About forty Go To Market Professionals in cybersecurity gathered on June 21st for the first ever meet-up of the Silicon Valley Go to Market Dojo. I must humbly say the event was a great success.
Our guest speaker, Dr. Chenxi Wang discussed”Winning the Analyst Game- An Insider’s View”. A former lead security analyst at Forrester, Chenxi then worked for several security vendors including McAfee and Twistlock.
Here are three things I took away from Chenxi’s many insights:
- Don’t talk about your product, talk about problems you solve and how you help customers.
- Don’t expect, ask or treat analysts as an extension of your Go To Market. You have your job, and they have theirs.
- The best thing you can do is to teach the analyst something new.
Chenxi also referenced a great blog she did a few years ago – and here it is, “Be a Good Marketer and Win over Your Analyst with 8 Slides.” I was struck how similar that Chenxi’s advise on influencing analysts mirrors my advise to clients on messaging and positioning to customers. My belief is that all markets at their core are conversations. Conversations between vendors and analysts (and other influencers and interlopers) are different than vendor to customer conversations, but they certainly are related, and I’ll be blogging about this soon. So thank you Chenxi for being such a compelling speaker , a supporter of the Dojo, and an inspiration to me on new ways of thinking.
I was excited to give out a few of my new favorite books to luck attendees, including The Captain Class and The Undoing Project. These two books inspired me, and I wanted to share them not only in a recent blog, but with the Dojo community. Congrats to Doug and Horacio, our lucky winners, enjoy. And thank you to the all of meet-up attendees for being amazing participants in both networking and Q and A.
I have started the Dojo with the idea that we need a place to build a community of practice for Go to Market Professionals focused on collaboration, excellence and practice. If yesterday’s event and feedback was any indication of validating this idea, the Dojo has a vibrant and bright future. I couldn’t be more excited.
Our next Dojo Meet-up is for MarTech Go To Market Professionals, and will be on August 15th at 6pm, you can register here. Our panel is shaping up, and we will be entitled, “Landscapes, Stacks and Platforms, Oh My”.
Our next CyberSecurity Dojo Meet-up is tentatively scheduled for August 23rd, also in Mountain View. Early registration is now open!
Until then, may Leonardo, Yoda and MLK be with you on your Leadership journey! – Ken