 And how you doing, glad to have the techs out here, welcome to another exciting and thrilling episode of Hewakshadak. Grab yourself a chair, put up a live-action, and join us for a very interesting show this evening. I've got Andrew the security guy here, I never know when you're here, I never knew when you're not here, and at the point, I don't care anymore, so welcome home for what, four days? Yeah. Yeah, interesting guest there, we have Chris Peterson, he's the president of VectorFirm, and we're going to talk about the new paradigm of selling, or buying, or not buying if that is the case. So it's great to have you here on the show, it's awesome to talk about selling, in my case the lack thereof. So our new background, we got a new little spot on the beach here, so it's excellent. But I got, as we do every show, I do my little crypto-currency update, that's what I've been asked to do. Where's the gold coin? It was back in gold, what's happening on that side. So there was a fork in the Bitcoin, another fork, what the fork is going on with all this stuff. Anyway, there's another fork that was happening on the 24th where Bitcoin, a fork was happening, it was going to be called, it's going to be called, or it is called Bitcoin Gold. And the purpose of this fork was the fact that, we've talked about how the mining is being taken over by the big powerful conglomerates, i.e. China is the largest Bitcoin miner in the world, their electric bill is $36,000 a day, just mining Bitcoin. And Satoshi, when he created Bitcoin, it was supposed to be more decentralized and not have the big players in there. So there was a desire on another group to turn around and create this fork in the world called Bitcoin Gold, which would then enable more miners, not the big guys out there to be in that mining space. So the 24th of this month, that split happened and they got hit with a denial of service attack. Ouch. A big one. 10,000 hits a minute. I wonder who set that up. Who knows. The existing miners? So you started with Bitcoin Gold? Yeah. Well, Bitcoin Gold website was essentially down and I don't know how successful I would call that particular fork. I mean, the coin was created and it's there, it's trading at about $161 right now per coin. Well, didn't it start at zero? It started at zero, but right now, the way it works is if you have Bitcoin, because that fork happened, so if you had 10 Bitcoin, you'll get 10 Bitcoin Gold. Regardless, you just picked up $1600. Nice. So whatever way you look at it. $1600. I got 0.05 Bitcoin, so I got 0.05 Gold coins? Yes. Awesome. So you got 0.05 Gold coins, but now you can find the exchanges where you can get it and move it around and that's all going to take some time to iron itself out. So it's interesting to see how this thing has unfolded. Bitcoin has been unbelievable this past week. It was over $6,100 near the end of last week and it's now $5,600. So again, not for the fate of heart, we've told people this over and over again, but that's the latest happening in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency world. Right on. Thanks so much. All right. Pretty awesome. Okay, so let's talk to our guests. Okay, Chris. Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where did you go to school? Right. It's a local style. We learned all that kind of stuff first. I actually live in Orlando, Florida and went to school to University of Florida. The reason I'm here this week is I spoke at an event over in Kona. It's an electronic security event with Andrew and Christine were. And Andrew's company is a client of mine. So I thought, hey, if I'm in Kona, let's do something at your office. Listen to bring me all the way from Florida one day. Right. So I'm here and Andrew said, hey, you're going to be on Wednesday. Let's go film a shot. So what does he do? He actually talks. The world listens. The world listens. That's right. He actually talks. The world listens. Nice. So what does your company do? What we do is we help electronic and cybersecurity companies with their sales and marketing strategies. So we're a consulting and training business that has really two niches. We've got a horizontal niche where it's just sales and marketing. And we've got a vertical niche where it's just electronic cybersecurity companies. So it's a nice little square there. So that's not been normal for the security businesses. I mean, before you came along, the guys that were selling it out of the back of their van. I mean. Well, I would say this. I would say this. I would say this. That means nothing. Let's go. Chris's particular appeal is he knows this vertical very, very well. So specifically, you know, security industry companies and the challenges that their sales people face, the growth course for them. There's a lot of different markets that we work in, DoD, MuniGov, all the different commercial markets. So he's run into so many over the years. There's not many things he sees. He's kind of like, oh, I got 50 ways to get out of that hole. And he just has all these really great ideas. So I'm going to play the naive Hollywood here and go like, so, so, but why can't I just go to Costco and buy the stuff? Why do I need someone? My what stuff? Cameras. Bitcoin? Bitcoin. Well, if they let me put my ATM machine in there within the next few months, they're not going to let me. But that being said, so, but you know, what's happened in the industry that you're able to go into this industry, teach people how to sell when there's all kinds of stuff out there that you can see every day. Yeah. Well, that question and that's that's one of the directions that the industry's heading like any other industry. It's commoditized. And then something five years ago that only 10 people in the world could do today, your spouse can do it, right? And go to Costco. DIY. Right. And so that's one of the challenges that security professionals face today. So the folks that I work with are really high on the technology. So