How many sales presentations have you attended? For me, it’s 4,695. But who’s counting? Going back to 1995 when I joined Oracle, that’s the number I’ve logged, like a fatigued Delta Diamond Medallion flyer. And like a Medallion flyer, after thousands of journeys under my seatbelt, I’ve identified and lived by the patterns that lead to efficiency and desirable outcomes.
As I think about those 4,695 sales presentations up in the C-Suite, I realize the ones that answered a single question out of the gate were the most successful. “Why is this important to a CEO?”
The key to any pitch is to know your audience. In other words, if you’re giving a sales presentation to the office manager Pam from the TV series The Office, you’re big selling points will differ if you’re pitching to the general manager Michael Scott. If it’s for Dwight Schrute, you’d, of course, try to use parallels that appeal to a beet farmer.
But I digress… If you’re pitching to a CEO, what is important to them? Is it the long-term projection of the company? Management directives? A great parking spot? I know the answer… It’s Brand, Systems, People. What does that mean? Great question. Let me explain…
BRAND
Branding is sacred to any CEO, and it must be protected. Your brand is constantly under attack, and if it takes a hit, your customers lose trust and go somewhere else in search of it. How do you protect your brand? You protect your customers’ data. Unfortunately, data security now sits in the middle of the perfect storm. This perfect storm, like every storm, has distinct layers. On the top is AI, on the bottom is Quantum Computing, and right smack in the middle is everyone’s data. Data fuels the storm.
But protecting personal data as it moves through complex networks is quite challenging. Just think about when you use your phone to make a purchase. You tap your phone to a merchant’s payment terminal, which begins a chain of communications between credit card vendors, issuing banks, and payment processors, which all leads to an approval and transfer of funds. A simple swipe kicks off a Rube Goldberg Machine of transactions facilitated by multiple companies. Are these companies secure? Are they protecting your data? Are all of them protecting their brands? Do you trust them?
Like I said, brands are constantly under attack, so their ongoing protection is crucial. If you’re pitching data-centric security to a CEO, it’s important to understand this concept.
SYSTEMS
A company must have systems in place to weather any storm. Good systems are designed while thinking of mistakes from the past, which lead to smooth operations during the present, and a clear path through rough times in the future. This is why systems are so important. They’re not just there to keep your employees synchronized; they’re a form of insurance for the future.
If you’re a CEO, making sure you have the right systems during this perfect storm are vital. It’s a huge threat to most encryption models, enflaming an already turbulent status quo, by thrashing existing standards and computing time into the stone age. Shor’s Algorithm in, RSA out. Grover’s algorithm first, Super Grover second, AES at risk. And neither is to be upstaged by others coming down the road.
How do you make sure those systems provide iron-clad security against this threat? By not just bolting on security to your existing systems as an afterthought, but adapting systems that were built from the ground up with security in mind. Systems that have security woven into their fabric, where systems and security are one. Solid systems are part of the battle to protect your brand.
PEOPLE
But, of course, when I talk about customers and data and employees, I’m referring to people. People should be invaluable to any CEO. Without them, there is no brand, and there are no systems.
It’s important for any CEO to always communicate with customers. To stand by the roadmap timelines. To stand with them during emergencies and outages. To always give accurate and dependable answers regarding the industry’s direction. But it’s also critical to give customers a voice during this perfect storm. To meet directly with them, industry leaders, and scientists, see the ground truth, and capture feedback. Hearing the many voices, and the experts in the field.
People are important to every CEO. And when you combine people with a strong and secure systems, you’ve got everything to weather the perfect storm. Brands. Systems. People.
Here’s to another 4,695!
-mh