Ep. 157 Beyond IT: The secret sauce in managed services for Cloud and Security with Troy Phelps
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Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success in selling technology solutions. I’m your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus and this is Next Level BizTech.
Everybody welcome back. Here we are already in 2025, believe it or not. We’re wrapping up our track today titled Beyond IT, The Secret Sauce in Managed Services for Cloud and Security. On with us today, we’ve got the amazing Troy Phelps, Troy CISO advisor from TA Phelps Brands. Troy, welcome on, man.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Happy Valentine’s Day for everyone.
Happy Valentine’s Day. I know you’ve probably got a lot of other places that you would love to spend your Valentine’s Day, but I appreciate you taking an hour, spending some time with me. The audience will love it. The partners will love it. So you’ve got such a cool background, such a cool story. I’m excited to get into this with you, man. Perfect.
Ready for it.
Alright, so let’s just start this off for anybody that doesn’t know you from the beginning. How’d you get into this field where you start any kind of weird wild turns along the way? Lay it out for us.
So I’m proud military.
So I started my career at force, and I was an intelligence. And so little known fact that most people don’t know is I start out as a spy.
And so that’s how I got started. Actually, that’s how I got started into the into the field.
So instead of going in on the operational side of it, and really delve into the intelligence part, I was really good at it, by the way. But I also met the love of my life and my wife at the time. And so we had started a family and one side of the house did not fit the other side. So being in intelligence did not fit with having a family.
And so I had some conversations. And at the time they were starting up the Air Force cybersecurity program. And they were like, you would be perfect for this. And so I said, let’s do it went for it. And so that kind of merged into a cybersecurity intelligence role. And we were building out of cybersecurity program at that point, that cascaded my career into what it is today. Because you know, it’s my career has been building like evergreen cybersecurity program has just always been that way. And it started from that first role in the Air Force. So spent six years in the Air Force doing that transition out the six years separated went into public.
At that point, it I would love to say that it went great. It did not.
The first position that I had as I transitioned in a lot of the veterans who know that maybe transition from military or military.
My first review that year, my manager said, you probably need to find another career field. This is not for you.
Yeah, out. So my first and only bad review.
It was just a challenge transitioning. It was just a challenge. And, you know, I was like, okay, he’s right. I’m bawling and going home and my wife was like, remember who you are. Prove them wrong. And, you know, I stepped at that. And I said, you know what, I’m going to go, you’re saying that I’m at the bottom of this profession, I’m going to go to the top of the profession. And I’m going to prove you wrong. And so I set on out on that course. And then quickly, you know, obviously I left that company not after too long of that review.
Not because they forced me out, I end up turning things around. But it was not a good culture for me. And so persevere through that. And then that’s when I started really building programs in a public space.
Federal Home Bank of Atlanta was my starting point. I learned how to build a state that for about 10 years and build a successful security program from two people starting out. And I understood what good look like from that perspective at that time. And then went from there to Home Depot from Home Depot to a startup. So going from that scale to a startup. So just, you know, I look at my career as a story, I try to script it as a story, what feels good for me, what feels good for the next chapter. And so that’s my career in a nutshell.
I love it. First of all, thank you for your service.
Secondly, I think the first spy we’ve had on the show, I mean, I guess the first that I’m aware of, maybe, maybe there’s been others, but I love that. Remember who you are. And it seems like a lot of good things have pivoted off from, you know, the managers, the places that I walked away from, because then you’re just so motivated, right? So it’s been awesome. I think that sounds like it’s what happened. It’s been, that’s a cool story to hear. Yeah.
Alright, so let’s talk about who TA Phelps Brands is. Again, we talked a little bit about some of your see so experience, but just tell us a little bit about, you know, for anybody that’s listening, what’s your approach to the market, you’ve got so much depth in there. When you’re talking to a prospective customer, how do you simplify what you do and how you stand out?
So TA Phelps Brands is, you know, the mantra that we have is we invest in people. And so with that we connect with people, for as long as I’ve been in the business,
the main thing in the value add that I’ve always seen on one side of the table, and now being on the other side of the house from maybe a sales perspective, it’s just human connectivity.
