Harnessing Channel Insights - Anita Patel - Channel Security Secrets - Episode #13
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.
Speaker 1:I'm really delighted to chat with our guest today. She's a trusted technology adviser, thought leader, board member, and public speaker Named the 2025 technology advisor award winner by Channel Futures. She brings over twenty five years of experience in the industry specializing in technology procurement and strategic advisory. A dedicated advocate for women in tech, she serves on the Alliance for Channel Women's philanthropic committee. She is the CEO and trusted technology adviser at Minerva Tech Group.
Speaker 1:Anita Patel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Lou. Thanks for having me. That was a nice little intro. I didn't realize I did all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's nice to hear that. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So Anita, what... What's the biggest secret to your success in the channel?
Speaker 2:Biggest secret to my success in the channel. So I I think for me mainly is around building those really great relationships with people, right? In anything you do and it's really around understanding that you have the same goal in mind, that you have the same beliefs and values and that you can really work together as a team but really authentically building great relationships and I think that's a key to everything, not just the channel or not just like selling, that I'm a good seller but you know it's just I think that is the key to life.
Speaker 1:Good relationships.
Speaker 2:Good relationships, authentic relationships that, you know, that serve a a purpose both ways as well. Right? It's not just one-sided. So.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How how do you do that? What's your secret sauce to developing those relationships?
Speaker 2:I think for me is it's just spending a lot of time with people, right? I'm a I'm a people's person, so I get a lot of energy from people. I love being around people and I love learning about people's experiences and what they're doing. I'm actually just, I love learning all the time, not just obviously around new technologies but around people's experiences and their wise words and wisdom and things like that, right? So I think that if you take interest in actual people, I think that you go a long way and build true relationships with whoever you're trying to build relationships with but it's not even about trying really, it's just a natural thing, I think, that comes to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For you, I think that then you're, you know, very lucky because I think some people they do find it. Obviously, if people are drawn to sales, one of the reasons they're drawn to sales is because they typically have that skill, a little bit extroverted, like to speak to people. But for some people, it's pretty draining, and you're saying that it actually gives you energy, and and you're interested in other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Definitely interested in other people. I've never been in a real true sales role, and it sounds really, people are like, you've never been in sales, I'm like, no, I've never ever been in sales before, I've never ever worked for a quota before and I've never done any of those things, right? So I don't come with that mindset and I think just naturally as my career developed it from program management, project management, different things, I learnt to kind of bring different people together in different ways with different skill sets and so I was learning about what do they need, how do they need it, what is their skill set and just so that interest of bringing teams and projects together, I guess I just learned a skill that just comes naturally to me now.
Speaker 1:So you're you're... You haven't been traditionally in sales, so you're really doing strategic advisory essentially?
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah. I never worked in a sales world before and I a problem solver. So my career mainly was program and project management in the telco world. So really building out operational teams and new product development and solving issues and problems in the back end and bringing teams together.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I like to solve problems and manage them all the way through and ensure that we get good outcomes.
Speaker 1:So how'd you get to the channel?
Speaker 2:How did I get to the channel? So I guess just working in telco for a very long time. I was in The UK, had my own agency out there for a while and there's no channel in The UK but in 2017, Avant came over and they were the sort of first exposure to the channel that I had and so I was like, this is interesting, I'm not just helping clients with infrastructure but it's everything else, there's so much more that I can bring to the table and learn so it was just a big learning curve and I think two years ago when I moved to The UK, to The US, I just really immersed myself into the channel, was like, this is amazing. Just purely because there's great people in the channel, your curiosity of people and learning and technology and so... There's just so much and it's ongoing all the time.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that was kind of my step into it.
Speaker 1:Very cool. And and what are you doing around security in the channel?
Speaker 2:So, lots. As you know, there's lots of stuff going on in and it's not just widgets anymore, right? It's around really understanding where our clients are. And so we really partner with a lot of VCSOs and CSOs that work and help with clients and with you guys that we go in and go, okay, what is the problem that you're having right now? Where's your data kept?
