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This week we continue to explore Security and Virtual CISO, with special guest Michael Marlowe, Vice President of Chasetek.

Transcript below is auto-generated, some errors may be present.

Josh Lupresto:

Welcome to the podcast that is 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.

Josh Lupresto:

Hey everybody, welcome back. I’m your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus. And this is the Next Level BizTech podcast. So we are getting closer to wrapping up the security track, and we are talking today, security and virtual CISO, Chief Info Security Officer. So if you tuned in earlier, you heard from the Telarus side, you heard Jeff Hathcote, our chief security architect, talking about all the things that Telarus is doing with regard to security. And then you heard from one of our suppliers, you heard from IGI and Paul over there. Today though, today we get the fun part. Today we get to be joined by the one, the only Michael Marlowe of Chasetek and talking about his view on security and everything that encompasses that. Michael, thanks so much for being on, my man.

Michael Marlowe:

Thanks for having me.

Josh Lupresto:

Let’s let’s jump right in. You know, part of my favorite you know, piece of these things is, is hearing about everybody’s history. How did we all get here? We’ve had some people that have known and been destined that this is what they’re gonna do. And then some people that have done everything crazy from car mechanics to I’ve been in door to door vacuum sales and everything in between. So, I would love to hear personally about you. How’d you start? What was your path? And then wanna learn a little bit about Chasetek?

Michael Marlowe:

Great, thanks. Yeah, well, the first thing you should know is it’s 5 0 1 on a Friday and a holiday weekend heading into Labor Day. So you gotta know that we have love of career and love for Telarus here at Chasetek, just by that staff. So I’m really started my inspiration to do what I do really started with reading a book one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch. The guy that created Fidelity Magellan, the kind of original huge mutual fund. And the reason it I go back there is that inspired me to become a, a broker, which I am today. So it was a different track. It was the Merrill Lynch Morgan Stanley track, but that got me into that career. And you know, it started with cold calling at Merrill and that morphed into developing a satellite office in Circleville, Ohio.

Michael Marlowe:

And which the home of the Great Pumpkin Show every year for those who don’t know and kind of following around their 401k plan, helping people retire. And that I, we made the move into Morgan Stanley as technology IPOs started happening. This is the late nineties now. And heading into the 2000 you know, kind of tech bubble. And around that time, I did that for eight years combined. And at the end of that tenure you know, helping people who had successful business careers and and lives the one common denominator that I noticed was that the people that were happiest were folks that were in control of what they were doing at work. That they were always themselves. So whether they were, you know, CEOs or doctors or whatever attorneys the big thing was that they were empowered to always be themselves.

Michael Marlowe:

And I felt at the end of that, that it was time for me to be one of them. So I went and started doing my own thing. We had a tech startup and had a few of ’em that I was a part of got involved in the innovation community and had a couple exits along the way. And getting to, I think it was 2014, 15 I did some innovation work for government in central Ohio, did an innovation study for the city of Columbus that they helped use to figure out where the city and should make investments in startups. And while I was doing that and wrapping that up along the way, I had known Chris Wolf, who’s the founder of Chasetek and for years up, up until that point.

Michael Marlowe:

And I just had this thought that they were doing really kind of innovative things. But there were things that I thought I could add to the table for him and his team. And never forget the conversation because it was the day after the calves won the championship. I grew up in northeast Ohio originally, so you know, a glu for sports punishment up until recent years. And so they won their first title, and the next day I was sitting down with Chris Wolf and talking about moving from central Ohio to Indianapolis. My wife’s from Indianapolis, we wanted to move here for for family reasons. Her mom, and on all, all her brothers and everything are here. So I was gonna pack up and go there, and I thought, you know, Chris, you’re Chasetek in central Iowa, a dominant brand.

Michael Marlowe:

And just had some ideas on how to broaden the practice into different geographies and, and verticals. And you know, he’s, he’s a great, he’s now my business partner and that, that was 2017. So from 17 until now I’ve been at Chasetek and really helped developed new, new ways of doing business that weren’t there before, or, or accentuating ways that they were successful as a company. And I’d say I have very, very lucky. Chris is a fantastic business partner. He’s really has great vision. He founded the company on the concept of filling a gap, something that was in the market that he felt should have been in the market and wasn’t, which is fantastic customer and client advocacy and service. And so he built a support arm. And we use all these tools on the backend, Salesforce as the platform, but all these different tools to you know, keep tr customer data in track all the different small bits of data that, that clients have a hard time tracking.