People resonate when you connect with them, and that you see them, you hear them, and that you can provide value to them. And so TA Phelps is about human connectivity, every program that we have, embraces that we have three pillars, which is we have events that we create intimate connections, we have our advisory practice, and then we have a private community, so that our client, clientele have a space, a centralized space to connect and grow, ask questions. We don’t feel like we’re the smartest people in the room at all times. And so we’ve curated a space so that we can share and connect and is peer based and not just advisor based.
So all of that embodies we invest in people and that investment is just truly hearing, seeing and understanding what they’re in need of. And that’s how we build and grow have grown to practice through a lot of my C cell peers, a lot of the technology peers that I have, just being able to create spaces to where we engage together either virtually or together. Sales come at that point, after you’ve created a relationship, I tell people all the time, when I was a CISO, I know my problem better than anyone.
From a sales perspective, on the other side, I would tell the salespeople, you know, your solution better than I do better than anyone. Together, you know, we can create magic on trying to get to that next stage of, of being a win win on your side and my side. And so you create a partnership and that partnership I had, I just went to dinner with a friend of mine that was on the sales side that I’ve been doing business with or not for the last 15 years. And I have several people like that because of that ethos of just creating relationships.
So as you as you think about that, and that’s what I want, you know, the partners listening to this to think about you, you have such a unique perspective in, you know, I know my needs better, right? I think that’s such a, such a powerful statement. So I want everybody as we kind of go through this to think about the framing that you’re, you’re laying out in some of these is, this is how you approach folks like yourself, right? This is how we approach the customers, the prospects that are out there. So I love, I love that sometimes it just comes down to some of those those basics. So good, good background.
Want to want to shift into speaking of kind of how, you know, these these long relationships, your role has evolved so much, right? And what you’ve seen, I mean, heck, when we started out this channel, 15 plus years ago, there, there wasn’t security products in a procurement vehicle that our channel was used to, right? We didn’t have a lot of those products. Now everything has evolved. And here we are with infrastructure and CX and cloud and AI and all of these things and security.
So let’s talk about your role. How, how is this rise in this demand for cloud and security reshaped some of the sauce of you have to factor in when you’re talking to customers?
Um,
honestly, I don’t think it’s changed. It’s a, you know, if you look at it from a commodity perspective, and, you know, I try to take it from a mindset of take it at a macro macro level, not a micro level. That way, you’re not getting too high too low into what it is. And you’re able to pivot and to be able to encapsulate what you’re trying to solve for. And so with cloud or with AI,
at the end of the day, you’re still doing the same thing. You’re still trying to provide a value add your truck still trying to solution. So it’s still the same sauce that you have. We’re just talking about a different vehicle that you’re, you’re going through. So, you know, with cloud, years ago, when cloud first came, and was a part of a conversation, it was about, you know, the businesses embracing the velocity and speed of growth that they could use for innovation.
And then on the cybersecurity side, that being a new thing, because now is you’re having to protect what you’re putting into the cloud. And so it was the skies falling from, you know, the security practitioner side, on the business side, this is great. And so as from the, from the value add side from, you know, I guess the partners side, it would be, okay, I know these two different conversations are being had within the organization. How can I be a how can I be that military? How can I be that advisor and see it from the business perspective, but also see it from the the problem perspective, that maybe this is the security side is seeing, or the technology side is seeing whether it’s on whatever part of AI or whatever part of cybersecurity security it is. How can you be that military value add that that’s truly how you get into the business and, and you’re you. What I’ve seen is you get kind of referred off through the business. So it might start in cybersecurity. But when they know the other products and solutions that you offer, and then hey, you need to talk to so on. So that’s in finance, they’re dealing with AI and how AI can benefit in terms of the financial area. And so it’s really about just taking things from a macro level, and being that trusted advisor to solution with them.
And so for me, I don’t think I’ve do things any differently, whether it’s AI, whether it’s cloud or not, I just try to really understand what is the bigger problem here? And then how can I facilitate us driving to a solution?
Do I was going to ask this, so see, so getting approached, you know that other people are part of your organization that need to be brought into this decision making process. Maybe the advisor doesn’t know that yet, you know that that person needs to be brought in. Do you have any problem with the partners, the TAs saying, Hey, Troy, sounds to me like maybe we need to pull some other folks into this organization. Does that make sense? Because ultimately, doesn’t that just make your life so much easier?