the things that Andrew's company does, you can't go to Costco and buy it. Right. So the folks that I help, they don't run into that challenge too often. In fact, the way we overcome, I've got a session on how to sell against the DIY Costco. Okay. They do it yourselves. They do it yourselves. Right. So one of the strategies is to identify who is a do-it-yourselfer and avoid them. And run. Run away. Yeah, leave them. I mean, heck, go ahead. I wish them all the best. Like, go ahead. Just not our, well, you know, our market. Well, as we know, all those systems are wide open to all kinds of hacks and. Yeah. But they maybe do what they need to do. Infection. There's no telling what else it does. Yeah. Well, that's it. They do what needs to be done. And most of my clients are working in a world where a lot more needs to be done. So how long have you been in the sales kind of in the business and in the industry of doing it? This is a niche market with what you're in. It's niche. And so I've been in sales since I got out of school. I actually have a mechanical engineering degree from UF, but I decided to go into sales because it just, well, quite candidly, because my girlfriend's father was a sales person in college. And here I was doing my thermal labs in my senior year of school. I'd go visit them a couple hours away and I'd see what he did. He managed a real estate office. And he owned a real estate office. And I saw what he did and his team did. And it was a big competition to make a lot of money. And I thought, okay, what do I want? Do I want to continue down this engineering route? And this was mid-90s, technology, early 90s. Technology was starting to really take off. And I thought, no, I want to get into this world of selling and sell technology. So that's how I got into sales. Now, in security, I jumped over shortly after 9-11 and the security. Which really blew the thing, no pun intended, but blew it up. Well, a lot of folks thought they were going to jump into the industry and become rich in a year and get out. And I have to admit, I didn't think that was going to happen to me. But I also saw a pretty, I had an opportunity and I saw a really growing industry. I started this business in 2010. Here's, I was VP of sales for a manufacturer, and manufacturers sell to companies like ISP, and installs and services that equipment. So you get like Adele, so there are views like Adele, even though it's not in the security, they sell, they're the manufacturer of a product. Actually Adele is a British singer, but. Yeah, Adele, good one. So like Adele or HP or whatever, who manufacture product, but then they also have those that sell them for them and service them. Yeah, right. Same in the security side. And what we were doing, our big mission, and let's say 0405, 06 was running around and building a channel of ISTs. Okay. And when we were doing that, I was in charge of a sales team doing that. What we noticed or what I noticed was most of these organizations did not have a strong sales strategy. They didn't, most of their sales people were maybe former techs. These organizations had an owner that managed the team, which he or she didn't have the time to manage the team. So there was a lot of gaps in how to sell and how to market their services. Right. It didn't matter if I was in Honolulu or I was in Mumbai. And I visited integrators in Honolulu and in Mumbai. And everywhere in between, they all had a similar issue. So I got this idea for this business. That was one dynamic was there was a need. The other dynamic was sometime around 2005, 2006. Right when the recession hits in 2007, a buying change happened. Right. B2B buyers stopped the traditional sales process. And they said, okay, we used to have a department of 36 people. Now, because of the recession, we have a department of seven people. We've got to utilize technology and utilize the web and other services to be more efficient. So I don't have time to see that salesperson. Right. I can check online to get a price. Yeah, they all became instant knowledge, like they knew it all. They knew what they found. Let's put it that way. Is that all of it? I doubt it. But they had enough to be dangerous. And I mean, I'm in a situation now where I'm doing some work for a client. And this particular product and service that I think will really fit the client's need, there's no local representation here on the island. So now I'm in this dilemma of do I become that local arm? Which in my spare time, so now I've got to maybe go and look for another product. But I know this product is going to fit extremely well in their particular fit. But you need to support the local support. I need the local support, and I can't find it. So you're part of that marketplace that still needs that local technical expert. So for part of the marketplace that doesn't really need that, the internet's fine. I mean, if I need to buy, we buy everything online because I don't really need a salesperson. I go to Amazon. That salesperson that was there 20 years ago was just there because you had to have someone for the transaction. Right. Whether it was a shirt, whether it was a pair of shoes, whether it was a bicep. They filled the order. You filled the order. The day online takes care of that, and I'm not missing any value. But if I am purchasing a security system, a technical security system for my complex organization, guess what, I need an expert. So what's happened, unfortunately, is the consumer came out, let's say 2012, 2013, we come out of the recession, but they have learned for the last five years how to be really good at that online. Research. Research and everything. So their thought is, we don't need sales professionals. So what my business has been built around is, number one, these security integration companies for the most part don't have time to build a sales strategy that works. And number two, the world of buying has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, let's