Michael Marlowe:

Like IP addresses, Mac addresses, phone numbers and we have a support team that supports all the clients at Chasetek, regardless of what we procure for them. And we’re really an extension of our clients team. You know, it’s, it’s that don’t replace anything that the vendor provides, it’s just adding another piece. We internally call everybody Promise Keepers just to make sure that you know, everything that was promised in the sales process or the client is expecting they would get, And, and that’s continues to this day. So that was his original idea, really back in 2004. And, you know, that’s really at the heart and core of what the, of what Chasetek is today. And so that has been in place, but along the way the technologies have changed. So, you know, what started out as pretty basic stuff back in oh ’04, ’06, or ’10, you know, right now is very very complex very different.

Josh Lupresto:

Good, good point. Promise keepers too. I like that. Awesome theme to keep. So, so we’re talking today now that we get a good lay of the land and kind of understanding of the business, you, you guys focus on, you know, terrific partner for delis. You guys focus on so much cool stuff very broad, right? I think you’ve got awesome diversity on the team. We’re talking today about security, so I, I wanna, you know, there, there’s kind of the, where it started versus where it’s at now. So, so talk to me about when did you first come in? What was your first Fourier with security, right? And then let’s, let’s transcend that a little bit into something more recent.

Michael Marlowe:

Yeah, So well, our first foray in security really came from our clients. So you know, we had been a kind of a bigger player on the network and voice. I’ve done a lot of UCaaS, a lot of CCaaS, a lot of just general network. I think SDWAN is, has been, a nice bridge for us in general to get into security cause that was a natural next step. But our clients really kind of demanded us getting better in the space. I mean, you know, we have been one of the things that we take pride in is being proactive in, in taking a look at how to be helpful to our clients and not waiting for them to ask us, but reaching out. And that was one of the reasons actually that you know, we had a recent transaction and joined the Upstack community.

Michael Marlowe:

And we saw that as a great opportunity to add to our tool set grow in a bigger way. And, you know, to their footprint was pretty large and, you know, backed by Morgan Stanley, backed by Berkshire Partners. So we saw that team as the right team to join. And, and really it’s, it’s, it has helped us create a lot of benefit for our clients that that just, it just adds to our relationships. And I would say too that the extension into security, I don’t think is gonna stop. I mean, I think that’s, this is a market that, I mean, every threat that happens, everything that’s out there in the future, the data’s getting so dense the needs are getting. So much more important that I think limiting choice is not an option for folks like us that wanna be the best at at what we do.

Michael Marlowe:

And, you know, I think my history of being in financial services, I think plays out in, in our focus today and something we talk about internally at Chasetek can actually express this to our clients as well as, you know, we see ourselves as the Merrill Lynches or the Accentures or those kind of, you know, advisor teams. We hold ourself to that kind of standard. And you know, the comparison historically is pretty, pretty valid. So just talking about this first hand since I came from that world, one of the folks that I knew at, at Morgan you know, he started selling shoes at Sears. Sears got bought by Dean Witter, and Morgan buys Dean Witter. And he had a guy 10, 15 years before was selling shoes, and now he’s run a multimillion dollar portfolios. You know, that’s his training.

Michael Marlowe:

And if you look back at the history of what we do, I mean, a guy like me 15 years ago would, you know, pickup truck with with a big phone switch in the back and doing drywall on the weekends. And, you know, now we’re in a much different place. I mean, we’re dealing with complex security analysis with people that have government compliances. They have to meet huge client demands that are really important with medical records or financial information. So the desire and need that our clients have is really what we’re striving to meet. We, we definitely have a client’s first focus and, you know, we’re, we’re challenging ourselves all the time internally and at Chasetek to continue to learn and get better. So and I don’t know, it just, it feels, feels like we got the best job there is cuz we get to learn and grow and, and help people all at the same time.

Josh Lupresto:

Right? It’s hard to call this work. I would say sometimes back in my car mechanic days, it was not hard to call it work. It definitely felt like work <laugh>. So, yeah, I relate to you on the drywall side. You know, you mentioned, you, you brought up a good point of, you know, your customers push you into this a little bit. And so we, you know, back in the day when we, when this whole channel thing first started, it was very transactional products because that was all we had to sell. It was long distance, it was data, and, and that was it. And so, thankfully, because of all the, the providers coming into this space and the new OEMs and, and, you know, coming to our model that allow us to be able to help people with this it’s, it’s opened that door. So I wanna call back to what you mentioned about how, you know, your customers had pushed you into this from a security perspective. How do you feel though now that you have that as an ability to help them? What has that done to change your relationship with your customers? Has it changed it, has it gone deeper? You know, what’s changed there?

