Speaker 2: 0:00

Exactly, let's check the box and let's move on. They've been told by their cyber insurance provider they need to have XYZ, and they don't know what XYZ does.

Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome back to another episode of Sell Me this Podcast. Today we are tackling a topic that's not just a concern for IT professionals, but a critical focus for businesses of all sizes Cybersecurity. Our guest, james Bracken, is a trusted expert and the face of ESET in Western Canada, with a unique career path that started in the high-pressure world of kitchens and led to the equally high-stakes field of cybersecurity. James shares his perspectives on what it takes to protect business in today's ever-loving threat landscape. In this episode, we'll explore how cybersecurity fits into broader business goals, the common mistakes organizations make when securing their environments. James also breaks down how small businesses can avoid becoming easy targets, but makes ESET's approach to cybersecurity stand out. Whether you're a business leader looking to protect your assets or an IT professional seeking actionable advice, this episode has something for you.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Welcome again to another episode of Sell Me this Podcast. This time we dive into a world that seems to be on the tip of the tongue for most business leaders, but also probably has the highest ratio of sleepless nights created. That is right. We are talking about cybersecurity. To dive into this topic, I'm super grateful to have James Bracken with me.

Speaker 1: 1:30

James is from ESET, and ESET is a privately owned global leader in security that provides a sophisticated suite of products that protect both businesses and consumers alike. James is not only a longtime friend, but is also the face of ESET for Western Canada and has been leading the company through a period of tremendous growth in the region here. So, without further ado, welcome James from ESET. Thanks, keith, great to be here. Man, great to be here with you, awesome to have you here. So I know, james, just to dive right into things, you come from a little bit of a non-traditional background, that's right, yeah, and what's a unique path that led you to where you are? Why don't you share with everyone where you came from and what led you to ESET?

Speaker 2: 2:10

Absolutely. Yeah, long winding road for sure to get to this point. Really grateful for the people that helped me along the way. I actually was a chef for 10 years. I worked in kitchens from all over Ontario and some fine dining restaurants. Some Worked in kitchens from all over Ontario and some fine dining restaurants some less than fine dining restaurants as well in there.

Speaker 2: 2:30

And, yeah, I worked my way up and when 20, I guess it was 2014, 2015, ish I just was falling out of love with the industry. The things that I had really loved about it was the creativity, the ability to create art on a plate, which was really fun. And as I got more into the business side of it as a head chef scheduling, managing people and those types of things it became, the love of the art of it started to fade from me, and it's a high impact job. It's a very high impact job and it can be very rewarding, but it can also be extremely stressful and at the time, I was starting my life with my, my beautiful partner, steph, and, and I wanted to be at home more. I wanted to spend more time at home and you work 75 hours a week in a kitchen but you're not getting you're working lawyer hours, but you're not getting paid lawyer money.

Speaker 2: 3:21

I really wanted to get out of that and I got the opportunity to do my. I come from a long line of salespeople, so my dad was a salesperson, my mom was a salesperson, my uncle was a salesperson. Both my older brothers are salespeople and have been very successful in it. My aunt Pam, she really always pushed me hey, you should get into sales, you should get into sales, go get into sales. You got. You got the ability to talk to people and get to know people. You should go leverage that. And so I listened to her. Finally, I listened to her and got the opportunity to work for a company that sold CAD, software engineering firms, 3d printers and those types of things, and it was. It was a great opportunity and I'm really grateful for the to the people there that were able to give me that leg up.

Speaker 2: 4:05

And it's funny enough, when ESET came knocking at the time I was really spreading my wings in sales. I'd moved up really quickly from inside sales to account management and had really done a really good job and I was really starting to settle in and settle in and feel it and I told them when I first took the, when I first took the call, I said I'm not super interested right now. I really want to stay where I'm at. I'm just starting to grow and feel some type of success. I missed opportunity is one that you don't see it at all. So I went in, I took the interview and instantly I knew this was a place I wanted to be the people, the atmosphere I wanted to work there, be a part of that culture, and it's been very rewarding ever since, for sure.

Speaker 1: 4:49

That's amazing. So you went from the high-pressure world of a kitchen into the high-pressure world of cybersecurity.

Speaker 2: 4:58

Yeah, it definitely is a high-pressure world and cybersecurity is definitely on the top of mind right now, and it's a very competitive and growing industry. But it's also very rewarding, I think, when you work with businesses and you're able to help them achieve their business goals and protect what they've built, I think it's a very rewarding aspect of it.

Speaker 1: 5:18

So, from a lot of the conversations that you're in, how does security fit into helping them achieve those business goals specifically?

Speaker 2: 5:32

Yeah, that's a great question, I think, when it comes to security, I think when I even when I first started here so I've been at ESET for I'm in my seventh year now when I first started, even then, cybersecurity was very commodity based. It was good protection, low price.

Speaker 1: 5:45

Let's check the box Exactly.

Speaker 2: 5:46

Let's check the box and let's move on. And while that still is sometimes people's lens on cybersecurity, I think it's really developed into a part that really dictates how the business moves forward. I think that in order to have good outcomes on your business goals, you need to leverage technology right. You need to be having the best in class in different pieces of technology that allow your workforce to either collaborate better or to sell more effectively or develop products more effectively and, at the end of the day, achieve those business outcomes Effectively, or develop products more effectively and, at the end of the day, achieve those business outcomes. And you need to have a platform that's going to be able to protect from outside attacks and sometimes inside threats, without stopping that creativity, stopping the use of those tools and our industry, as I know you're aware, we have zero trust, that's all great.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Zero trust is great to have, but if you're going to pay a million dollars for all these applications that are there to create faster to market roads and create better communication within the environment, and then you put a zero trust layer over top of that, you might as well go back to pen and paper, right? So that's, I think, where we fit in there is making sure that businesses can do what they need to do without stopping the flow of creativity and productivity.

Speaker 1: 7:12

And I love that outlook because I think there's so many people in the security industry that focus so much on the fear and if you don't buy these things, then X, y and Z will happen. But I think that there's this other narrative and security that is. Here's the reason why you can do these things.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Here's the reason why you can work from the lake, and here's the reason you can collaborate on these documents with other people and that approach is super refreshing in terms of not going to just bang in the drum of this super intense fear. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:43

And I think fear-based selling is it's a tactic. It's a tactic. And even if you're not trying to sell, what is it? Fud right.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Fear.

Speaker 2: 7:53

Uncertainty and Doubt right, even if you're not trying to leverage that. There is an underlying tone of fear when it comes to cybersecurity and cyber attacks and ransomware attacks, and I think that we're on this kind of pendulum right now where, hey, we're really worried about it and it's going to slide back to. I think, once and maybe I'll take that back for a sec we're on this pendulum where we're really worried about it, but then, as companies get a more robust security posture, they get lulled into a full sense of security that nothing's going to happen, and then the pendulum swings back the other way and that's when ransomware, that's when attacks happen, and I think that we just need to be cognizant about it. It's a real threat, it's a growing threat. As long as ransom is being paid, ransomware is going to exist.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Attacks are going to happen right, definitely, and so you probably have a very unique perspective in talking to a bunch of different business leaders that are either have the horror story of something terrible that's happened and that's motivated to change, or they're just really afraid of this.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:56

The kind of boogeyman that exists out there, when you think about the changes and the difference. Okay, you worked in the kitchen. You're working 75 hours a week. You're grinding away. You move into sales and security. What does a day look like for you as a sales rep at ESET?

Speaker 2: 9:12

That's a great question, and I was actually just talking to someone about this last night, and it's very no one day looks the same. That's really what it looks like is very similar to a kitchen.

Speaker 1: 9:23

No one day looks the same.

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yeah, maybe in a kitchen, you come in and you do your prep, you cut up your mise en place, you get your station ready to go, but that lunch service, dinner service, whatever it is, it's never going to be the exact same. The orders are always going to come in differently. How you cook things is always going to happen differently. Mistakes that happen that create backlogs are always going to be different, and mistakes that happen that create backlogs are always going to be different. And I think it's very similar to that. I've got my activities, I need to do my outreach, my tasks, all of those things, but it's a very different day-to-day outlook. Based on one day I might be doing something like this with you and later this afternoon I might be going home and working on an RFP for the next three weeks.

Speaker 2: 10:04

So, it is very day to day. I think at the base of it is the thing that I at least look forward to most in my day is talking with customers either existing customers or maybe potential buyers and learning about their business, learning about what's important in their environment, and I think that's really what's exciting about it is getting to know different companies, getting to know how they leverage different tools, and even inside and outside of cybersecurity.

Speaker 1: 10:33

That makes sense and I think as well. With ESET too. You have a very unique opportunity and it probably a little bit of a challenge as well, in the sense that ESET is very large in Europe but still really emerging in Canada and growing your foothold here quite rapidly.

Speaker 1: 10:46

But outside of sponsoring the Calgary Flames, which I'm a personal fan of, how are you connecting with folks? How are you telling the ESET story? Is it mostly learning from people and just listening, or is there a path that you're on to go and spread the word of ESET?