say. And we're still selling. Well, let me back up. The world of buying, business to business has changed dramatically. We're still selling like we were selling in 1995. So that's where the impetus of this business came, and that was seven years ago we started. And it's been pretty successful, I would say, at this point. Good segue time. So are you ready for segue time? I tell you, I tell you, 14 minutes we just cranked through this thing in no time. I got to go to Angus. I got to go to the tech gadget that you found in the security business. Watch out. Competition is coming. All right. You need it. We need competition. He might be the rep. He might be the rep. Anyway, go to the tech side here. Add to the security guy. You got a security minute when we come back? I do. Okay. We got the security minute. We got Angus. We got Chris Peterson here. Vector firm. Vector firm. Paradigm selling. Back in a minute. Let's get it started. I got this. We got this. I got this. I got this. I got this. We got this. I got this. I got this. We got this. The match day is no ordinary day. The pitch. Hallowed ground for players and supporters alike. Excitement builds. Game plans are made with responsibility in mind. Celebrations are underway. Ready for kickoff. MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes. And toast their success. and toast their success. Avate your Match Day experience. If you drink, never drive. Hey, Aloha. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. This is Abachi Talk. Andrew's security guy here. And I just want to remind you of something. There was a big pack of WPA2, which is a protocol we use to secure your wireless equipment. Go update your wireless equipment. Don't wait. This is not one to play with. It's very severe and it's very pervasive. Anything you do that does wireless needs to be updated. If there's no patch for it yet, don't use it. That's simple. Do your patches. Okay? Angus, that was my security minute. What's up, buddy? Hey, good to see you here. Right on, man. Mr. Pearson, it's great to see you. Dude, that's a good Anglo-Saxon last name, you know. It's terrific. Anyway, we're talking about security systems and everything. I thought it was a great new device on startup. It's not available yet, but I already ordered one. Okay. It's a camera. Okay. There's already been a competition in there, man. I know it. There it is. That is from all angles. It's called the Moon by one ring. It's the world's first levitating camera. Oh, does it spin 360? It spins 360. I like it. Faces on the sound and everything is in the room. That's a good idea. 360 tracks all the noise. You can talk to it. You can actually sing it back into the room. Is it like a Kickstarter? It's a Kickstarter. You can donate to it? You can donate. It's like $209. That's smart. And you get one. You know what? For what? $209. That's it? I mean, they already made it, and you'll get one some day. I'll get one in about two months. All right. I'm going to bring it in here and have it floating around the studio. That'd be epic. That'd be epic. Because we could stream it out. Maybe we could do that, too. We can see what's going on in the studio. Oh, it'd be a whole new series. Right on. Awesome. I like it. It's a cool little thing. It's a 360 day and night vision. Sound direction detection. All kinds of cool things. Nice. Fine. So watch for it, man. I don't know. They're going to sell it at Costco, I hope. Anyway, let's make gadget for the week. And like I said, they have every segment. Let your win game free. Where are you be? Hello? Ha! Awesome stuff from Angus. Digging us up some security gear. He knows a lot of stuff out there, man. Make sure you find something that works for you. Just make sure it's secure. All right. Welcome back. We're on Think Tech Away. We've got Chris Peterson here from VectorFirm. Gordo's in the house. The text are. We were talking about the change in the buyer's habits. The paradigm. The paradigm. That's a good word. They're more educated now. How is that? There's a point I think where they're dangerous. Do you think they are? Do you think they just read stuff and think they're an expert because they read it? I think they think they're an expert because they read it. I run into a lot of that. I think they get the camera, the field of view. They get video a little bit, but access control. A lot of stuff evades buyers. Let me ask Andrew this. Yeah, go for it. When you get a spot, when you see a spot on your arm and you got a lump under your kneecap or something, do you call the doctor? No, I turn off the light. I go to maleclinic.com. I turn off the light. Do you really? I go to maleclinic.com. Most people go to WebM. I go to WebM. Or WebMD. You self-diagnose your medical. I self-diagnose. I have Christine and she self-diagnoses me off WebMD. That's right. Mine just said don't have a beer. Think about it. It's a good analogy because something that serious, like a medical thing, people would rather, do they not trust the doctor? No, they trust the doctor, but it's much more convenient. Oh, it's convenient. I didn't think of that. It's convenient and it's quick. So if you're going to use, meaning you as, think about it, if you're in a sales profession, if you're going to use the internet to diagnose yourself, something that important, aren't your customers, which by the way is for generations and generations, the highest, most profound profession is a physician, right? Right, yeah. And we're using the internet within 90 seconds to qualify as a physician to diagnose themselves. Yeah, you ask Watson, right? Watson Hill, that's it. Watson Hill. Yeah, that's it. Okay. I'm involved in that right now as a matter of fact. Awesome. Would ask Watson? With Watson, Watson Hill. Yeah. So I'm ripping that product here on the island. That's awesome. If you're going to do that, or if you're a sales professional and you utilize the internet to become a physician, think about what your