Oh, yeah.
They’re bridging that gap.
Yeah, definitely. And I embrace it, you embrace it. And that should be a part of because at the end of the day, that’s what we want. We want you know, even you know, again, taking a macro friendships, you know, you meet a friend, and then that friend introduced you to another friend, I don’t care if you’re new to a city, new to a town, I mean, being proud military, that’s how I established friendships through, you know, I met a person, then that person introduced me to someone else. And that person introduces me to someone else. A community is born from out of that, and your circle of trust. And when you have that circle of trust, that’s the secret sauce. So at the end of the day, when that see, so whoever it is, introduce you to you and say, Hey, there’s another, there’s some other people that you should meet. They trust you to put you in front of those people. And so you know that you’re progressively getting somewhere because you have that trust. They’re putting you in front of people because that’s their reputation, and putting you in front of those people. And so you show up for them. And what they need you understand their value at before you even sit with the other areas of the company.
And then when you start having those conversations and being authentic, and then not only are you going to make the person that introduce you look well and solve their problem, that also sets up a landscape for those other people that you’re that you’re put in front of, for you to be able to solve their problems as well.
Love it.
All right, let’s go. Let’s go to some hard life lessons. So you’ve got a lot of cool experience, right? If you get anything while you’re a spy, that’s cool to hear if you can talk about it, if not, any hard lesson and valuable piece of advice for a mentor or anything along those lines over the years?
Um, I would say probably the biggest thing is two things actually, I’m trying to summarize one of them that I just truly live by and it’s embrace the journey, not the outcome.
So embrace the journey, not the outcome. And that is basically, I don’t. So it’s not about success is not about failure.
It’s not about if you have a good day is not about if you have a bad day.
There you wait them equally.
And it’s about learning and growing.
It’s easy to succeed and, and, and, and place, you know, whatever you have office succeeding, but there’s a lot to be learned and failure. But just know that there’s another day that’s going to come and just as quickly as we’ve succeeded and done something great I learned through my career. I’m in the firing pan, and the heat is on the next day. So I never try to get too high, get too low. I just embrace the that space in between what I call the journey of learning. And that’s the thing that I love now, not whatever the outcome is, because if you really are trying to be great at the journey, more than likely, you’re going to be successful at more times than not, or whatever you’re doing. And so, again, you, you, you embrace the journey, not the outcome. And that’s where some of the things I talked about earlier, as far as sales go, and trust being a long term thing, or a macro thing. It aligns with that, because at the end of the day, if you’re just trying to solve a problem, if you’re trying to be a value add, and then you’re not so focused on whether I’m going to make that sale or not, that sale is going to make itself.
Fair. It’s good.
Okay, so let’s, I’m gonna use an example here, you’ve got this unique perspective we’re talking about. So you’re coming across the table, you know, you’ve been CISOs at large organization, you’ve worked with the Home Depots, the banks, startups, all these things. So you have a very unique approach when you’re talking to customers, because you’ve been in their shoes, right? You understand what that rule is, if the TAs are listening,
how do you advise a TA to kind of have some of that similar framing, right? The TAs, you know, not all of them have been in the roles that you’ve been in, but how do you twist a little bit about any approaches that they have and say, think about it like this or frame it up like this? What’s the most effective way?
I think the most effective way is to really to allow them to frame your question.
It goes back to the comment that I made earlier, to where I know my problem the best.
And so you go back to bar talking. I also I kind of mentoring actually with my team, I do the same thing. I mean, you know, I have them go into a bar and start bar talk, start a conversation with whoever is to the left or to the right of this. This is a part of the training that I have them go through. Because if you can sit at a bar, you can actually have authentic conversation with a person just total out of the blue and create an authentic connectivity to where they’re telling you about their life, they’re telling you about things going on. And then the reason why I say bar, you have those conversations with the bartender and you’re telling them your life story. But if you can create that within that space. And so this is the reason why I have them go and just sit at bars, like do it seven times.
