sells more than my entire direct sales team. And when I asked him, how do I find more people like you? Their answer is, oh, you have to get into the channel. And then they go, what's the channel?
Kameron Olsen:Right? So it's usually an education and training of the model. Evergreen commissions, you need resources, sales enablement. You need a product that makes sense. Here's the category.
Kameron Olsen:So there's a whole training around what the channel model is. And then it's building some of the groundwork. It's hey. I went out after my time at at Telarus when I recognized there was a major pain point on the on the supplier side, and I looked for a methodology for for indirect sales models. You can go out and you can do challenger sales, and there's there's hundreds of different sales methodologies and sales models.
Kameron Olsen:But I couldn't find a single place that had an indirect sales model, a sales through or sales with motion model. And so, the first thing I did, I created it. I created a channel2.0 methodology that kind of lays out who's responsible for what along the way. And where I think most people go wrong is they don't realize that the suppliers have two funnels. You have a partner funnel.
Kameron Olsen:And if and only then after you sell those people, do you get access to the customer pipeline? And so you gotta make sure that that experience on the partner side is a pleasant experience because if you don't do a good job of selling them who are professional salespeople and typically have have shown themselves to be very well They're they're really good salespeople. They know good salespeople. If you show up and you don't show that you're a efficient salesperson, you don't follow-up, you don't know your products, you don't know how to ask good discovery call questions, you don't even care about their business, there's no way they're gonna give you access to trusted relationships that they've had for years. So, right, showing up the best you can as a salesperson to them to help them, only then do you get access.
Kameron Olsen:So so building that indirect sales model, and and then I I just come in and I I build the processes. So you have the methodology, you have the processes, and then you have the training. But more importantly, we help them with their messaging about their product, help them adjust their product if it's not right, and help them adjust their messaging if it's not right.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. We we've learned that lesson the hard way. I mean, this is, again, just super you cannot it's kinda like what we're talking about earlier about being a salesperson. Show up day one with a, you know, a corporate card at golf clubs and, you know, a couple people to call. That's only gonna get you so far.
Lou Rabon:Coming into the channel just like we've got a great product, you know, that I've learned the hard way that if you build it, they will not come. You gotta have a process, you know, for sure. So, yeah, a little plug for for for what you're doing in the channel advisers because that that for anyone looking to get into the channel, and we've worked with you, you've been great. So, yeah, definitely give you a call. But I I wanna go now personal because we we don't even though this is channel security secrets, I also do wanna kinda get to know you a little bit more even though I know you pretty well, but for our audience, you know, you know, what what what what do you do outside of work?
Lou Rabon:Like, what gets you going?
Kameron Olsen:Wait. There's such thing as that? Yeah. There's there's life outside of work.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. That's a tough one too.
Kameron Olsen:I've been extremely blessed in my life. I'll tell you that. My first you know, my my UCaaS business that I built, I had no business building it, but luckily, I had a gentleman who believed in me and pulled me under his wing. And when I was building it, I was in the middle of going through college and raising three kids, and so my life was pretty hectic. A lot of guilt of being gone and focusing on business as much as I did, but we we did a great job.
Kameron Olsen:And I have three amazing children that that are pretty much raised. So my youngest is 16 and just graduated high school as a junior. So she's kind of up and running. And so now my hobby is building this business. I get to do it guilt free, and I get to spend as much time as I want because they they don't really want my attention most of the time except for to take them to dinner or, you know, give them money for this or help them with that.
Kameron Olsen:So it's very few and far between. So I do spend a lot of time doing podcasts and building educational platforms and playing with AI and seeing it how it can integrate into to what I'm doing. I'm a huge pickleball fan. I just picked up pickleball, and so it's it's my great way of relieving stress. And, yeah, besides those two things and business, pickleball, and family, I do have some concerts, some music, and that's about it.
Kameron Olsen:That's awesome. My life's pretty simple right now.
Lou Rabon:That hey, man. That's good. I mean, you're you're living the dream in the sense that just getting your kids through. Guys, the high school is a big deal. I'm still in that, but also being able to do other things and work on what you wanna do.
Lou Rabon:That's the advantage of you know, the thing that people don't see when you own your own business, though, is those years that you were talking about, like going to college and and putting the kids to school and and the, you know, lack of time and and, you know, sacrificing things. Now you're you're reaping the benefits to a certain extent, but it took a while. Right?
Kameron Olsen:It does. It does. And it's you know, if you wanna get really personal, what's hard is really deciding the trade off because building a business or or working at a job or learning a new trade so you can make more money, you know, you have a skill set more than, you know, doing menial tasks and getting paid minimum wage is planning for the future. And there's a trade off. You have to decide on how much you sacrifice now for the future versus how much you live in for today.
Kameron Olsen:And I don't you know, business owners are gonna hate me for saying this, but there's not there's not a right answer. You gotta decide what's right for you. We had a tragedy in the family about a year and a half ago. We lost my daughter in a in a motorcycle accident. And I'll tell you, I I would give every single dollar and everything I own to have her back.
