Enabling the Varonis Sales Teams to Win with Cloud
Learn what it took for Varonis to enable its sales team to increase seller engagement, decrease time to close, and drive a meaningful relationship with Microsoft. Get actionable tips and best practices from Regional Sales Director, Mike Mason, as he shares how to foster a new mindset and enable new behaviors to build, drive, and scale adoption of Cloud GTM in your sales organization.
All right.
Welcome back from Intermission, folks.
I hope we got some snacks and we took a little breather.
We checked our emails and we are back and ready to roll.
And I could not be more excited to kick off this session because Mike and I'll
let him
introduce himself here in a second.
But since working with the Verona's team, they've seen such tremendous success.
Mike has a lot of wisdom to share with everybody here today.
So with no further ado, I'll kick it over to Mike to introduce himself and then
we'll
hop right into it.
Yeah.
Actually, well, first and foremost, thanks for having us.
Thanks for having me and the Verona's team.
So it's been a pleasure working with you and others.
Excited to share our story, but my name is Mike Mason.
I'm the Global Alliance Director here at Verona's responsible for the
relationships with our
hyperscalers, including Salesforce.
Perfect.
So I think the best place for us to start here is a little bit about Verona's
and about
the cloud as a route to market, like how that emerged.
What was the driving force behind that and like how long have you been on this
journey?
Because it hasn't been that long.
No, actually, it hasn't.
The journey has roughly been about 18 months to be too big exact, right?
And really how this all came about was, well, first of all, I should explain
who Verona's
is.
Verona's is a DSPM, Data Security Posture Management.
So we're in the business of protecting data from different aspects, from
understanding
what it is, understanding who has access to it and understanding what users
aren't doing
with it.
And that is the definition of a DSPM if you look at Gartner or Forrester as
well.
And in doing that, we've been protecting data since '04, and we started on the
on-prem
file shares.
And the reason why we got started with the cloud is we were transitioning to a
SAS platform
because we were on-prem for the longest time.
And as we transitioned to a SAS platform, using hyperscalers to build out our
SAS offering,
there were a lot of benefits.
So what we did is we leveraged that technology and we found a way to align
closer to these
hyperscalers because we understood if we used their technologies, there were
ways that we
could leverage that in our sales cycle, leverage that in our product, leverage
that in our
relationships with either Microsoft or AWS.
So that's how it all came about is because our customers, as data moves in many
different
platforms, our customers were asking for that ability to do many different
platforms.
And we knew we had a re-platform to SAS.
And if you look at our latest earning statement, the SAS conversions have been
going very, very
well.
And we're on track to basically do the transition earlier than planned.
Beautiful.
Yeah, I would say the on-prem to cloud is a pretty big driving force to
adopting cloud
go-to-market.
So definitely a natural fit for Veronas.
We talked about this.
You touched on it briefly just about the relationships with AWS and with
Microsoft.
Like for this session specifically, I do want to double click on the Microsoft
success.
Like talk to me about that partnership.
Like you guys are doing really great things with them.
So I just wanted to have you elaborate a little bit more there if you could.
Yeah, believe it or not, we're putting more marketplace transactions through a
zooer than
we are through the other hyperscalers, right?
Microsoft is our number one hyperscaler that we use.
But that's really born out of how we started actually, to be honest, right?
Because being on-prem file share, most of our customers are Microsoft customers
They're using the Microsoft on-file-prem.
And now they're using M365.
They're using co-pilot, things like that.
So when we looked at our customer base and because, you know, having over 8,000
customers
globally, they're mostly the commonality is that they're all that the majority
of them
are Microsoft customers.
So that was a perfect way to start, right?
And when you start looking at that and you start looking at the makeup of our
customers,
we, you know, as you guys tackle, explain to us, right, the, like listen, you
want to
go marketplace because we're going to access to the cloud budgets.
And if you look at the partner insights, the cloud budgets for a zooer continue
to grow
at a very rapid pace, right?
I think there's what over 110 billion, 110 billion dollars in Microsoft commits
So that was the first one.
The second one is we want to work with the largest cloud provider and expand
our relationships,
right?
Not every day are you able to work with the largest cloud providers in the
world and
add value to their, to their platform or to their problems?
Yeah, absolutely.
No, it's been a, it's been a really cool journey to watch.
You all with the Microsoft teams and especially in the co-sell, which we'll get
into.
So I don't want to steal the thunder from some of our coming questions.
Let's shift over to talk a little bit about sales.
So this is an 18 month journey that you've all been on.
And how did you go about making this a priority with the Verona sales
organization?
Like I feel like that is a very common question, not just every day working
with ISV, but even
in this event, specifically a lot of like seller, you know, enablement, seller
strategy.
So just talk to me a little bit about that and share some.
Yeah, actually go first.
I got to say it's a journey and we're not done.
Right.
This is always, this is always a process because we're fundamentally changing
the way in which
we, we sell.
So and being, you know, since 04, you know, it's, it's been a long process and
we're trying
to change different behavior, but it all started with a vision.
What we really had to do is sit down and understand what did we want to
accomplish with
Alliance?