Speaker 2:What kind of industry are you in? I'm really kind of just picking all of that out and understanding where the client is at rather than just selling things to them, right? Everyone can sell a widget to people, right? And as I don't know how to sell things, I kind of know, I like to go dig deep and go, okay, what is the problem that you're having? And I always think if there's a really big problem in the business, that's where the money's gonna come, right?
Speaker 2:You can untangle that, that's where the ROI is, right? And the safety or you're gonna build more reputation, you're gonna build more trust or whatever it may be, So let's look at those problems and see, okay, step by step, put them in priority order and okay, which ones are we gonna do first? Where are you at? But do you need your compliancy fixed first? Or do you actually need your employees to be trained first?
Speaker 2:Where should we do it? Let's not do everything together. So I think for me is in terms of security, it's so wide and I think picking it out in small steps for organizations, I think that's the easiest and quickest way to kind of show that your value or the advisory that we bring with our resources.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's funny because I I actually will contradict you on that.
Speaker 2:Go, Brett.
Speaker 1:We we can use this kind of as an enablement session. We we found that, you know, we started in the in the channel a number of years ago, and in the beginning, we were getting those inbound requests, which is, hey, we want a pen test. We want, you know, project. We want a, you know, vulnerability management or a quick assessment. And we were taking those projects, you know, just as like one offs.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of misconceptions about that. First of all, those little projects, they don't really move the needle. They give you information, but it doesn't actually change anything. To really move the needle on security, as you know, you need to have a programmatic approach. And so the way that you would obtain that programmatic approach is taking all those little projects and pulling them all together.
Speaker 1:So that's where we've pivoted in recent times to say, Listen, we're not... Okay, you need a pen test. First of all, why? Why are you getting penetration test? And often, it's like it reveals a deeper...
Speaker 1:Well, we don't have anyone fully dedicated to security. You know, it's our way of making sure the IT team is doing what they need to do, things like that. And there's much better ways to do that. And, again, it's like that's only one small piece of it. Unfortunately, security is still such a new cybersecurity, new especially to the channel, if it's not finance or healthcare, and even healthcare is not completely mature, mostly not mature.
Speaker 1:They've just been regulated since '96. So they've had to do something. Typically, what we'll see is that we need to educate them. So that's where the enablement comes in. You know, I only say that this is a podcast.
Speaker 1:We're here to educate people. So I think that that kind of approach of saying, hey, we'll get a project, we'll get our foot in the door. What we found is often when we do that, we are, you know, it's they they take the report and then they don't do anything with it. And then, you know, then they have to go back and get budget approval. They usually the people that are getting budget approval, depending on the size of the organization, they don't know how to get that budget approval.
Speaker 1:They... It's difficult for them to speak the language, the business language, things like that. What we do is we just come in and we we do all... We help them. We enable them to get to that point.
Speaker 1:So that's probably a topic for another time.
Speaker 2:But but you're absolutely right. I think have been... I I think it it doesn't end at a penetration testing, right, or vulnerability testing. It doesn't end there. That's the feeling and it...
Speaker 2:You go kind of then evaluating what needs to happen in steps and things like that is is the key. It's the follow-up, right? With anything.
Speaker 1:Big time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And looking at it holistically, I think too.
Speaker 1:One one of the reasons cybersecurity has failed in at least the industry is there's all these silver bullet approaches or there's all these things that, yeah, well, to your point, sell a widget, get secure, doesn't work. That's not the way it happens.
Speaker 2:Definitely it is more consultative and really kind of digging deep into the layers of the whole stack, right? It's not a widget, like you say, but it's the education piece as well. So as we know, the resources for experts, cyber security, VCSOs and things like that are really rare to come by and they're expensive, right? And the outlet to that for a company any size is a lot. So kind of having expertise in that space where we can come in and help you in all that whole layer of the seven stack, we support the customer in a different kind of way, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:And that value alone, think that saving alone and things like that just really, it shows the benefits of this, why security is needed and we can then make IT teams look good or help the decision makers make really of and all the C suite people right now, they're scared because if they get hacked or think things are happening, there's all these accountability that's happening around that C suite so we're helping them mitigate those risks as well
Speaker 1:without
Speaker 2:the overlay but what they're spending, they're showing not necessarily return on investment on but they're showing that with their clients that they're protecting their clients when they're protecting their data and everything else. Right? They're protecting their company.