Kameron Olsen:And so that tells you that tells me one thing, that money isn't money isn't the thing you should sacrifice everything for, at least not in my book, not in my value system. Mhmm. But I also realized that if I stopped working today and I've lived and lived life to the fullest and take my kids on trips, and we went out to eat, and we just had great experiences all the time. I'm gonna be working, you know, I'm gonna be working at at Walmart. Sorry.
Kameron Olsen:Walmart. But I'm gonna be working at Walmart. Is it better? Yeah.
Lou Rabon:Insert minimum wage job here.
Kameron Olsen:I don't I don't want I don't wanna be working into my eighties. Right? I wanna be Yeah. I wanna be, doing this this type of thing. Retirement for me just says I get to say no to more of the things I don't necessarily love to do as much.
Kameron Olsen:So
Lou Rabon:Yeah. No. It's it's a trade off, and to your point, there's no right answer. There's no well well, I I will say that there is a right answer that you do need to take time for sure, and you do there's no meeting or I think I just read recently where there was someone that was winning an Oscar or something, and they missed it because their mom was turning 70. I don't I don't know who that was, but, yeah, that's, you know, priorities.
Lou Rabon:Right? It's like they work hard. They did the work, but then they had a trade off to you know, is this awards event more important than me seeing my mom turn 70? They said no. For some people, they would not agree for a number of reasons.
Kameron Olsen:But Yeah. Look. The Academy the Academy Awards probably wasn't happy, but, you know, I think we should respect people and and their decisions and just be much more aware of the decisions we're making and make them consciously versus just doom scrolling our way through life.
Lou Rabon:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see. It's really interesting to think about what's happening with technology.
Lou Rabon:I mean, you mentioned AI. So what are you doing with AI? Are you just using it like I am, like my own personal assistant and slightly addicted?
Kameron Olsen:Yes and no. I am building platforms that allow sales teams to get critical real time feedback during the sales process. Oh, wow. So if you are a channel manager and you're having calls, right now, there's not a whole lot of places where you can say, how well did I do? What feedback would you give me?
Kameron Olsen:Unless your manager is sitting on that call with you all the time, it's really hard to get some of that feedback. And so trying to educate and train people real time is AI, it knows everything and nothing all at the same time. So if we can leverage some of the stuff we've built, the processes and the systems and the structure and all of that type of stuff, I think it speeds up our sales process and go to market motions faster, and we become better enablers for our trusted advisors to go find success as well. We give them the tools and the resources and the knowledge as us as a supplier that they need to go find success in their realm.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, the the use case for AI is almost limitless and, you know, not to take over jobs, but to augment. It's a tool, you know, to your point.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. So yeah. How do you
Kameron Olsen:how do you see AI affecting the cybersecurity space?
Lou Rabon:There's a lot of great use cases. I mean, I think not just cybersecurity, but, you know, in every entry level position, it's kind of it's it's a little bit it's gonna get tough for for people that are graduating now because the jobs that used to go to them are now going to AI. So same thing with cyber. I see AI as being that first layer tier one analyst. You know, here are the alerts.
Lou Rabon:Here's what they mean. Even tier two to tier three, perhaps, which is, okay. And this is what you should do to remediate it. I don't see it at a point where it's like, okay. Let's auto remediate everything where I I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that, but it's it's a force multiplier for sure.
Lou Rabon:I mean, just the things I've you know, the other day, I had to parse a mailbox file for a reason. And it we basically, I said, I need a Python script to to go through who's the two from subject, etcetera. And it was like a 65 gig file. It did it in, know, it created a script for me, which, you know, my Python scripting skills are like, you know, baby level. So this wrote like, you know, master level Python script to go through, pull this information out.
Lou Rabon:There were a couple of errors. I said, this is the error. Boom. Here's a new script. Literally within five minutes, I pulled this information out.
Lou Rabon:Thanks to to AI. So also with forensics, you know, a lot of the things, technical things that we need to do, we can pull it like, what's this Windows log mean? What's the context in this? You know, what would an attacker do? What, you know, why am I seeing this?
Lou Rabon:What other logs would correlate with that? It's amazing. But so so AI being used by a human right now, I think, is the use case for cyber. AI taking over certain cyber activities, definitely in the there's no doubt in the future. But, you know, and AI being able to run cyber, you know, we gotta wait a little while for that.
Lou Rabon:Essentially, I think that might happen, but until you take humans out of the loop, there's always gonna be issues. So
Kameron Olsen:Let me ask you a question about the future of cybersecurity. One of the things and one of the projects I'm working on with an MSP who focuses on that SMB range, you mentioned that, like, let's say under 250 users. That that that group of employers doesn't have the budgets, doesn't have the expertise, really struggles with the knowledge base and stuff. I mean, they're just struggling to kinda keep doors open and revenue coming into the space. I see large enterprise who are working on on cyber insurance, they're going to Travelers or some of these big cyber insurance companies, require these huge check boxes and things to fill out to to get approved or underwritten for cyber insurance.
Kameron Olsen:When does that go down to the SMB business? When is the SMB required to get to those same levels that the enterprise is gonna have to be at?
Lou Rabon:It's a great question. Right now, it's already happening where if you want a lot of coverage is not there because these companies can't answer those questions. Yeah. Or and and so there are, I think, products for the SMB market. At least it used it's evolving.
Lou Rabon:There was one point where they were like, here, use this browser plug in. The insurance company was giving a browser plug in saying, this will tell us how your security is. You know, it was a joke. So they're getting more sophisticated. So ultimately, what you're getting at, Cameron, is there is no use case in the future where a company can't have some basic level of cyber.
Lou Rabon:Now do they need an advanced program? We look at the world through maturity, through the lens of maturity when we're looking at companies. We're not saying, are you doing it or are you not? That binary thing, that doesn't work. It's you know, are you at least doing it enough to a basic level where you'll be able to detect something weird happening?
Lou Rabon:You know? Or or closing off the things that if it if you can't detect it, at least it's not a way in. And and then there's you know, you go up the level of maturity. So I think that everyone needs it. We, you know, one of the IRS we worked was a was a much smaller structure.
Lou Rabon:They didn't have cyber insurance, and it was really a it was actually painful. I I felt bad, you know, charging what we charge because I knew this was coming out of pocket for this person. And and we we don't normally do that. You know, we're normally at the mid market and enterprise. But in this case, it was it was it all worked out.
Lou Rabon:The point is this person, you know, it was almost like going to the casino. Like, they're just they did not, invest in cyber or even IT to a point where, you know, this was definitely gonna eventually happen to them, and they just had tech and security debt for years. And then finally, you know, it came it landed on their number, but in the negative sense. And, you know, and now the numbers that they're putting up, if they had invested in a program for the last five or ten years, would have been half or less of what they paid amortized over that amount of time. So that's really what we're trying to to get out there.
Lou Rabon:It's like, yes, right now it's an investment. Right now, you may not see the reason, but if you do it proactively, you can do it at your own pace. And then when you do it at your own pace, you're you're heading off a future. There's a future ROI if there's not one immediately.
Kameron Olsen:Mic drop. Boom, baby. I feel like I feel like you just gave your whole elevator pitch. That was like, brilliant. It was perfect.
Lou Rabon:Well, that I I wanted this to be more about you, not about me. So any any closing thoughts before we, you know, close-up?
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. For me, I think the future is bright. I've never been so excited about what the possibilities are, but terrified at the same time. Optimistically apprehensive. Is that even a phrase that we could say?
Kameron Olsen:But
Lou Rabon:Cautiously optimistic. There you go.
Kameron Olsen:Alright. The the world's our oyster right now. There's such an opportunity out there. There's such a demand, and and there's such a huge need to have a trusted resource to come in and help guide these companies because the technology rate of change is not slowing down. The, a rate of bad actors trying to hack and and hold you hostage is not going down, And your competitors are not slowing down, adopting technology to to benefit and grow, you know, and and provide better experiences over you.
Kameron Olsen:And so the channel is a great place to be. The future's bright. And, as long as you stay ahead of it and you put time in and learning and education, yeah, the the world's our oyster at this point, I think.
Lou Rabon:I love it. I love the optimism, and I totally agree. So, where where can people find you? You've got your LinkedIn. We'll put links in our
Kameron Olsen:Yeah. Come to my house. We'll swim in the pool. We'll have a drink. You know?
Kameron Olsen:All that. Come find me. Thechanneladvisers.com. Go there. You can fill out a form.
Kameron Olsen:Come look at my stuff. A lot of my stuff is free. Right? I I want the channel to benefit. Self paced.
Kameron Olsen:If you just wanna learn how to build better channel programs, come grab my stuff. There's a lot of stuff on my university. I have a job board. If you're looking for people, there's there's great, people on there. That's all free.
Kameron Olsen:If you want me to come in and help you look at where you have holes and gaps, I'm happy to do that. If you want a curated experience to help you build your channel program, I'm happy to do that as well. So, yeah, whatever you need, I can I can help or at least point you in the direction?
Lou Rabon:Awesome. Thank you, Cameron. Really appreciate having you here. Thank you to the audience. First episode, boom, down.
Lou Rabon:And, if you learned something today or you laugh, tell someone about this podcast, please. We're looking to get it out there. And thanks again, Cameron. Really great to to chat.
Kameron Olsen:Such a pleasure. Thanks for having me on live.
Lou Rabon:Yeah. Absolutely. Bennett, another exciting episode of the channel security secrets podcast. See you next time. That's a wrap for this episode of channel security secrets.
Lou Rabon:Thanks for tuning in. For show notes, guest info, and more episodes, visit us at channelsecuritysecrets.com. Channel Security Secrets is sponsored by Cyber Defense Group. When it comes to protecting your business, don't settle for reactive. Partner with experts who build resilience from the ground up.