How did we want Alliance to be perceived inside of the Verona's business?
And so we started with a vision on what we wanted to do and how we wanted to
achieve
it.
And once we had that vision for the Alliance team, we had to go and sell that
to management.
And we started from the top down approach, right?
And this wasn't just one conversation.
This was over many different conversations because we were bringing something
new to the management
team that was changing.
Like they, like, yeah, this isn't going to work.
When we were doing this, I, you know, from one, a couple of individuals like,
well, what's
marketplace?
Who would want to do that?
Right.
And now this is all we talk about is like, oh, who has, who, who can use
marketplace?
So it really radically has changed in the last 18 months, right?
And the other part was since we had management approval and management on our
side, we had,
we couldn't stop there and expect them to know all the inner workings of
marketplace
and working with the hyperscalers.
We had to go cross-functional and we started with the sales organization.
We had to get all the RVs, the RVPs.
We had to get the sales management on board on how and it wasn't really what's
it going
to do for the business.
I had to reposition it.
What's it going to do for them?
Release their sales cycle, right?
Get, get budget for, get additional budget from cloud commits, things like that
, right?
And so being in that cross-functional team, we started with sales.
I even had to go to the channel because the channel, you're a 100% channel.
So I had to go to the channel and I had to reposition it for them because it
wasn't the
same talk track as it was for management.
It wasn't the same talk track for sales as it was for channel.
I even had to go to marketing.
Having had no idea how to reposition stuff for the better together story that
has to
be very distinct.
Then I had to go to finance, which is always a fun conversation.
What are you going to do?
How are you going to do this, right?
Who's going to pay us?
And then I had to go to tax and legal.
And they're asking me all these tax questions.
I'm the last person to ask about tax.
I just want to get a deal done, right?
So I had to, and each conversation was different.
It wasn't the same conversation.
And it really, when you're having these conversations with your parties and
sort of
your business, you've got to key it to how it's going to benefit them.
Yep.
That's a very solid point.
The other thing that was successful in our journey as it still is a journey, we
started
with very small wins.
And we celebrated those wins.
And we celebrated those wins.
And I made sure that management knew about it.
I made sure sales management knew about it.
The channel knew about it.
Tax knew about it, right?
Marketing knew about it.
And a win for us getting listed on the marketplace.
That was a win, right?
It's a win.
Getting our first inbound lead.
That was a win.
It wasn't about getting a marketplace transaction.
It was showing the growth of the partnership.
Oh, folks.
This right here.
This was a masterclass.
Like Mike, everything you just said is exactly the strategy that needs to be
considered.
It's really that top down.
It's really cross functional.
What does this mean for them?
How does it help them not just businesses or owners, but like really as a team,
like
how does this accelerate this for them and their role and help them meet their
goals?
Like, thank you for taking the time to go through that level of cross
functional depth,
because that is really what it takes.
And the small wins and celebrating those along the way, that's very meaningful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now it's a process and it's a journey.
It's a fun journey.
I got to meet so many more people in this organization.
I've only been here for three years.
And we actually brought Microsoft on stage with us at RSKO.
And they're like, how do you do that?
Like everyone, it was like a facade.
Yeah, we're going to work with Microsoft.
Yeah, right.
And when they showed up at RSKO, that was like, oh my God, this is for real,
right?
This is really happening.
So that was fantastic.
And it really brought some good energy to the organization as well, right?
So yeah, that's awesome.
Love that, like seeing the, that become a reality for you all on stage with
Microsoft.
Very cool.
And one thing you did touch on in the cross functional conversation that we
just had
is the channel first approach.
How did you successfully manage to integrate the channel partners into co-
selling and marketplace?
Like how did that conversation go?
That's a very sticky one for a lot of folks.
It's very sticky.
And my recommendation is just meet it head on.
Don't hide behind it.
And it wasn't about a replacement guys because all of our partners already had
this motion
in place.
And when we really sat down and looked at our partners that had this in place,
we found
greater alignment with those teams.
Those teams were willing to work with us.
Those, our partners are already asking about marketplace transactions for their
own process,
for their own software or their own services.
Why can't you just tackle on a ISV vendor?
There's no reason why you can't.
And actually when I actually sat down with the channel leadership and I went
through step
my step, how the marketplace has worked and how it's not going to replace
channel, it's
going to help you grow your relationship within the channel.
And I had to show evidence that these channel partners already had marketplace
plays in motion.
And here is how we're going to latch on to their marketplace motion because it
wasn't
about getting a whole new motion with a partner.
It's about understanding their motion and how can you add value to that motion
currently.
And once I had that, and actually it wasn't one conversation, it was over many
conversations
over a couple months, right?
And when we had in going back to celebrating our wins, when we got the first MP
O or CPPO,
it was a huge celebration and it was starting at the channel, thanking them for
their time,
thanking them for their partnership.
And now today, fast forward to today, we have more plays now with our channel
team than
we ever did before.
And we have stronger relationships with our channel team than we ever did
before because
we're wider now at the channel.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Love that.