customers do for something that's much less significant to them, regardless of what you're selling. Oh, that's true. And so, you know, the answer is you've got to become Google. You've got to become better than Google so that they're still going to go online and do their searches. Right. But they need to also email you at the same time because you've become that guy who, and guy is, you know, multi-gender. That person, yeah, yeah. That entity. That is going to be the person that I call for, because if you think about it, doing searches is kind of a pain. It's easier than calling a sales person or four sales people to come in and explain it. But if I can have a guy that I call and they give me an answer within 90 seconds, it's a lot easier than searching through Google. Especially if they can distill it down. If they're really, if they know their trade, right? And, you know, because when you read through, you're going to see thousands of features and benefits, all this stuff. And like, oh my God. And so, you know, you'll get a grasp of what's available. But how does that really, you know, distill down to what you need? You know what I mean? And that's what the phone call hopefully does. Well, you would think. But then I'm going to throw another one at you. We had a caveat in talking about the value of trust. Yeah, true. But a lot of people don't trust the sales person. I know what I was saying. They just come in. They just, you know, the concept of the used car salesman. Yeah. The concept, they're going to come in. They're just going to sell me a bunch of stuff. And I'm never going to see them again. Wow. And I still see that today. It's still pervasive around here. So, yeah, and I mean, when I started in the industry here in Hawaii, there was this, a bit of that. And I was so surprised. Because to me it's a very high integrity type of industry. It's just security. And I, coming out of military and law enforcement, I had a perspective on it that was, you know, fairly revered in my own mind. You know what I mean? And so to find that that was like, this is just another camera. I'll just show the camera. And you see it. You're just another alarm salesman. I'm like, no, I'm here to help you protect your people. There's an integrated solution set now. There's technology behind it. Sure. There's all the kinds of things that go with it. And there's also a difference between the residential side and the commercial side. So there's those, you know, because the commercial side costs you a lot more for the most part. But the residential sides are not that secure. I mean, you put it in and you tend to create a bigger problem by putting in an off the shelf product. Yeah. That's not configured correctly in your house. I love to talk about that industry. I mean, just the, you know, we didn't have 15 years ago, even 10 years ago, software defined radio available to you for some hundreds of dollars. You know, say I can get that software for free, run on a laptop, figure out that frequency, and jam. It's that simple. And this was super, super expensive. Probably a five figures to buy the equipment to do that with just 10 years ago. So, you know, to be able to sit outside your house and jam your alarm system, people don't know how easy that is to do. Now you got to have some technical chops to set up software to do it. But it's readily available. And it costs nothing. It costs nothing. I can go online and I can get a car, an access card mate. Well, of course you can. I mean, I can go get an access card mate. I can just go look at some organization and say, oh, it's an XYZ reader. Oh, they're probably using this. I'll order a card online. And chances are it'll work on that reader. So what the two of you are doing right now, this dialogue, which you don't realize you're doing is, you are becoming sales professionals in 2017, 18 in today's day. Because in order to become a successful sales professional today, you've got to become the perceived expert. Right. And when folks, and how often do you hear this, Andrew, in our space, we're solutions providers. If you want to be a strong sales person, you've got to be a solutions provider. And I'm not disagreeing with that. But if you're a solutions provider, you're a commodity. If that's all you are. Because I can go to Google and get solutions. Any question you have, I can go to Google and get the answer. But Google this. Google, find my specific problem. See what Google comes up with. Right. There is no answer to find my specific problem. What's your problem? That's a good point. If I'm a sales professional that understands my market well enough to understand what that university, what that hotel, what that prison or DOD base, what their problems are going to be. And I can present it to them. Like the two of you just did this dialogue. You were talking, you're presenting problems about residential security that your viewers had no idea were out there. So what you're doing is you're presenting problems and they are probably thinking, I need to get these guys in here because that's a problem I didn't think about. But it's a real problem. I need a solution. Now what we do today is we're solutions providers. So we wait for them to come to us, provide the best solution. Guess what? They don't ask us for solutions anymore. They find your solution here and they ask us for price. Yeah. That's not good. I mean, at least they're asking for something. That's still not the way we want to be engaged. No, that's right. We want to be engaged for our knowledge. That's also the wrong approach. I mean, as soon as they say, what's the number? I mean, I have clients that, the beauty of my niche is very similar to yours, is that I'm agnostic. But I come in and they will look at, they'll say, this is what we got. I'll help to find the problem. They'll agree that that's the problem. Then we'll identify solutions. Then they'll identify the solutions they like. And then we'll go worry about the price. