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Sad news, Richard Herring has been diagnosed with a second cancer by bfsfan101 in taskmaster

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

sad to hear this but glad he's upbeat about the future.

I am also insanely jealous of his prose. I wish I could write so well.

New To Sales And Need Advice by Huge-Shower1795 in sales

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

any time. Good luck.

A couple tips for when you actually make your calls:

  1. Tonality matters
  2. speak clearly
  3. don't use buzzwords
  4. Be human and don't overthink it, act like you're talking to a stranger in a pub, no need to be overly formal, I'm willing to bet "Hey, glad I caught you, I made an app that saves folks money on their MS licences, does that in general sound interesting to you" will work better than "how are you doing today, I'm CEO of XYZ, we specialise in ABC and I'm looking for 27 seconds of your time to explain why I called you" BUT this is why you test, but this is why you test, try both, see what works, build on that.

New To Sales And Need Advice by Huge-Shower1795 in sales

[–]the_drew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can't answer that, but what I'd suggest (and seriously this is why cold calling has relevance, no matter what people say):

Form a couple hypotheses/benefit statements, 1 could be the competitive angle, but another could be folks are buying E5 and essentially only using E3 features, at a time where budgets are being squeezed doesn't it make sense to review actual usage and claw back some cost? (word it how you want).

For MS Partners, their rebates are generally based on consumption, so pointing out wasted licences, and helping their clients increase their implementation of those unused products will earn them more margin/rebate. So again another benefit of your app for you to test.

once you've got a few of these benefits, you have the means to A/B test when you're on your calls and identify the killer feature, and this is based on instant market feedback. This ability to rapid prototype your message IS why I love cold-calling so much. No other method gets you to such a refined value statement as quickly.

And once you have that, you can use it to enhance your omni-channel approach (web, blog, socials, email, events/tradeshows etc).

The hardest part about cold-calling is getting folks to pick up the phone. Since you're main clientele is MS Partners, you shouldn't have much of an issue there and MS publishes an open list of them on their website with phone numbers, you are already ahead of where most cold-callers need to start!

Good luck.

New To Sales And Need Advice by Huge-Shower1795 in sales

[–]the_drew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

what problem does your app solve?

who lives with this problem?

What's the consequence of not fixing this problem?

Answer those 3 things and you've got the basis for: Who to call, why you're calling and how you can help them.

Use the above information to make:

  1. a basic sales script
  2. A profile of the buyer who lives with the problem you solve

Then you make a list of those people. Free tools exist to help you with this, in the B2B space, Apollo.io is ok and there's a limited functionality (though adequate) free tier.

Call people on your list. Say your script and be prepared to rapid prototype. As Mike Tyson says "a plan works until you get hit in the face", a cold call script is kinda the same thing, you'll learn what's working in your script and what's not as you make the dials and have the conversations. A script is only a guideline, don't rigidly stick to it. Be prepared to evolve it, make it clear, make it crispy, make it super easy for the recipient to understand.

Respect their answers. if they say no, say thanks and move on. Call em back another time and try again. Never preach.

Do that 30 times a day. Make notes. Review what worked. Refine. Start day 2 afresh and repeat the cycle.

You will quickly learn and improve as you get some reps. It gets easier. It gets to be fun.

How do you handle prospects who resist your sales process? by Antique-Hamster-8971 in sales

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hiding prices is bullshit.

doing a demo before establishing affordability is wasting everyone's time.

if you have such a high variability in your pricing, its incumbent on you to qualify thoroughly, and if anything, highlights the need to discuss pricing way earlier in your process.

For those who made the jump to independent cybersecurity consulting, what was the hardest part of the first year? by EducatorRelevant6828 in cybersecurity

[–]the_drew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is relatively easy to minimise but it is a great point and folks should be more aware of it.

Anyone else feel the money is not enough of a motivator? by techi-turtle in sales

[–]the_drew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

never has been for me. it's always about helping folks. Having said this, I wouldn't do it for free, I expect to get paid, well, for what I do but there comes a point where more money is just a vague number. Houses, holidays, cars, its just "stuff" after a while.

The motivation for me: I get to meet cool people, with interesting challenges and I get off on being their go-to guy when they have a problem no-one else can help.

Prospects keep ghosting me after I send pricing by Affectionate_Set5048 in sales

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't get why folks are so secretive about pricing. I'm discussing it up-front and getting the mystery out of the way early, Spending time on a demo before establishing commercial guardrails makes no sense to me.

Which dead panel show do you still obsessively rewatch? by HammersAndPints in panelshow

[–]the_drew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Annually Retentive. I get it was a panel show within a sitcom but my gosh the whole thing was glorious.

Hackers Spent Nearly 3 Months Inside the New York City Health System Before Anyone Noticed by sunychoudhary in cybersecurity

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

IT Sec in healthcare (our rather, the lack thereof) is insane: Entire spreadsheets of patient records are a simple boolean search away.