Speaker 1:Big time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's absolutely an ROI on security. That's that's where the conversation is flipped. It's traditionally been looked at as a as a cost center and also like as a as a tack on to, you know, I. T.
Speaker 1:Spend. And that's not that's an antiquated way of looking at it. Now there, you know, you invest in cyber. What you're doing is you're the ROI is is uptime. Often It's, reputational.
Speaker 1:It's it's things that are very, sometimes they're a little bit soft. They're a bit fuzzier, you know, but, often they say cyber is tough because it's hard to prove a negative. You know, that, hey. Well, you haven't gotten hacked, so give me more money. But that's not the case.
Speaker 1:The case is look around at the industry, look at what's happening. And now, you know, inevitably with with AI, it's it's becoming where no one can hide anymore, where, you know, every environment is is easily, accessible in in many ways. So, what you're trying to do is not necessarily stop every single attack. You're just trying to, enable the organization to detect the attacks and contain them pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We we can't stay... I mean, you might... You may disagree with me. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But, you know, we're never gonna be ahead of the hackers.
Speaker 1:No. I agree with you on that.
Speaker 2:So far ahead of us that we just need to kinda... It's not... It's... And, you know, with... It's preventative trying to figure out, like, what are they doing?
Speaker 2:And so talking to companies like yours and for us to go and advise, we know what's happening out there at least, right? Whereas we get that information of what's happening, what kind of hacks are happening, what little things are happening in the network infrastructure or whatever, right? We can bring all that information to the table. We're not necessarily internal IT guys will know what's happening out there, right? So we bring that wealth of knowledge because nobody can stay ahead of it, right?
Speaker 2:But we can try. But yeah, to your point in terms of ROI, you're right, I always mention to my clients, well, we're not gonna act, it's all in the cloud and they're the sort of standard answers like, oh, it's fine. Like, nobody needs my data. I'm like, it's not really about needing your data. It's like, what if you were locked out of your business for even a day, twenty four hours?
Speaker 2:You can do anything, you can't service your partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no invoices.
Speaker 2:You can't do anything, you've been locked out of your house and you can't get in, right? And you're leaving on the street so you're sleeping in your car and that's it, right? How much money are you going to lose? And that is, they're like, oh, I don't know. I'm like, okay, well, let's work it out.
Speaker 2:Let's work it out and see what... And then normally it's not twenty four hours if you're down, right? You're forty eight hours or even a week depending on what you have in place. So let's work out how to mitigate that. And I think they're the conversations, we have big business conversations now, right?
Speaker 2:Around what are you losing and then your reputation to go with it's like you worked all this hard to build your brand and your reputation and everything else for your business. Where is that gonna go once they know that your clients know that you've been hacked and their data's not safe or that you just, like... You know, it's it's a big thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Talk about those things first, and therefore, it's like, oh, I never thought of it like that.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. That's brilliant. Yeah. Exactly. Because, yeah, hey, we're not Fort Knox.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've been hearing that for twenty five, thirty years. Like, we're not we don't have anything that anyone would be interested in. We're a marketing company, whatever the case is. And it's like, well, wait a second. Who's your biggest customer?
Speaker 1:Oh, that would be, you know, Fortune fifty here. It's like, oh, okay. And do they have any contractual requirements for you to tell them if you get hacked? Actually, I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're right. They do. And, yeah, as you start to go down that chain, it's like, oh, and, you know, what if let's just say, when did... Do they have a... An annual contract?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's up for renewal pretty soon. Are you sure to win that every year? Oh, no.
Speaker 1:They often make us jump through procurement hoops. Okay. Well, you know, would they go to your... How likely are they to go to your competitor once you tell them, listen, we've your data has been leaked and that these contracts and prerelease materials. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden, boom. You've got their attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then the other one is... Oh, I've got cybersecurity insurance.
Speaker 1:Right. Oh gosh. Man.
Speaker 2:I want it... That one's an interesting one because I'm like, okay. Well, do... Are you compliant to your insurance? Like, do you know that they're gonna pay out if anything happens?