I think that that's really awesome too to hear you even say like, channel was
already
there and they're like, hey, everyone is welcome to the party.
Let's do this and let's grow this.
So that's great that you guys have seen that success and internally that they
've also seen
that.
The one of the other things that I think that we get asked quite commonly too
for advice
on is in the CoSEL meeting.
So we've got the CoSEL meeting where with, let's say we're sitting down across
the table
from Microsoft, what do you advise that your sellers do differently to make Ver
ona stand
out in that conversation?
Yeah.
This is, I had to curve the, curve their mindset from our sales organization
that these hyperscalers
are not a land and expand and do account mappings with.
That's not the reason why they're here.
The reason why they're here and I had to get this straight across and I still
say it on
my mom's say like 10 times a day is to build trust is to build trust because
everyone's
like, well, no, we compete with Microsoft.
We compete with eight AWS.
I stopped them in their tracks and say, like, listen, every ISV competes with
Microsoft
or AWS.
That's okay.
That's common knowledge, right?
Let's find where we are differentiated.
Let's find where we add value to their current suite.
And once I got the team to understand where we add value, instead of looking at
where
we compete, because it's only like this big, look at the 90% of where we don't
compete
and where we add value.
And once we got their head around that, before we even go to a Microsoft rep,
the first thing
we need to do is we need to ask three questions of our sellers.
Is what business problem are you solving for the customer?
Because if they don't intuitively know the business problem that they're
solving, it's
going to be a rough road with the Microsoft sellers.
The second question that they need to ask and give up is who are they working
with at
this account?
And then I need to understand what is the specific ask to the Microsoft seller.
The reason why we have all three of these questions that need to be answered
before we
reach out, because we specifically put these in the email, so then the
Microsoft seller
knows that we're real.
And we already have a partner or a referral with a referral ID, because it
shows that
we know the account, we're already at the account, we're not asking for a favor
, we're
asking to work together.
Again, a masterclass, like that right there, especially love that you wrapped
it all up
into that is what we send in the email, that is what makes those Microsoft
sellers so excited
to get on the phone with the Corona seller, which like that's awesome.
I couldn't tell you how many times the sellers say, hey, it's a pleasure to
work with you
guys because you know this account, you understand, they're like, I get a
thousand these emails
a day and I just delete them all because they're all asking for a favor.
Someone asked for a favor, bring value to the conversation, bring value and
build that trust
and you'll go a lot farther.
Absolutely, couldn't agree more.
And I think this final question will bring us home and it's going to be
interesting for
you to think through this.
Like, if you could go back and tell Mike Mason 18 months ago, like some of the
lessons that
you've learned through these experiences, like what would you tell him and
other alliance
leaders that just getting started on this journey?
That's a great question, Ashley.
If I knew the stuff that I knew now 18 months ago, it would be a different
story.
But if you're just starting out in this journey, I would recommend that you sit
down and you
understand what is it that you exactly want to accomplish.
Because if you don't have a clear vision for the alliance, for your alliance
department
or team, it's going to be very difficult because you're going to be competing
with a lot of
different priorities within the organization.
You're just going to be another person looking for somebody's time or sucking
up time, whatever
it may be.
That's the first thing, is start with that vision.
The second thing that I tried to do this all myself, try to build a listing,
try to do
this all, I'm like, I can do it all, figure it all out.
So the second thing that I would tell myself that I know now today, scale with
technology.
Instead of hiring people, scale with as much technology as you possibly can.
Tackle has been instrumental in allowing us to scale.
Just so everyone can understand here, we have roughly about 60 to 70
interactions with
our hyperscalers on a weekly basis, and I have a team of two.
And so that's the second, the third thing that I would recommend is look at the
hyperscalers
programs.
Microsoft has some great programs.
And I heard a lot on this conversation or today yesterday, spits.
How do I spist my sellers?
I would say leverage the programs in which the hyperscalers have.
Microsoft has a marketplace rewards program, we're in top tier of that status,
and we
get a wallet full of Azure credits that we can give to our customers as we see
fit in
helping them scale out their marketplace play.
It's been very instrumental in getting marketplace transactions done.
The sellers like it, instead of spiffing the sellers, they're like, here, I
negotiate
with our sellers on how we're going to use these credits to entice marketplace
perks.
It doesn't cost us anything.
It just costs us to continue to do business with Microsoft, which we're already
going
to do.
So it's very fundamental and sit down and look at all these programs.
There's many different programs that they have.
And you'll find some good nuggets.
And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them as well.
That's awesome.
Those are great.
I especially thank you for just telling people how it is.
It is American.
It is a journey.
You are on it.
What you put into it is what you get out of it.
Like these are incredibly practical, but extremely wise, like tips to be
sharing with
everybody.
So everyone who's kind of feeling like, you know, at a certain place in their
journey,
like know that there's still a lot that needs to happen, but success can be
seen like 18
months ago.
Like Mike, this is an incredible journey that you've all been on and
congratulations.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for allowing us to share this journey with your other tacklers.
And thank you for all the support.
It's been great.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
(silence)
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