And then in I still have a practice of doing that. When you get into a meeting with that technology technology practitioner, whether it be cyber security, or, or it or whatever the case may be, you’re allowing them to frame what their issues are. So that you can then set a better value proposition to solution. If you go in trying to tell them, hey, AI is this or you’re telling them what you’re telling them what their problem is. And we and being on the other side of the table, I can tell you that in my head, I’m thinking, you have no clue to what I’m going through. Yeah, that you’ve already lost me.
Yeah.
Yeah, you’ve already lost me. So that’s the thing I would say, like, twist that around to where you truly just try to create this place to where you understand them and their challenges from their perspective, not yours.
I love that. And finally, we have a diagnosed prescription to go to the bar. I think that’s what everybody heard out of this. They’re probably they already hung up. They’re already there going out. I know what he said, but I just said go. So guys, wind. Listen.
No, I love that advice. I’m a big fan, huge fan of role playing. I love the situational. And that that’s awesome advice. I, I think that’s really cool.
Whether you drink or not, by the way, whether you drink it doesn’t matter. Get a mocktail, whatever it doesn’t, you’re not there to, you know, just for the drink, you’re there for the role playing.
Yeah, it’s great practice. I think that’s fantastic. Okay, so so let’s think about this. Here we are now. We’ve got this 2025 state of AI, we’ve got LLMs, we’ve got chat GPT, we got deep seek, we just got something new on our news list on our feed every single day. So you talked earlier about all these things changing, your stance is still the same stance. So if we think about that, as you’re talking to customers, though, when it comes to the state of security and cloud today, what are some of the things that customers are asking for? What are they trying to avoid?
So some of the things that they’re asking for, I think the biggest thing is,
and it’s according to which side of the house the customer is on, if they’re on the more the business side,
business department side, and then it’s about how do I embrace the technology and innovate with the speed that it can bring. And so on that side, I’m saying embrace it.
And so
in those, it’s about solutioning for what are the different iterations of how you can use say, AI as an example, what are the different iterations of where how you can use that technology for whatever, you know, area space that you’re in, to enhance to make more efficient to create velocity for your business area.
And so, you know, that’s been a focal point of positioning. But then on the, you know, cybersecurity side of the house, especially with AI, and I saw this with cloud as well.
There’s this perspective, right, that I definitely want to share. It’s not that cybersecurity practitioners do not embrace these new technologies. If you’re trying to protect something, the most difficult thing is to protect is when it’s new, and you’re not ready for it. And so it’s not that you’re not trying to embrace it, you’re just trying to get in front of it. But the speed of it is going so fast that you can’t. So how do you how do you stop it? Sometimes it’s let me slow it down.
And so that’s an insider tidbit. But
and so from that perspective, when I’m going in, and I’m talking on that side of the house,
how can we solution for velocity? How do you how do you get in front of it?
And many times, and some of the things that I’m working on is, you know, so a lot of the from the cybersecurity side is, I don’t know how to position I don’t know how to get in front of it.
And so data governance, having a data governance model already mapped out.
Again, it’s about value add. And so these teams don’t have the capacity and time to get in front of the new challenges, because we’re still trying to fix the old things. And so if you can develop solutions, and just a just a template for a data governance strategy, and providing that to them, you know, no charge or in just provide that as a value add to the communities data governance strategy, what to look for. A big part of it is still there’s a process that you need to go through. You need to understand where is the data going in AI or any other data is at the end of the day, it’s data. So having checkpoints for risk analysis to understand where the data is going in, having a policy in place, create a policy that you can provide to them, they can, you know, create, have a template to make into their own for their own organization,
outline into different areas that you need to be concerned with is, you know, data discovery, when it’s coming into an environment where, you know, what type of data is it? What is it for? Who has access to it?
Labeling, again, what type of data it is, data mapping, when it comes into the environment? Where is it traversing? You know, it’s data sprawl everywhere, duplication of data, where is it being stored?
And then from that point, you know, all the what, why, how about the data, and then you can know how to protect it. And so that’s where the supplier the solution part of it comes in the word, okay, now I know where did what the data is, where is going, what level of protection I need to have.
So now I can protect it in at rest in transit.
And so right now, when I’m talking to my peers, or when I’m talking to it, I’m really like providing free solution based things that just they can use as a template for their environments.