Speaker 2: 11:01

Yeah, that's a great question. I think you know the the path ESET is, and maybe I'll do a little talk about ESET, but a little bit about our focus in the world. As you said, we're privately owned. We're owned by the same guys that wrote the original code all the way back when, and that technology and that view on how our technology needs to work together has never left us. We are not a marketing company, we are a research and development company.

Speaker 2: 11:30

That's how I view it, and that's how I talk to people about it is there's lots of great products out there and there's the top players in the world and they have great products and there's nothing wrong with their products.

Speaker 2: 11:41

They're just a marketing company first, with a product after, where I think ESET is're just a marketing company first, with a product after, where I think ESET is a research and development company first, with a product after.

Speaker 2: 11:52

And I think that's our key to success. And it might be a slower uptick in terms of how many conversations walk through the door, but the conversations we do have are more impactful and I think really what it is the best road to success with us is key partnerships, key relationships within those partnerships to allow us to get more at bat, to tell our story in a one-on-one environment, because when we we have a great story to tell and I think we've got a phenomenal technology behind that as well and great people that work within ESET from I was again. I was saying this last night to someone there's not one person at ESET that's not willing to go the extra mile, kind of thing, and I think that's what's important. So I think, to answer your question, it's about strong partnerships with people that are able to get us into the seat to tell our story, because when we tell that story, we're very successful.

Speaker 1: 12:46

That's amazing, and I think that one of the things that you also mentioned is just the amount of energy that goes into the marketing engine and security. The most recent stats that I saw is that security in the next year alone so 2025, projected $200 billion industry in just the revenue side of it. There are so many new players emerging.

Speaker 1: 13:06

There's a ton of startups. There is a lot of investment happening in this space. If I'm a potential buyer, how do I cut through that noise? How do I even start to think about evaluating new technologies?

Speaker 2: 13:18

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, first you got to partner with Keith and deliver to him.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Thank, you for the plug. I love it.

Speaker 2: 13:25

He'll walk you through the buying process.

Speaker 2: 13:27

No, I think really what it comes down to is, like you said, it's a very crowded space and I think, as some of the larger leaders have proven, that the IPO method can work. Security in my I'm going to give a shout out to my boy, pedro, our solution architect for Western Canada. Great guy, very smart, very knowledgeable, and what he always talks about it is security is. It's such a risk that it's almost not something you want to leverage an IPO for. There are some companies that have done that successfully, but I don't think it's that repeatable. I think that those are really unicorns within the environment and I think that it's really tough to, as you said, to weed out the good from the bad, the okay from the phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 14:20

And I think really what it's about is is leveraging your IT partners, leveraging people you trust to help you guide you with good decision-making that know your environment. Not every cybersecurity platform, even ESET included, is going to be the best for every environment, right and every single need. So I think it's about partnering with people that understand the overarching goals of what you're trying to achieve with cybersecurity and your overarching environment. What's in there, what's not in there, what do you want to do with it down the road and help letting those people guide you a little bit more. I know that there are people that I talk to every single day.

Speaker 2: 15:04

They're smarter than me about cybersecurity Right, and that's their job, that's their profession. My goal is to take what they tell me and hear what they're telling me, and if ESET's the right fit for them, then I'm going to tell them why I think it is the right fit. And if it's not the right fit, I'm going to tell them hey, this is what we do really good, this is what we're not going to do quite as good, and maybe there's a happy medium in there. So I think, again, to go back and fully answer your question, I think it's leveraging and, again, I know I gave you the plug, but it's true, you got to leverage people like yourself, companies like yourself trusted it, partners that have your best interest at heart.

Speaker 2: 15:45

There's a lot of people out there that are there to make money. We're all here to make money. Right, we all need to pay our bills and pay our mortgages and do whatever life goals that we all have. But I think that there's a happy ground there where you can offer good, sound advice and still complete your sales mission and your sales goal, and I think those are the type of companies that people need to work with.

Speaker 1: 16:08

They have some of the genuine relationships and some of the actual foundation behind them. Yeah, one of the things that I see in a lot of the conversations that we have is just people struggling to get that foundation and to get that mapping in place, to even understand how to get started in some of these evaluations. Is there any words of advice or words of wisdom that you have in terms of understanding how to evaluate some of those potential fits?