Speaker 2:And even if they pay out, how are you gonna run your business? It's just money but how are you going to start your business up again? How are you gonna retry your operations again? If you're locked out of your business, the insurance companies aren't gonna help you with that. You could pay them but you know, if you pay a hacker, they're gonna come back and hack you again.
Speaker 2:Like, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Or they're gonna hack your, you know, your neighbor. It's it's... You know, paying a ransomware, and I understand it's a business decision. We we we do a lot of incident response, so I've been I've been part of those negotiations and and in those rooms.
Speaker 1:And I understand when the businesses make the decision because they're like, hey, we just need to get up and we don't want this stuff to get released. Now it's really about, you know, the the, the fact that they they won't... The hackers are actually very... Many of them are very professional, and so they don't release the data. But then you're paying them.
Speaker 1:It's like someone coming to your house saying, hey. I've got your TV and all your stuff. Pay me and I'll give it back to you. And you're like, yeah, I want my stuff back and here, you know, here's a couple grand or something. Then they go get better tools and they break into your neighbor's house, you know?
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a it's a losing losing battle.
Speaker 2:It is. So the insurance conversation is interesting to have as well because, you know, it's just like having fire insurance. If you don't have the right things for a fire and you have a fire, you... The insurance is gonna pay out. So
Speaker 1:Yep. Less beaches,
Speaker 2:those things as well. So we have a lot of those conversations with our clients as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's smart. And that's where the trusted advisor part comes in, right? Because you're saying you're again, the education piece, you're not just taking them at their face value. Oh, you've got cyber insurance.
Speaker 1:Great. Do you want eight more widgets next year or something like that? It's more like, wait a second. We're... What you're doing is you're taking them on a journey to truly protect them and their business because at the end of the day, yeah, we're all making money.
Speaker 1:Our goal is to obviously revenue... Increase revenue, etcetera. However, you know, how do you do it? And in this circumstance, to your point, if you're becoming that trusted adviser to them, helping them alleviate pain, letting them sleep a little better at night because they're like, wow, yeah, then then you're actually gaining trust and you're going to have that client for life versus having them, you know, every every year or every couple of months having to renew your relationship with them because you're you're just very transactional with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Totally agree. And I think that, you know, we... We're always there to to help and support them and make them look good within their business. Right?
Speaker 2:But the key thing is is that the the space that we work in is, like, the SMB space and it's around those growing companies as well so they're growing all the time, things are changing all the time and they're moving, technology's evolving the whole time so it's really great for the cyber thing's really important when you're growing a company, right?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. You've got
Speaker 2:ming in and out or, yeah, just different things. So you're adding on different locations and you've got to make sure that your posture is always up to to scratch to how your company's growing. So, having expertise on board is really important so that you can get on with the nuts and cracks of your daytime running the business and we can help you advise and make sure that as you're growing, your cyber is also being protected, and your business is being protected in the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's right. And that's... I think in the SMB space, we've we've played in that. Typically, we're more mid market and enterprise, but there's a real problem there because they're typically leaning on their IT team, like you mentioned, or they're outsourced MSP.
Speaker 1:And, you know, MSPs have a very, important role for taking care of the, obviously day to day stuff. They do some security, which is really important, but the model is broken in that they can't really protect an entire environment. They're typically saying, well, we do VC so as well. And their virtual chief information security officer is someone that just has, you know, maybe meets with the client once a month, once every couple of months. Oh yeah, here's a here's a couple of canned policies.
Speaker 1:Now you've got security or maybe they get like a GRC tool like Vanta, which, you know, I've gone on a tear about Vanta. It's it's, you know, the concept was good in the beginning, but now what people are using it for is quick SOC two compliance, which is not making them more secure. It's actually decreasing the security. So these SMB clients, they, you know, they don't have the budgets to spend on a full time security resource. And so they often struggle to say, Okay, well, listen, we'll buy a per seat license from the MSP for logging and endpoint and yield monitor.
Speaker 1:But typically, those are not
Speaker 2:It's not... As as you go to medium enterprise, yeah, it's not it's not the right thing. Right? Other the other layers, as I said, like growing companies and and all of that kind of stuff. And also, they are not there like us, us learning about other vendors, right?