I love that. There’s a there’s so much good stuff in there. I think that that sometimes is the walk away of while what are the right questions to ask. Because we do come from a world where this was products, product products for a number of years, and it was very reactive. And this has really changed the tides over the last few years where our partners are going out being having to be very reactive to go Mr. Customer, have you thought about this Mr. Customer, Mrs. Customer, are you looking at it this way? So those are great. I love your your your questioning track there. I think those are awesome to hear. Yeah.
Alright, so so let’s think about let’s think about a deal here.
Walk us through a deal, a customer environment, a situation, cloud security, whatever it is, what are the challenges the customer was facing?
What maybe was the tech stack or something that they had before? And then what did it look like in the end?
Hmm.
So I think where I would probably go on this is, and this is something that it kind of what you alluded to in the last part of your comment.
We are we were very much into the product space. And so yes, it’s great to be able to have those great questions. And so I’m gonna go with kind of some of the less some of the lessons learned that I’ve had. And so I don’t remember the technology. Actually, I think I do. I’m not gonna call out the name of the technology. But it kind of taught me that there is no, let’s say let’s just say there’s no good or bad technology.
It’s about people embracing the technology.
And and so the product that we were putting in
we were having our challenges with it. And it was an area to where we had a lack of visibility.
And with that lack of visibility, we did find a solution, obviously a product that I’m referring to implemented the product. Product had challenges, it had growth challenges.
Ultimately, it was not received. Now, from my perspective,
it was a great product. It would have been a great solution for the company.
The problem that we had was it was not embraced by people.
The custom, you know, and when I say people, the enterprise, and so they would find ways around it. They would find ways not to use it, they would uninstall it or try to uninstall it. So basically, they just did not embrace it. But the solution would have really been a value add to enterprise.
And so yes, we had implementation challenges. So big thing is for the spaces, you know, whatever you can do to remove some of those challenges, but just know upfront, the biggest thing is change management and marketing.
I see that as with any of the deals that I’ve ever done.
If you don’t include change management and marketing, not just for the person that the the entity that you’re selling to, but also you need to make sure that it’s sold within the enterprise.
Because your value add is yes, you can make the sale, but then it’s about the execution and implementation. And the the sordin is that comes from the client side comes when, okay, I just bought the solution. I’m not going to renew it because we’re not using it. Or we’re not using it all the capabilities. And that’s typically because there was a lack of embracement within the enterprise. And so you’ve restricted yourself. And so I typically try to work with the client to have a change management plan in place on what if we’re replacing what they been doing, making it more efficient, whatever it is, but they have a change management plan in place that hey, a change is coming, this is what you need to brace for. But then also a marketing strategy to where we can show a value add and we you segment the enterprise on how is it going to be a value add to the different departments within the enterprise. And you work with the implementation teams, you work with your client on establishing that as just a part of the plan of execution within the deal for pre and post deal.
And that embracement is huge to you being a value add is huge to renewals. And so that the outcome is the customer is happy. It fit the solution that was needed at the time. And it fits the growth and scale that they’re going to go into.
So if we talk about for just a second here, we’re gonna get to the final couple thoughts here right after this. But if we talk about I’m just going to use deep seek as an example, right like it’s so much AI, there’s so much large language models, we’ve got a llama, people can download it, manage it, put it on a box, air gap it, whatever it is, right? You’ve got all these things, I inherently just worry about where that data is going. And so we’ve obviously we’ve we’ve doubled down to get doubled down to your point on this whole story around data sprawl, data classification and labeling and tools, Microsoft purview, all these things, all the components of it.
But if you think for a second about a new model comes out, it’s deep seek. Nobody seems to care where it is, where it’s housed, who’s owning the data, they’re just, hey, it’s exciting, it’s cheaper, it’s a 20th of the price. Great, awesome. Well, you know, if I was buying a car, and the three cars were 20 grand, and the fourth car was one grand, but I was being pitched that it was equally as good, I’d want to know what’s really does that car have an engine? Is that car like what’s really different? And it seems like people have ignored some of that how the angle here in my mind is this technology is is is opening up the opportunity for customers to just expose their data to everything without control. So if you’re thinking about the partners here, knowing that customers are ripe to just go try, try, try, try, try, try, try with zero repercussions. What’s your take on that? As if you’re sitting in the CISO shoes, knowing that those things are going to happen? What do you want the organizations and the partners to kind of factor in here?
Probably the biggest thing is don’t be a friction to them embracing it.
So you want to try you mentioned about the three cars. And so test drive all three cars. I’m firing with you test driving all three cars. Well, that means partnering with you to do it in a way that’s the most secure. Let me partner with you to do it in a way to where you’re getting the outcome that you’re you’re seeking. So whether it’s you know, cost benefit, or whether it’s functionality.
I’m looking at well, if I can be at value, or if I can embrace what you’re trying to do with the least amount of friction, and then you’re going to partner with me on you going through that discovery phase.
I think inherently, most what I’ve learned is most people, most customers, they always have security questions, you know, they want to know how to do things securely.
The problem is, is that they also have a competing objective, which is the speed of business,
the speed of innovation,
their job and wanting to be successful at it. And so yes, I want to do security. But at the same time, I need to make sure I’m progressive with the challenges or whatever I’m trying to do. And so me from that see so had or that perspective is understanding, okay, well, how do I help you to do what exactly what you’re trying to do? But let’s create a sandbox to where we can we can partner. And so to that in its first, hey, like, yes, go and test those models. Allow me to have a sandbox to create a sandbox for you to test those models within. Allow me to create some policies and standards for yes, use it. And this is how you would use it. Because that’s another thing that I’ve repeatedly we have and having conversations. It’s like, yes, I want to do the most secure thing. But how do I do that? And in a lot of teams, a lot of security programs that I’ve, I’ve seen.
That question happens, there’s there’s no answer. It’s like, just let me know about it. I’ll just do it securely. No, upfront.
Yeah.
Like, hey, this is still if you’re saying this is a law or you’re saying this is something to be watchful, create things and put things in place to where they have a policy, they have standards to know what to put into those models, what not to put into those models, they generally will practice it and will follow it. And then if you’re putting in a kind of a sandbox, and then you’re able to analyze what’s been going into those models, and then you become kind of that advisor to them to say, Yeah, okay, notice that. Is it a benefit to you? Great. Okay, these are the things that lessons learn, you’re putting HIPAA data into this model. You know, that’s the week we shouldn’t be doing that. And so you’re, you’re learning together, they’re learning how to use it for business and innovation,
and velocity. And then you’re learning how to embrace it, and to put controls in place to where both can play together and in the most progressive fashion.
All right, final couple thoughts here. I want to start with your advice, and then we’re going to look into our crystal ball. So your advice for the other partners that are out there, they’re looking to expand, maybe they’ve sold contact center, but they haven’t jumped into security, your cloud.
What’s your advice as they’re approaching prospects and customers to kind of position, hey, I can, I can expand the things that I’ve done for you before? What do you think if you’ve got a TA coming at you? What’s the what’s the best way to have that positioned?
Um, great question. I think the best way to have it positioned would be one, you know, have someone that specializes in the practice,
have a cyber security advisor that understand the challenges that, you know, regardless, you know,
I wouldn’t say it has to be a huge background in cyber security, but definitely have been in that landscape. Because there’s a different lens in a different way that I’ll say we’ve viewed things in maybe some other areas of it. So having someone in that space, I get all the time questions about, well, you know, I want to sell to them, but, you know, I do these cold calls, and they don’t respond, I reached out on LinkedIn, and they don’t respond. How do I get in front of it? How I never get the chance? How do I get a chance if they never give me a chance? And the thing that I have to come with them is, hey, you have to be, you have to be in the spaces that they’re in, you have to understand the challenges that they are in. And that’s why my advisement of having someone that’s in the space already bringing someone off, or partnering with someone so you know,
because you you have to be in the circles that they’re in.
Again, that’s what a trusted part of it comes in, is whether
that C cell or that cybersecurity relationship that you have where you can, you’re on one side and trying to get on the other side.
Whether you can make a sale with them or not, you first need to get invited into the community. Because the understanding is you’re dealing with cybersecurity practitioners, meaning you’re dealing with people that are super secretive. That is, they lack they don’t trust easily.
And we only trust who we know.
And so the first thing is getting as in the space of of trust.
So having a relationship with others that are in in the cybersecurity space, that introduce you into the community.
That is by far, the biggest recommendation that I would give. And to be honest, I think that’s really the only way that you’re going to get into the space. Because we really only work with people that that we know and trust or through referrals. I have my phone.
I’m not going to pull it up. But so this cannot go out. So the thing is, I am a part of probably six or seven C cell communities.
We have communities and so for instance, one is in Slack. One of the spaces is called vendor, vendor advice or something like that. And you’ll see different posts or they say, Hey, what do you think about this technology? What do you think about that?
If a C cell meets you, and then they’re going to take your pitch, what a grain of salt. And then they’re going to immediately go into this flat chum and say, Hey, I met so on. So what do you think about that guy or that one? And what do you think about that product? Who’s implementing what whether and so just know that one reputation is a big thing. And we in see souls talk
to that we share experiences with products.
More times than not, you’re going to ask the question about a product before you even go and have that second meeting. So if you want to get in front of that cyber security area, that’s the way that you’re going to do it.
I love it. All right, Troy, final thoughts here. Let’s look at our I always like to give a Miss Cleo reference. Not a lot of people remember Miss Cleo. But she gave great advice, you just had to call the late night one 900 number and you knew she was a trustworthy service to get advice from. I think it was all a scam, but it was fun growing up with. So if you can look at your Miss Cleo crystal ball here and think about what’s coming up in the next 1224 36 months, any innovations that you’re the most, most excited about anything you think the T A’s need to keep paying attention to pay less attention to anywhere you want to take it, man.
And as much as as I think sometimes we see it all the time. And so AI is just going to keep innovating. AI is just going to keep innovating. So that’s the one I would definitely pay attention to. There’s going to be new models come out, come out. And so the ones that we see today are going to be, you know, maybe stay in this phase, not stay in this space, but there will continue to be innovation in this space and investments of companies coming into this area.
I’m a technology or technology and cybersecurity expert for venture capital for VCs. And I see a lot of the companies that are incubating and growing.
And most of them are embracing some level AI.
And so I would say in the next five years, there will definitely be a different level of maturity within AI.
But but right now we’re testing it. It’s all about testing this in this discovery phase of it. And so that’s where the opportunities are. That’s if you can be a part of and lead the the landscape that we’re going in, of truly maturing AI, and the path and the journey that we’re going to go on, partnering with these companies, finding great solutions and suppliers that really understand and have a roadmap for AI.
Those are the ones that you embrace. Those are the ones that you try to bring into be partners with. That’s what I’m looking at. That’s a large reason why I do a lot of work with the venture capitalists space is just so I can see a lot of what’s coming before it comes. And some of these companies have some great products coming out. That’s going to just totally change the game with the archaic, some of the archaic solutions that are already in environments. The second thing would be because you’re having the efficiencies gained and productivity gained through AI, it’s going to replace a lot of legacy solutions.
And so a really big part of I think, where it’s going to go next, it was always a challenge for me as a CISO or on the CIO on the IT side. How do you go on that journey to replace legacy solutions with the innovation that’s available out there. And so as you’re working with some of these companies and starting to embrace AI, start working with them on road mapping the next five years so that they can start looking to transition from off of what will be legacy solutions to more of the AI because these smaller companies that are innovating, they’re either going to be bought up by a larger company,
or these larger companies are going to become obsolete and not be as big of a player in the space. And we’ve seen some of the bigger players that now are not as big of a player in the space, because they can innovate with the speed of cloud and things of that nature. And so those are the ones that I look at now. And that’s what a landscape is going to go, the new AI innovations, and then whether the legacy is going to be and creating a migration path to get from one to the other.
That’s where we wrap it, my friend. Lots of good nuggets in there. There was some rapid fire stuff that you had earlier and a couple of the other questions where, man, everybody’s, you got to go back, you got to listen to these, all these questions. You had so much in there. Troy, thanks, man. Huge, huge knowledge drop.
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. This was this was great.
Love it. That’s that’s where we wrap today. Just remember partners, as you’re listening to this every Wednesday, this thing drops wherever you’re listening, Apple Music, Spotify, go back and get those when they come out Wednesday morning before anybody else does. So that’ll wrap us up for today. I’m your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus. Troy Phelps, ex CSO advisor, TA Phelps brands. Until next time. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you.