Speaker 2: 16:32

Yeah, I think for me I always say this people like doing business with people that they like, right they? You are going to find people out there that you like, you're drawn to, you want to have open and honest conversations with, and I think when you do that and put that out there, the right person will meet that in kind where you can tell if someone's trying to take advantage of that Right. And I think that as a first basis, you need to find people that you want to work with. You want to pick up the phone and call and say, hey, I've got a problem, can we talk about it? Right, just like you got your buddy at home. If you're having some relationship issue or life problem or you're switching jobs or whatever you're looking for general advice, you can go to them and trust that what they're going to say to you is non-biased and is their true opinion of the overall status of what you're trying to achieve. And I think likely like that, you need to find those people and I think Calgary is a great example of that.

Speaker 2: 17:33

There are a ton of amazing people in IT space. It's a close-knitted community. It's a great community to be a part of. In the IT space. There's a lot of phenomenal resellers out there and there's a lot of good people that work within those resellers. So you know, trying different resellers, finding one that fits with you and sticking with them. I think that's a really important thing.

Speaker 2: 17:58

I think, as we go back to what I first said cybersecurity used to be commodity based, right, and maybe hardware to a point still, as commodity based, lowest price wins. Zadell is Zadell. It doesn't really matter, as long as it's getting shipped on time and it's coming, and that's great. But at the same time, if you're always just shopping out every single deal that you have, you're not going to build relationship with someone and you're not going to have a trusted advisor and you might overlook someone that could be a trusted advisor because they're 5% more on your Lenovo purchase, right, right, and if you had maybe just said hey, I really like this person, I'm going to give them that deal versus bringing it to someone that's got the deal read or whatever it is, favorable discounts.

Speaker 2: 18:43

I think that you'll create better relationships. I get it. We all have budgets we need to stick to. We all have our sales goals. We all have our metrics we all have. You know everything that we need to do, but I think that you need to be able to build a rapport with people to see if you can really trust them, and the only way you're going to do that is by taking a chance with people.

Speaker 1: 19:05

Is that one of the biggest mistakes that you see people make is that they're too quick to shop their partners or they're too quick to save an immediate dollar.

Speaker 2: 19:13

I think so. I genuinely think so. I think that people, people need to hit their metrics. It's always the most important the KPI or business goal or whatever it could be. But I think that when we do that and we're always going to the bottom of the barrel. It's just like in personal life If you could go to a trusted mechanic who might be more expensive, but they're going to take the time to explain it to you. They're going to talk about what you need. I just had this experience.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Steph and I we got a. We got this old, 20 year old Volkswagen this summer, convertible for the summer. It was a great opportunity for us to get it and it's probably spent more time in the shop than it has on the road. But the person that we went to we chose them not because of pricing or anything like that, because they were committed to us to getting this thing back on the road and getting it back where it needs to be, and have given us sound advice and through that time, they've also given us free services and free parts and different things that have definitely brought that dollar spend back down to us. But we also know that they're in our corner when I want to talk to him about something. I can get that answer. I know that his advice. If he said to me tomorrow hey man, we're at a point where you should just sell this thing, I would trust that, where there's a lot of mechanics out there that maybe would be like hey, let's just keep fixing this thing until until they come back.

Speaker 1: 20:36

It's profitable for them to keep fixing it Exactly.

Speaker 2: 20:38

And so I think that when you chase the dollars and cents, you're missing out on opportunities to work with real people that will a benefit from your relationship but also want to do that in turn for you and help you benefit from that. So I think when it comes to a purchase of software or hardware or anything like that, yeah, we have to hit our budgets, but taking a chance with someone that you have good rapport with, that you trust, even if they're 10% more, will net you more value in the longterm than just shopping out every single deal you do. Because what ends up happening is when that reseller, that it partner, whatever it may be gets in front of you and they do all this hard work to show you their value and all of the things that they want to do for you, and then you take that and bring it somewhere else just to save a couple bucks. A they're probably not going to want to do that again for you and you've burned that bridge right and B that person that's the bottom of the barrel. Pricing may just be an order taker, may not be into relationships, they just want to hit their quota and move on.

Speaker 2: 21:47

And I'm not saying that's always the case for sure. But I think that when we all have purchasing power, we all have our limits and what we need to do. But I think if it can fit within your goal and it's a good partner that you trust, I think that's where you should spend your time and your money. You'll get more out of that relationship. You'll have someone that's more bought in on your business, like for myself.

Speaker 2: 22:12

We've got some clients and they may have an issue with something else in their environment and we spend time and we work with them to get them where they need to be with their ESET deployment or whatever it may be that's causing some issues for them. Because, as we know, you know it doesn't matter how good your product is on the odd environment, it's going to cause issues, it's going to have problems and you need to fix those and I think if you address those things head on and you create the relationships, they're more likely to return, come back to you and at least give you an opportunity to continue to win their business back to you and at least give you an opportunity to continue to win their business.

Speaker 1: 22:47

So can you describe the customer experience and what that customer journey looks like for a customer as they're engaging?

Speaker 2: 22:51

with ESET? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a great question. So you know, let's just say that that person. They saw an ad on the Calgary Flames, right, and they said, oh, what's ESET? And they go online and they look at it. Okay, yeah, cybersecurity, we're interested, we've got a need for this. I'm going to reach out. Maybe a lead comes in.

Speaker 2: 23:09

The first thing we're going to do either my, my, my teammate Pat, who, who is our awesome inside sales rep she's just an absolute champion. I think what we're going to do is we're going to reach out to you to set up a discovery call. We always want to understand what's going on in the environment and what the needs are A for you to learn a little bit about us and B for us to learn a little about you. But C, maybe right there on that call, we're going to know we're not a right fit for you or you're not a right fit for us. Whatever that may be, we're going to have that discovery call, learn about the environment. We're going to then, from that point, we always try to book a technical demo. It really depends if someone's hey, I haven't heard of ESET before and I want to learn some more about you guys first, we'll do that. We'll do an introduction section, talk about what we do, where we came from, what we grew up from, that technology focused.

Speaker 2: 24:01

We're not looking after our shareholders, we're looking after our customers, and I think that's something that they really want to hear, and I think that's important. After that, we'll move into a demo, a demonstration. Show them all the environment, everything that we can do for them, and what we really try to do on those calls is well, it's not a presentation, and I pretty much always say this hey guys, this isn't a presentation, this is a conversation. So jump in, ask questions that pertain to you. Hey, I don't need to see this, I already understand all that. That's great. I want to learn about this. That's what we want to hear about. We want to show you and customize it for your environment. So we always say that open door, talk to us about what your needs are and what you're more interested in diving deep on. We were on a call yesterday and we were talking about all these different stuff and what was really important to them is how they're going to install it.

Speaker 2: 24:55

How can we leverage GPO MSI? What are we going to do? Do I have to send this via email? How am I going to install this with ease? So that's what. We spent 35 minutes on showing them how they're going to get this out to their environment without breaking a sweat right, and that was impactful for them. So we want to spend some time on that. From there, we'll move into the POC stage. So we'll walk them through, get them set up and have them trial it out while working through touch points with them, and then, obviously, if they're happy with the product, then we can get into the negotiations and all that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 25:31

Amazing. What are some of the big mistakes that you see customers make that in going through this process, you'll be like I wish you were doing something differently. I wish you'd approach this in another way. Is there common mistakes or pitfalls customers commonly making?

Speaker 2: 25:45

I think this actually goes back to a point I was talking about earlier, which is every day I'm in a conversation with people that are smarter than me in cybersecurity. That doesn't mean I don't have anything to offer them as well. I think we need to open up our minds and talk about things in a holistic way, to learn from each other.

Speaker 2: 26:05

I always say it just because I've been in this job for seven years. I'm not an expert at it. I can always learn. I can learn from someone ahead of me. I can learn from someone below me, right? There is no, there is no way that we can't all learn from each other, and I think that a thing that we see a lot of is customers making assumptions on what they think we can accomplish or what they need to accomplish their goals, when there's other ways to go around it, and I think that's a big mistake in all facets of life, we need to learn from each other, and I think that just because someone's a tenured expert doesn't mean I want to learn from them, but it doesn't mean I don't have anything that I can offer them as well.

Speaker 2: 26:45

So I think letting people say what they need to say, talk about the things that they think are important, and then hearing that and giving that feedback Amazing.

Speaker 1: 26:56

So I'm not asking you to give away any trade secrets, but if I'm entering a deal or negotiation with with you, with ESET, maybe even a different security vendor. Yeah, what's some tips if you're sitting on the other side of the table? For them to get the most out of that discussion, out of that negotiation and out of that.

Speaker 2: 27:13

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm really happy you said it. I think people have the tendency Maybe I'll take that back for a second. People view sales tendency. Maybe I'll take that back for a second. People view salespeople. Yeah, hey, they're just trying to earn a quick buck, which we are. We're trying to earn money.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Right and there's a lot of people out there that will try to take advantage of that dynamic, for sure, but I think, by and large, most people are good people. I like to think that at least, and I think people tend to be a little bit cagey about what their true goals are, their true needs are what they're really after, and when they do that, when they don't open the kimono as they say.

Speaker 2: 27:53

I think it's really hard to get a true partnership. I think it's really hard for salespeople or sales organizations or cybersecurity whatever it may be, to engage in a real way that will actually benefit them. I liken it to personal relationships. If I'm always surface level with someone that's trying to get deep with me, they're never going to truly get to know me, I'm never going to truly show them who I really am and our relationships never going to flourish. If we open up to each other and talk about real things and real goals and real aspirations, we're going to grow a relationship that's tangible. And I think that comes into selling. If you want to get more out of your purchases, you need to get buy-in from the companies you're trying to buy from.

Speaker 2: 28:38

If you get buy-in there actually to go back to kitchens- I used to always say hey, be friends with the people that you're working with the line cook next to you, the person here because you're more likely, or they're more likely, to go the extra mile for someone that extra 10% discount for you or whatever it is or extend the deal or extend a trial or free licensing for a month while you roll out whatever that may be, if they really truly know what your goals are and are really connected to you. So I think that a lot of buyers tend to be cagey with their goals because they're afraid of maybe getting h counted by salespeople nonstop or being pushed into a decision they don't want to make, or they think that's how they're going to get the most out of the relationship, by holding all their cards close to the chest and then just saying, hey, I need this price. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1: 29:38

So do you think that people generally, when you're, when someone reaches out to you or you're starting an engagement with a customer, do you think that they generally understand the security landscape well? Or how much education do you have to take on or does your team have to take on when you're getting started with customers?

Speaker 2: 29:53

Yeah. So I think in cybersecurity there's really there's like the three bands. There's the guys that are super educated on cybersecurity they're they've been, maybe they work in a sock, maybe they're high level security people and they really understand all facets of it and they're highly educated. And then there's maybe the small business owner that is doing everything for their company and doesn't know much about it and needs a lot of coaching, needs a lot of education. They've been told by their cyber insurance provider they need to have XYZ and they don't know what XYZ does or what it's going to benefit or how much it's going to cost or how to even leverage a tool like that.

Speaker 2: 30:38

So I think on that end of the spectrum, it's a great deal of handholding, it's a great deal of educationholding, it's a great deal of education that needs to go into it. And then I think the middle camp of it all would be the IT manager. That is a jack of all trades, right, and they're doing everything. And we see that a lot in companies right, a lot of businesses is not going to be a revenue generating segment of their business. It's going to be a loss leader. They're investing into it, they're spending a lot of it, but it's not like a sales force or their main product or anything like that, and I think those people also need a lot of not hand holding, but they need a better. There is an educational gap there for what cybersecurity can do for them, why it's important for them and why it shouldn't just be glazed over on.

Speaker 1: 31:32

Are you seeing a change in the type of buyers that you're working with, If I think about how technology is starting to really spread across organizations? It's no longer the CIO or director of IT or the jack of all trades.

Speaker 1: 31:45

IT manager sitting in a dark room coding away. These are people that are at the forefront of their business. They're enabling and we're seeing interest from across all levels of leadership in the organization around how IT will enable and drive their business. Are you seeing security starting to enter that conversation on the periphery or is security still stuck with the IT teams?

Speaker 2: 32:08

I think it goes back to what I was saying at the start is people are either very under, maybe not understanding of what the true threat is out there, but they're very worried about it. And then there's the other people that think we're too small or we've never had an issue, or those, and I think that it's really two camps of people. It's really two camps of people.

Speaker 2: 32:34

I do agree with you, though it's not. It's no longer more. I would say it's growing to no longer be just the IT guy, just the manager, just the sysadmin, just whatever that may be making these decisions in a silo. They need to get buy-in from the presidents, the CEOs, the VPs of the organization that they answer to. Particularly in larger businesses, you definitely see the business leaders being more involved in the purchasing than just the security team or the IT team, and I think that's important. I think it's important for them to know that what's going on, and I spend a lot of time in my role with partners trying to educate business leaders on what, not again creating fear. But hey, the threat is out there, and in Canada in particular, we've seen a massive spike in ransomware in SMB right, and I think that's caused by a few different things and we could definitely get into that if you want.

Speaker 2: 33:38

But I think that a lot of people in that space maybe in the sub 500 seats, sub 500 employee type space thinking it's not going to happen to us. We're too small, right, but these guys are the bad actors. They're sophisticated, they are doing this as a full-time job. When they take a look into your environment, they're not going to. If you're doing $2 million in business a year, they're not going to say give us $2 million. They're going to say give us $100,000, give us 50 K, whatever it is that they know you can pay and to get the most out of that. And I think that those people need the most education, those groups of clients, they need the most education to what's happening and they need the most help with decision-making.

Speaker 1: 34:27

That makes sense when you think about and you mentioned fear and you mentioned this Lumion threat that exists. How much of purchase decisions that you see are based on that fear and, if not, what are the organizations trying to solve for when they're purchasing a product, like you said?

Speaker 2: 34:43

Yeah, oh well, that's a great question. I think there's a lot of layers to that question, I think I think generally, when it's fear-based purchases, it is it's because something's happened. There's already someone in there, there's already something that's gone on and we're hitting the reaction button. I don't think there's a lot of purchases that are made out of unknowledgeable fear. So what I mean by that is there's the fear that something's already happened. We know something's happened and we need to react to it immediately. And then there's people that are educated on what could potentially happen and they're making decisions based on that. And I wouldn't necessarily call that fear. I would call that being smart. I would say, hey, we need to protect our assets and this is our assets. And then there's, I think, the people that are uneducated on what could potentially happen and they don't have enough fear.

Speaker 1: 35:43

If I'm being completely frank, and I feel like in this space specifically, the more people know, the more nervous they get, and I think that it's the idea that ignorance is blessed a tiny bit, especially with security. But I think it's getting harder and harder to hide under a rock. I agree On that front.

Speaker 2: 36:00

Yeah, I totally agree With one of our partners here, our local partners really great group of people. They're very technology forward. They run an MS, local MSP managed service provider. For those that don't know, just about educating them on the history of ransomware, cyber attacks, where it's coming from and why it is growing so rapidly in Canada. And I think that education wasn't about let's all be scared that the boogeyman in Russia is going to come over here and grab all of our things, but it's more so that I think we need to educate people so they understand what the true threat is, and I think when they're educated on that, they're going to make better business decisions on how to protect themselves against these threat actors and against these things. Mgm grand millions of dollars or the pipeline a couple summers ago that drove up the cost of gas across North America yeah, those are massive ransomware attacks. But now we're dealing with something called ransomware as a service.

Speaker 2: 37:15

Just like software as a service. You can buy ransomware as a service and you can go in. If you do that, if you and I were, hey, let's move to wherever Bora, wherever we can go that doesn't have extradition treaty and wanted to do this, we're not going to have protection from a local government. We're not state sponsors, actors, so we need to go after small businesses that if we steal 50K from them the RCMP and the FBI they don't have time to deal with that. It's like if I go to a store, which I would never do- it's just full disclosure, yeah, full disclosure.

Speaker 2: 37:48

This is completely hypothetical. And I was to steal a t-shirt. No one's going to investigate that. If it's not obvious that I did that, no one's investigating that. Now, if I go and I'm gone in 60 seconds with a crew of 100 people and I steal 500 cars in Calgary in the next night, we're going to have cops coming in.

Speaker 2: 38:08

They're going to spend money to get that assets back and bring us to justice. And I think it's a very similar thing in cybersecurity If you're under the radar and you're doing these 5K, 10k, 50k ransomwares 50 times a day, you're underneath the radar, and all of the big, large breaches that we've actually brought back the Bitcoin or the crypto, the Shiba Inu, whatever it is back from the other side, it's all been these massive million dollar payouts and that's what gets the attention. So I think that is a little bit of what's going on here and I think that is something that people need to be educated on.

Speaker 1: 38:49

Perfect. So I'm going to switch gears a tiny bit. Yeah, I want to talk about the ideal customer for yourself, for ESET. So if you were to describe what a good customer for ESET would be, how would you describe that business?

Speaker 2: 39:02

Yeah, every customer. Now, I think really the ideal customer, by our company standards for sure, would be the 1,000 seat customer to the 100 seat customer, and I think the reason for that personally, is everyone's knocking at the large guy's door and it's not that's not important to go after. We all need to go after that. And it's not that's not important to go after. We all need to go after that. And our business model is good for large organizations. We support in Europe large banks. We support tons of massive organizations in Europe and across North America as well. But I think we can be more impactful via a relationship and how we handle our business at ESET. We're very relationship-based sellers across the board and I think that we can have a better, more longstanding relationship with a smaller customer that we're going to be able to really truly impact their business and we're not one of many, we're one of one and we can really help them grow and I think that's the ideal customer for us.

Speaker 1: 40:03

If you were to coach this ideal customer before they engage with you? What is one thing you wish they knew before they? They started that conversation.

Speaker 2: 40:12

What their budget was. Okay, no, I say that in jest, but I really also believe that too, I think. I think, if you're, you need to get the right security that meets your goals and meets your budget, and I think, a lot of time. There's a lot of good security vendors out there that are extremely expensive, and there's a lot of good ones that are are maybe a little bit lower cost, and I think that if you want to be buying a Ferrari, you got to have the budget Ferrari, and I think that that's a really important piece. Buying a Ferrari, you got to have the budget Ferrari, and I think that that's a really important piece. The other thing I think is really important is be realistic with what you can handle.

Speaker 2: 40:51

We see a lot of a couple of years ago, cyber insurance across North America really mandated that everyone has an EDR or an XDR, an MDR, and I think that is that was great for them to mandate that. But the small shop with one IT person, they can't manage an EDR successfully. They can't manage those tools properly because they don't have the manpower behind it. So when you are going and you're going to go buy an EDR, you need to be realistic. Can I manage this? Can I handle the work that's going to come behind this, or do I need to outsource that? Do I need an MDR? Do I need a managed service provider? What does that look like? So, I think, being realistic in what you want and you actually have time to manage.

Speaker 1: 41:36

And so that's something we haven't covered, but it is a real challenge in the industry, where I'm sure you see it as well, where there's lots of organizations that they'll go out and they'll spend incredible amounts of money on different software platforms and tools and strategies in order to solve various specific problems, but then really struggle with how do they implement it, how do they govern it, how do they manage it afterwards. What advice would you have for organizations as they're trying to consolidate or make sense of all of these tools and investments that they've already made, that they can't quite turn on?

Speaker 2: 42:08

Yeah, I think I'll give you a great example. When I used to sell CAD software there are some really robust tools within CAD software and I had one conversation during a cold call. And you're selling to engineers and the engineer was sitting there and I was saying, hey, this is what we could accomplish with this software. And you know what he said to me. He said you know what? That's great, but then what would I do?

Speaker 2: 42:34

My boss might want to cut this role. If I don't, if I'm not doing this manually, maybe I don't have a job Right, and I think that when it comes to it, maybe there's a little bit of that there as well. If I'm not doing this personally, I'm not protecting my role here, which I don't think is fair. I think maybe it's it's healthy to be a little skeptical sometimes, but I don't think that's fair, because how expansive it is, don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to tell your business leader I can't manage this all by myself and there are gaps. I'm working till nine o'clock every single night and that's going to lead to burnout. And if you are just doing the bare minimum across everything, there's going to be massive gaps. So I think asking for help, letting your business leaders know where they're failing you in terms of budget, in terms of manpower, and that there are ways to outsource and get help outside of the organization.

Speaker 1: 43:32

Perfect. So this is a big moment now. So, considering that everything we've talked about, what would be the top reason for someone to connect with ESET to solve some of these challenges, this is the big pitch moment, the big pitch moment.

Speaker 2: 43:45

I think. If you're looking for a company that is focused on customer engagement, having a true relationship where we can there's give and take and we can give you sound advice and learn from you and really try to understand your business needs and make sure we're a good fit for your business, I think that's the type of partnership that we are looking for and that people that are approaching us should be looking for. We are we lovingly joke about this to the nerds right. If you're looking for someone that is a world leader in research and development and not just pushing our own business forward but cybersecurity as a whole forward, we are that company for you. We have an amazing service offering with an amazing service team behind that that have been doing this for years and years.

Speaker 2: 44:39

Internally, for example, managed detection response MDR very hot right now. That's something we've been doing for ourselves very successfully for time and because of that, we're going to be a little bit lower cost on what the service actually is, because we're not building it from scratch to offer it to customers. We already had it in-house and you're going to gain access to our researchers, to the people that are actually doing the threat hunting and doing those things on your environment. So if you're looking for a company that really understands cybersecurity from a holistic view, it does more to educate and work within governments and other entities to offer how to push cybersecurity forward across the globe, we are that company for you?

Speaker 1: 45:28

Amazing. And if someone really loved what they heard here today, what's the best way for them to get in touch with?

Speaker 2: 45:32

you. Yeah, you can reach out on LinkedIn, james Bracken. B-r-a-c-k-e-n.

Speaker 1: 45:37

And.

Speaker 2: 45:38

I also have my email jamesbracken, at esetcom. I'm happy to chat with anyone that wants to learn a little bit more or just wants to discuss something with me, whether it's about ESET or just cybersecurity on the whole.

Speaker 1: 45:51

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 45:53

This was a blast, absolutely, man. It was great being here, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:56

I love it Great.

Speaker 2: 45:58

Thank you, man.

Speaker 1: 45:58

Thanks so much.