Speaker 2:So we have that secret source of really understanding and navigating what other vendors are, the solutions that they're giving right now and what solutions they're like, how their solutions are providing for other companies or our client competitors, right? So we know that it's in and it's working or that when there is something happening that they're gonna fix it, we have all of these across the board through our portfolio that we know and we trust them because we know they're gonna do a good job and we have the escalation processes or the relationships to make sure that things do get done because we live in a world of technology, it's always gonna go wrong but it's about getting it fixed and knowing the right people and having those relationships with the right people to get, just get stuff done. So... You know? And and that piece is is really hard for for MSPs to navigate.
Speaker 2:Right? They don't have the resource to do that.
Speaker 1:No. No. They typically... And, yeah, they're they're... Especially right now, they're all getting rolled up by PE firms, and the PE firms are like EBITDA EBITDA, you know, so they can package them and sell them in two or three years.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So... Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And coming down the line now where companies are now putting in AI and things like that, and it's like trying to map the security around AI when they're doing their agents and moving data around like crazy, who's seeing what and sometimes the cyber bit, if they are using the MSP, they're like, oh yeah, it's all safe but actually it's not and so sometimes there's a bit of an, it's not synced, right? The MSP is doing that and then the company in there, they're doing something else with AI agents and all the software piece and then MSP is not really protecting that piece or there's something going on, there's some compliancy issues going on. So for us to go in and give them that education and say, look, you need to link these, you need to stitch these things together or your MSP is not protecting you here and this is what you need or, you know, those conversations need to be highlighted as well. So, yeah, don't know how...
Speaker 2:If you have those conversations and and, I think they're really important, especially now.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. For sure. We're we're having them on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, part of our assessments now are IT capabilities.
Speaker 1:We're assessing the capabilities of the IT team because we work in concert. You cannot have cybersecurity without IT. So not saying that I. You know, the other way around, you can you can have I. T.
Speaker 1:Without cybersecurity. It's not going to end well, you know, if you do. So we really often rely on the I. T. Teams to do the, you know, kind of brushing and flossing the the kind of regular hygiene that's necessary for the environment.
Speaker 1:And then we we determine are they doing? Are they looking at the right things? One of the the big oversights that we've seen with MSPs is that they're they say, hey, we're going to do patching. And so then they install a lab tech agent on every Windows device and maybe there's a couple of Macs there, etcetera, or Linux. But then what happens is they're not patching the firewall.
Speaker 1:You know, they don't have a they don't have an agent on the firewall. They're not looking at the firewall rule. If someone says, hey, I want to open a port, you know, here because there's a special application or we're often getting requests, hey, we want to open a database port directly to the Internet.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Into the internal environment. The MSPs are doing, the IT teams are doing what they're asked to do, which is keep the lights on, do the work that they have to do. And then they have this kind of false sense of security, like everything's monitored. Well, no, it's like a lot of the breaches that we've seen are because either they didn't they weren't patching like the devices, the network devices, which is one of the main, like... Or even if it's Palo Alto or Fortinet, which are more advanced firewalls, SonicWall's a disaster.
Speaker 1:I mean, I... What just happened, I don't know if you've seen recently, but they, I think they've had a major breach. If I I... It might have just happened, so you'll probably see that hit the
Speaker 2:news. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and so, and by the way, I'm not... We're not working with them, so that's not that's public information. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't reveal anything underprivileged, but, you know, it's it's interesting because these big firewall vendors and especially the smaller ones, they're they're huge targets and the VPN, you know, when they expose a VPN gateway. So, anyway, the point is is that there's there's blind spots.
Speaker 2:Lately. Yeah. And and those are the key things. Right? Because that...
Speaker 2:That's where the doors are open for hackers to ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then we just see bad practices too. Like, the MSPs are sharing passwords across different customers. They might have an admin use or they don't have named admin accounts and they're going in. Or even worse, we've seen these companies, big multinational companies that might have a small satellite office somewhere, and, they basically just have one local IT person that's been doing it for fifteen years there, and that person has been using admin admin as their Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know? Like
Speaker 2:Crazy. Well, now I'll pass it as well. Yeah. And it's on a it's on the it's on the on the yellow note on his computer as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Which actually, that would probably be even more secure in some ways.
Speaker 2:I mean, because these things still happen. You talk... We talk about it. Right? It was happening years ago.
Speaker 2:But in fact, we're we're still going in and employees are still not understanding.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, they think someone else is taking care of it. They're like, well, you know, I'm... You know, we got... We have a security team, so I can do what I want and they'll catch it if it's bad or something, which is not the case.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a big thing as well. It's really around the education on the employees as well that we do go in and say, know, okay, you can put all of these things in and it's great and you're all gonna be safe, but also comes down to the education of your employees as well and to really to get your workforce especially now that AI is here as well. Know, to those governance around and the education and the governance around how employees are using different things.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Including data.
Speaker 2:Because it's not just about knocking down laptops. It's it's phones as well. Right? So...
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yeah. MDM. There's there's offshore teams that are coming in and doing development and oh yeah, and there's a lot of near shoring now, you know, Philippines is a big area that that is getting outsourced to Latin America near shoring. A lot of, you know, companies are using that.
Speaker 1:And so you've got these huge teams of remote workers and, yeah, you have to control that somehow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, it's all of those things. It's it's it's it's interesting times. I think that cyber and security and all of those things, there's just so much to it. We don't know everything but I think that the benefits of around being in the channel is that we can get all the information that we need, right, of what's happening out there and really bring that resources together and tie it all in correctly for client.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You you get it, Anita. You get... You understand cyber. You can have the conversation and you're not like a traditional seller because you've been a project manager.
Speaker 1:You've been kind of, you know, on that team trying to move a project forward for for a customer. What would you say to the trusted advisors that are listening that are kind of trying to get into security? They want to do it, but a lot of them might have been traditionally, you know, connectivity sellers or UCaaS, CCaaS. And and they wanna get into it, they're afraid because they don't, you know, have the knowledge and and they don't wanna get, stuck, you know, if they start into a conversation and look silly. So so how do you how do you...
Speaker 1:What would you say to them? What advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you you kinda mentioned they're like, they don't wanna look silly. Right? I think nobody wants to look silly, but I think that as trusted adviser, we don't know everything. Okay? But we do have the key to all a lot of information and a lot of resources.
Speaker 2:So we're... Know, that our team behind us are huge. Right? We have so much connections and there's just so much out there. So it's really around just asking the right questions to your clients and saying like, I don't know if I don't know, right?
Speaker 2:But tomorrow I can get someone on the call that can absolutely knows that inside out and we can talk about it and that means I'm gonna learn, you're gonna learn, I'm gonna ask some dumb questions because I sit on the side of the client, right? And if I don't know, it's fine because from client perspective, I'm gonna ask questions that the client may not even know how to ask. Well, it... It's a good thing that we... You know, sometimes I don't know everything, but I do know how to get the answers.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And often it's the suppliers. Right? Like us, we we encourage trusted advisers. We're like, all you have to do is get the meeting.
Speaker 1:If you get the meeting, if you say it's okay to say, I don't know, don't try to, you know, fudge it. Like, just say, yeah, listen, that I'm not actually an expert, but I do know the team to call in. We come in and then we help them. And, sometimes, honestly, that doesn't always lead to a sale for us. Sometimes it's just educating the end customer and we say, oh, well, maybe you should go with a, an MDR solution first.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's more appropriate, which we don't do. But at least what we've done is we've we've gained we've helped them gain trust and and credibility with their customer. And then, you know, we're hoping that, you know, goodwill karma that'll come back to us in some time at some time in the future. And and, you know, maybe they'll say, okay, now we're ready for you and we need something a bit more, you know, complex.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree. I think that the, you know, just the knowledge and sharing that with clients whether they're ready for it or not, it comes back in different ways and whether it comes back as an incident response because it's like, oh god, I've been hacked and can you help
Speaker 1:me out?
Speaker 2:We've seen it. You a see lot But if we've kind of just given them, I think trusted advisors don't talk about it because they're scared scared and looking silly. But I think that if you let your clients know that you have the resource that can talk the talk around cyber and really kind of just give you the knowledge and understanding of what you need and that they're not trying to sell you anything, why not? If you've got relationships there, why not just share the knowledge and just have a call, it's just really simple. And then I learn more, become more confident, right?
Speaker 2:You learn more because you're learning on the call, you become more confident and then you can go out and talk more about it, then you don't need, you know, you kind of then qualify opportunities more as well that way so that's kind of the way that I've done it in the last two years so.
Speaker 1:That's great advice. Always speak to them about, you know, we've seen some pushback too, because especially like connectivity data centers, some of those deals are multimillion, multiyear deals that you pull... When the trusted advisors pull a commission from that, it actually is... They can do the paper, they get the different vendors. It's not as complicated necessarily.
Speaker 1:With CyberU, it's a solution sale. You actually have to work with them, understand their needs and their pain point. But what we've told them is, listen, yeah, we get it. You can make money quicker in some other ways. But then once that deal is done, that's done.
Speaker 1:You know, what do you do next? It's if you really want to get in deep with your customers, you really want to gain that trust and we can help them become sticky because we go in, you know, our deal sizes are still decent, but it may take them a little longer to sell. So in this circumstance, it's like, well, it's worth it because once you get us in there, then it opens up a whole host of other opportunities to sell other vendors, other solutions that they might not have had access to because the customer never looked at the trusted advisors, anyone other than
Speaker 2:the Internet. Connectivity. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. But also, think that, you know, once you gain trust and you've you've given the client some understanding and knowledge of things like that, right? And they've bought stuff or you've built that trust.
Speaker 2:Yet one person knows that on average 500 people and then another person knows 500 people and so it's not always about selling and I think that for me, it's always around building a good credibility with my network of people and it shouldn't always be about commissions and money because I feel like it just comes in different ways, right? So it's about building that trust and credibility is the key thing because someone will always recommend you to someone if you do it... If you do a really good job.
Speaker 1:For sure. 100%. So so pivoting a little bit to to personal stuff. First, I always like to ask is do you have a personal story around cyber that, you know, you'd like to share? It's maybe had a direct impact on someone you know or
Speaker 2:Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Your life?
Speaker 2:I... Do you know, I mean, personal stories like being hacked, I mean, I, in The UK, got hacked quite a few times to be honest.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's like, you know, and even those simple things about telling people to do two factor authentication and change your passwords and don't use your date of birth birthdays, your... You know, we've all been we've all been previewed to it and we've all done it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:We we preach all these things to customers all the time about what you should and shouldn't do and I think personally, for this, we we all just go back in our little old ways of doing things and it's like, no, you need to stop. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's an inverse curve between convenience and security, that's the problem. You know, the the more convenient something is, usually the less secure. So
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We we all struggle with that. And and what about you? Like, what got you here from... You know, we...
Speaker 1:I've read your your impressive list of accomplishments. So how do you kinda navigate? We talked a little bit about it, but you you came over to The States. What made you come here?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think lots of different reasons. Personal reasons. I came over over from The UK, but I I think that when I did move over here, I think I've moved here the... At the right at the right time, although some people might disagree, but it it's just a better quality of life, right?
Speaker 2:I live in Florida, palm trees and beach and who doesn't want that, right? And the channels here, which is incredible, the two years that I've been here, I've met the most amount of amazing people and built some great relationships who I think that I've, my whole life in The UK, I've just not met that many people and it's crazy how many people you can meet in two years if you're really out there networking and building something but I think where I am right now, I'm so excited to be here because I think South Florida right now is gonna be a real hub for technology companies and businesses and I think the cyber is gonna be really important, quantum's coming, AI's already here and so yeah, last week I was at a Quantum Beach all day conference which was mind blowing and the cyber around that is very interesting, another conversation But... Yeah. No. I I love being here.
Speaker 2:I love being part of the channel. I love, you know, the vendors and meeting people and just learning all the time and there's just so much business out here that I can't complain.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I've I've lived in Europe and it's funny because there's there's definitely more of a fixed mindset over in Europe, and and it's also looked down upon to be, you know, too gregarious or, you know, out there meeting people and stuff in some ways. And and so here, people just eat that up.
Speaker 2:People wanna
Speaker 1:be friendly. They wanna get to know you. They'll, you know
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Ask lots of personal questions immediately.