Michael Marlowe:

Yeah, no, thank you for that question. And it’s changed in that we’re asking different questions, more questions, and it’s brought our relationships closer. I mean, our client relationships are the most valuable things we, we have. And, you know, it’s hard to earn someone to someone’s trust once. And, and we’re striving to earn it all the time. And I think you earn it all the time by pushing yourself to get better all the time. And, you know, when you add value and you can do it proactively, you know, I think that separates us in the marketplace because it’s okay to say we’re not there yet in terms of being experts in everything. Security. It’s not our place to be experts in everything. Security. It’s our place to connect dots, I think on security, it’s a, it’s a, it’s our place to, you know, ask the right questions of our client to, to make sure that we’re proactively interviewing them, you know, kind of creating their baseball card stats of you know, where they are and you know, what, what’s happened in cyber security insurance?

Michael Marlowe:

What are your new requirements? And, you know, what are your clients asking of you, you know, you’re our client, What are your clients asking? You know, what are your investors concerned about? And, you know, so asking questions a little differently. And you know, I don’t think if, if you’re, if we hold ourselves, I hold myself to be you know, the best I can be at, at what I’m doing, and the only way I know how to be the best I can be is to by putting forth as much effort as I can. And that effort is being pointed into being current learning. And, you know, you guys have a great university system that you’re building have built there in our world. I think there’s lots of places you can get better at. Your guys, your team, I think you’re at 15 now, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah. We leverage your engineering group a lot, partially because they’re doing the same things. I mean, I think JW just got another acronym.

Michael Marlowe:

Yeah. Okay. Hathcote I think creates acronyms.

Josh Lupresto:

He’s already got all that.We don’t know if he’s correct or not, but we just let it, he sounds really confident, so we just let it go.

Michael Marlowe:

Yeah. Haslehorst is kind of like, you know, he’s, he’s, if he hasn’t doesn’t have it, he’s on it. You know, I mean, you just have a team that, you know, and those are three. And so I, I’m, there’s 12 others I could mention, so I apologize for missing all of them, but I mean, you know, it’s only what, it’s, we limited the time in the podcast. But but the point is, is that you, you know, you, your team is responsive. Your team is helping us kind of vet ideas. There’s the space of vendors is so vast and people are buying each other, people are moving jobs, you know, the talent is moving around. So it’s not based on brand loyalty for us, it’s based on best solution that’s, we’re loyal to the best solution to our client, you know, And to get there, part of the best solution is the best people, right? And so we wanna know where the best people are and the people we, that we have trust and confidence in. Because, you know, at the end of the day, clients are coming to us because we’re delivering hope. We’re delivering confidence. And, you know, that’s a high bar. And we, we have to make sure that we keep that bar.

Josh Lupresto:

Love it. Great points. No, we, our, our team, you know, reciprocal appreciates the partnership, right? Because you’ve got, you’ve got choices in this, right? You could, you could lean on anybody that you need to lean on. And so I, I think when we see partners like yourself putting such an effort forward and trying to do this, and really trying to do the right thing and coming with as much information as they can all we wanna do is just, you know, 10 x that return back because we wanna, we get excited about, we see, we see the wind, we see the, you know, the what’s coming. So no, we, we, we appreciate all the kind words.

Michael Marlowe:

Well, they’re earned. And I gotta tell you, we’re keeping you the tasks. So, you know, I sound nice, but at the same time, it’s like, we gotta produce on Monday, or in this case Tuesday, cuz it’s a holiday weekend. But, you know, I mean, it’s, you know, we, but that’s the thing about our cultures that, that fit really well, is that, you know, it’s, it’s really at the end of the day about helping people and winning the best, getting to the best solution. It’s, it’s making sure that, you know client data is protected at the right price. And, and, you know, part of that is documenting that ev that we’ve looked, it’s not just one quote, it’s, we’ve looked at what’s out there. We pull in. You know, something that I think is important for us is that we have our own tools.

Michael Marlowe:

We, we develop our, our own tools, and we are, we’re leveraging your stuff too, which is, you know, we have our own scorecards we have our own matrix, we have our, and, and having your own work product I think is important. It, as far as delivering what I think our clients are asking of us, which is to be better than they are at figuring out where the best destination is. I mean, if they can do it all themselves, then they probably should. But I don’t think they can, you know, this is all we do. It’s all we’re focused on. And you know, we’re always we just went through a round of this actually, I just sent out I think it was to 10 different security vendors. Hey, can you update your status and our matrix mm-hmm. <Affirmative> you know, to, to pull in current information so it’s not enough to stay still because they’re different too. Yeah. you know, there I think been three transactions in the last month from different security or cloud vendors. And, you know, part of our job is to be current, to know that, and also to know, you know, where we’re most likely is the engineering talent gonna land. And luckily for us, you guys are stable. You keep your people, we’re talking to the same folks, and we have those strong relationships. So that’s been a, that’s been a good asset for us.

Josh Lupresto:

Awesome. I wanna, you know, as we get, we get closer to kind of talking you know, a little bit about an example and, and part of the process. So just curious real quick, is there any, is there any vertical or any certain type of customer that, that you’ve had more or less success with that you think is, is apt to have these conversations? Or has it just been across your entire base?

Michael Marlowe:

Oh, that’s a really good question. I’d say ver well, I think it’s more of a client personality than a vertical. Sure. I think the client personality is more important than where they are because like specific to information in security or specific to engineering help, if we’re in the room, that means they need it. The vertical needs, I mean, restaurants need it to, you know anything in healthcare, anything in finance, anything in, in it, you know, there’s no part of the economy that doesn’t need this kind of help. There’s no part of the economy that doesn’t have client data or financial data or, or something that’s has a compliance requirement. I don’t know of any industry really that doesn’t have some kind of compliance requirement anymore. Right. So, you know, because of that it’s really about the client personality. They’re openness to getting the best solution and them not having to own the payroll, right?

Michael Marlowe:

I mean, I mean that they’re okay with the concept of cloud, I mean, we really think about the concept of cloud. It’s this enormous engine of some kind and everybody’s taking their slice of it. So the power companies that way, right? We, none of us have, we might have a generator in the back, but you don’t run her all the time. <Laugh>. I mean, you know, we’re going to the power company for that. We’re going to Azure, we’re going to Amazon you know, for our piece now of the cloud. And to take that one step further, it’s do you really wanna hire your own CISO? Do you really want to, I mean, don’t you want you just peace of that instead of owning the entire cost, when really you don’t need the entire cost. You need a piece of that cost because you need a piece of the expertise. And I think that client mentality, if you have a strategic thinker, if you have somebody that is a little bit business and a little bit tech, that mix those, those are the places that we’re seeing a lot of success.

Josh Lupresto:

Awesome. I wanna dive into a little more you know, example based. So, you know, usually when we get into this part of the podcast, we talk about, you know, tell me what you walked into. I walked in, you know, this piece of equipment, this Cisco asa, this ford net. They were struggling with management, blah, blah. And I think this talk track is a little different because we’re not talking about necessarily a piece of technology, right? We’re talking about this intangible thing in, in the idea of virtual CISO. I mean, it’s, don’t get me wrong, it’s tangible with people as a service. But I would love to, to get an example, and we certainly leave all the customer names and stuff out of it, but maybe just walk us through somebody that, that you’ve walked into. How did you come into it? Did, did they know that some sort of augmented CISO or or framework or whatever was what they needed right away? Maybe just walk me through how you walked them into that process.

Michael Marlowe:

Okay. So maybe it’s a little bit of two examples. One is we had a client in the medical space that we helped their contact center. And along the way security requirements came up and that was became a piece of the puzzle. So we had, we started a formal process using kind of the, the tools I referenced in the contact center space. And then as we were interviewing them and kind of taking them through different iterations of who to be in front of there, security concerns came out. And as part of that, it turns out that project grew from contact center and, you know, grew a little bit into regular ucast phone systems. We got into the network, we got into Sdwan and Sdwan led us to you know hey, I need someone to come in. It started with 20 hours and it became 50 and then it became, you know, more permanent.

Michael Marlowe:

So it’s, it’s part of a larger process that we had an add on that probably today might be the biggest piece of that one. And you know, and it was totally client, you know, generated and I, and then that’s, I think the theme for us is that, and now when we’re meeting people, sometimes it’s the first thing that comes up, you know, so if it’s a new relationship, and so there’s one we’re actually talking to now that they bid out all of their all of their internet circuits and I think it’s like 53 different sites. And we’re, so we’re going through that now. And as part of that, like, Hey, you know, I gotta do a pen test. Well, the pen test, I can already tell it’s turning into a more permanent thing. We just did three demos for that.

Michael Marlowe:

I’m pretty sure which vendor’s gonna be picked and the next step to that. I mean, it’s pretty clear in the process. He’s like, he’s already admitting, he’s like, Yeah, I need something permanent. I mean, this pen test thing is, is important for the cyber insurance piece, but I know I need help and I’m interviewing people to try to add ’em to my staff as security. And I mean, you know, we already hand ’em the quotes to add that piece on a more permanent level. And I don’t think there’s a question, what’s gonna happen? And, and that, so it starts as one thing for us and is kind of, it changed, it’s, it’s helped really change our practice the last couple years. Because it used to be, Okay, we’re only gonna talk about these things cuz that’s where we’re comfortable and now it’s, we talk about everything. And because that’s where we’re comfortable because we got comfortable cuz we, we grew into it and we’re looking at the tools and expanded tools that we now have, especially with the, the latest move we made with Upstack. And it just, it expands our universe. It gives us additional additional resources to bring in.

Josh Lupresto:

Good good, good example. Good story. And so I wanna actually close to the end here, I wanna wrap up with a final thought around that. You know, we have a lot of people listening to this podcast that, you know, just like you mentioned in your example, maybe we’re focus in an area, maybe we’re focused on c a or we’re focused on network or, or just sdwan or somewhere different. What from, with regard to a security conversation you know, what would you talk or what, what would you say to partners that, that aren’t comfortable selling this technology? What’s your advice there?

Michael Marlowe:

The places that I’ve done the best is when I was uncomfortable and I got comfortable. So I think the only way to get over it is to do it. I mean, probably my favorite book is action trumps everything. No one’s read it <laugh>, it’s a really short book. But I mean, you know, it’s, you know, the only thing I, the only way to take control is to put the, put the work in and to start failing at it. You gotta start failing to get better. And, you know, you don’t have to fail to hurt your client. I’m not suggesting that at all. But you gotta be okay with getting a little embarrassed maybe, you know? And, and by that, that’s where it comes into leading on some smart sales engineers or, or security engineers in general to make sure that, you know, you’re not injuring anybody on the learning curve.

Michael Marlowe:

But but it’s, that’s a whole lot better answer than telling somebody, I don’t know, I’ll get back to you. I mean, you don’t have to say, I don’t know, I’ll get back to you. You can go in with somebody who can answer the question real time because it’s more respectful of, of your client’s time to come in with somebody that you know is gonna have the answer. And you know, one of the things that I pride myself on is taking copious notes and reading ’em back to the client, sharing them, Hey, listen, I listened to you, I listened to you because I took all these notes and this is what you said. Right? And I think part of that has helped me personally get better at security because I’m, I’m doing it. This is the only way I know how to get better is with live ammo.

Michael Marlowe:

Partially cuz we don’t have any time, there’s just no time spare at Chasetek. We have a lot going on. So, you know, if we’re gonna get better and keep up and keep up with what, you know, we feel strongly about producing for our clients all the time, the only way to do it is, you know, in real time. And we just, and to make sure that you just have the right people around you so that, because at the end of the day, if you are able to get better for your client, you’ve helped them you know, and and as part of the getting better process, you’re able to deliver them a better answer than they had before. And, and that’s part of it too, right before you enter the conversation with your client, there were someplace they were the place they’re at right now and at the end of, you know, your interaction, they, they gotta be in a better place. You know, and if they are, then it was a good experience.

Josh Lupresto:

Awesome. Great advice. Good stuff. Michael Marlowe, that wraps us up for today. Man, I I I really appreciate the partnership, appreciate the kind words. We love how much you guys lean in again, it just, it makes us wanna lean in more and we’re I think we’re just getting started. We’re excited to keep everything going and keep building what we’re building.

Michael Marlowe:

Absolutely. The couldn’t not be more excited about the future. It’s you have shades on, don’t you future. No, you don’t have shades. Future’s pretty bright

Josh Lupresto:

<Laugh>. I could put some on with the Zoom side effects, but, but nobody will see it in our audio podcast, so I love it. I’ll take it. Awesome stuff, man. Alright everybody, that, that wraps us up. I’m your host Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering for Telarus. This is Next Level BizTech podcast and this puts the bow on the security in virtual CISO track with Michael Marlowe of Chasetek. Until next time, Thanks everybody.