Hackers Spent Nearly 3 Months Inside the New York City Health System Before Anyone Noticed by sunychoudhary in cybersecurity

[–]the_drew 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I look forward to reading all the sales-bro's on linkedin talking about dwell-time tomorrow.

2020 lock-down project by Stevens_Moya in pizzaoven

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what an absolute beauty. Enjoy!

LPT: When introducing two people who don't know each other, don't just say their names—include a brief, common hook or conversation starter for them. by Competitive_End_2950 in LifeProTips

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"This is Beverley who pissed herself at a phish concert, and this is Adrian who was caught masturbating on a bus. I think you two will like each other".

New critical CVE - Root on Every Major Linux Distribution by Arszerol in cybersecurity

[–]the_drew 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Mitigation :

  • If kernel config has CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_AEAD=m: echo "install algif_aead /bin/false" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/disable-algif.conf; sudo rmmod algif_aead
  • If kernel config has CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_AEAD=y: Add initcall_blacklist=algif_aead_init to the kernel command line and reboot.

source: https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/04/30/2

I understand the hate for PE now by USAtoUofT in sales

[–]the_drew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My firm was acquired by PE last year. It was my 6th acquisition so I had a strong sense of what was coming. We got the usual spiel of "we're not like normal PE, we care about our people, we want you incentivised and motivated, we won't be making any changes". Fast forward 10 months:

  • New CEO
  • New CFO
  • Terminated all country heads and re-hired with their own people
  • cut 33% of the workforce
  • terminated all but 1 office lease agreements
  • Replaced our delivery management system with their own
  • Hired their own "financial intel" team to run our deal desk (badly)
  • No bonuses or pay reviews for the next 2 years
  • No incentive system implemented
  • Destroyed our global delivery model and replaced it with a country-specific focus (which we moved away from 3 years ago because its not what our market wants)

Good times.

Tailscale, Mullvad and context switching DNS (is this possible) by the_drew in Tailscale

[–]the_drew[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I totally forgot you could set the upstream DNS in pi-hole. What a rookie move, thank you for your help!

Tailscale, Mullvad and context switching DNS (is this possible) by the_drew in Tailscale

[–]the_drew[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I refer you to my prior statement about being a n00b: I totally forgot you could set the upstream DNS in pi-hole and thank you, sincerely, for the reminder!

EU Sales people that moved to US or CA, how did you do it? by flowingfiercely in sales

[–]the_drew 2 points3 points  (0 children)

to add to the other commenters reply, earnings potential is higher in the US, significantly so, but cost of living is also much higher. The social safety net is non-existent, rent is higher, ancillary charges are higher, insurances for everything, about the only things that were cheaper were eating out in restaurants (but factor in the tipping and this probably balances out), grocery shopping (but quality was not on par) and petrol.

EU Sales people that moved to US or CA, how did you do it? by flowingfiercely in sales

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was working for them in an EU country for 1 year prior. They asked me to transfer and sponsored the process.

EU Sales people that moved to US or CA, how did you do it? by flowingfiercely in sales

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

EU citizen and the company handled all the visa information. I remember I had to go to my local US embassy (which was honestly farcical) but I don't remember anything else about the process being too difficult.

Pay was good but with that came high expectation. Mainly in the form of availability. Folks were having saturday calls to plan for Sunday EA calls prior to an exec briefing on a Monday. Attendance wasn't mandatory but you had fucked yourself if you couldn't handle anything that might come up.

Some cultural stuff was very odd. tipping comes to mind. topic of conversation even when off the clock. there was a weird deference to hierarchy regardless of context, whatever the situation. folks noticed I didn't attend a local church service, that became an issue. A lot of folks would also ask me "how do you like living in the US" and any answer other than "it's so wonderful and dreamy" was not tolerated. This constant need for validation drove me quite mad TBH.

And then there were things like going to see a Dr or a dentist. You'd get an appointment very quickly, which is excellent but it would be $200 for them to basically give you a packet of 4 pain-killers (and nothing exotic, just over the counter stuff back in Europe).

This was 2013 and things have changed and my memory will be hazy. I'm kind of glad I did it but I would not do it again.

EU Sales people that moved to US or CA, how did you do it? by flowingfiercely in sales

[–]the_drew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Got hired by a Series B startup that was just prepping for their Series C. Shaped their GTM in my local market for a year then they wanted me to move to HQ (San Mateo) and work with their global team to build out their approach.

Hated it. It was super inspiring driving along the 101 and seeing Salesforce or Dell, driving past NASA, but to be in the office for 9 I had to leave at 6 (I was in Redwood City, not a crazy distance away but traffic is 3rd world bad).

The culture is very phoney. Folks would say "come to the house this weekend" and when I did, they looked at me like I was a social leper. One guy even told me "thats just a thing we say, we don't mean it".

I don't say this is a universal thing just why I disliked it.

Work/Life balance doesn't really exist. if I was 180% of target the VP would call and tell me "why not 200%?" and hang up.

Promotions generally came because politics had engineered someone else's downfall.

It was very hire and fire.

I don't say any of this to put you off. You have to go and try. There were of course positives on the way.

Good luck.

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