Speaker 2:And it's funny because you you... You're growing up and you think about everyone's gonna... You know, America living American dream, those things, right, and you're like, okay. Just... It just goes over your head.
Speaker 2:You're like, okay. It's just one of these things that people say, actually, know, when you come here and you live it, you're like, okay. There is actually a... If you work hard and you show up and you do the work, right, you actually can live the American dream.
Speaker 1:I No doubt.
Speaker 2:Fully believe that.
Speaker 1:No doubt. Yeah. You're living it, essentially. What's Minerva Tech doing? What...
Speaker 1:You're basically, you know, tell tell me about the company.
Speaker 2:So again, you know, traditional advisory, trusted technology advisory business, but we do a lot of education around local businesses and things like that. We're doing a lot of panels, lot of working with local organizations, doing education around cyber and protecting your business. So we're aiming to really get our feet down into the local community here in South Florida and become one of the top advisory firms in South Florida, hopefully.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, good, you're on your way, so that's great. And what do you do outside of work?
Speaker 2:Right now, you know when you're sort of building your business again, it's work main... Mainly. I have... I'm a single parent, so I have a 13 year old, so a lot around him and, you know, getting stuff done for him. But I love anything health and fitness.
Speaker 2:So I do a lot of training, I used to run a lot so I used to run a lot of marathons but I don't do that anymore. I lift a lot of weights and I love just sort of mindset work, health and fitness so in my spare time, I do a lot of that, walking, outdoorsy, my son does a lot of photography so we go out and walk and do a lot of photography, nature. Yeah, just sort of mind calming stuff because we're always learning about cyber and everything else Monday to Monday to Saturday, I would say.
Speaker 1:Right. You need a break.
Speaker 2:Need a break.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you're doing some work with nonprofits as well?
Speaker 2:Yes. I sit on the board for two nonprofits here locally. So Lighthouse for the Blind and interestingly, we use a lot of technology for visually impaired and it's really amazing to see our clients using the meta glasses for instance, or visually impaired and just really helps them get around. So really interesting there around that tech piece and also getting them into work, right? And doing jobs and things like that, so really getting involved in the community doing that.
Speaker 2:And then the other one I sit on was Speak Up For Kids and we're helping children in foster care and as they exit out of foster care and setting them up and ensuring that they're looked after and not forgotten about and then also helping parents and supporting the foster care parents with their day to day lives as well. So really important part of the community as well. Yeah, I've really enjoyed embedding myself in the community of the nonprofit world and just all the chambers and all the different things. I think I'm gonna be doing leadership soon, like next year as well. So, yeah, just lots of learning.
Speaker 2:Lots and lots of learning. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. I can see where you're busy. These two nonprofits, very important and take a lot of time. Your son being a single parent, like, and and getting Minerva up and, you know, cranking. Amazing.
Speaker 1:So where can people connect with you?
Speaker 2:LinkedIn. I try to do as much as I can on LinkedIn. So I'm on there. And then, I guess, through our website, email, everything's on there. So
Speaker 1:Yeah. We'll... And I think we'll we'll put links to that as well, for the episode. But Minerva Tech Group, TEC Group.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I couldn't afford the h. It was too expensive. True story.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Probably Minerva Tech without the h was probably, like, you know, a normal price, and then with
Speaker 2:the h,
Speaker 1:probably, like, $25,000.
Speaker 2:With $80,000. I was like
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:When I'm not playing 80,000 for 8. No. Because I just No. Everyone would know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Domain name or... Yeah. They're not... Yeah.
Speaker 1:Totally. Trying to dot I o like we did. That was the the easy one.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's just so funny, but, yeah, it's Minerva Tech Group.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, thank you, Anita Patel. This has been really, really a pleasure to to go through your journey, learn the way that you're successful in this, and how you're bringing those solutions as as a real, you know, technology trusted adviser. Thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Lou. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And, to those of you that are watching and or listening, if you learned something today or laughed, please, tell someone about this podcast. Thanks again, Anita, and this has been another exciting episode of Channel Security Secrets. See you next time. That's a wrap for this episode of Channel Security Secrets. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1: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.
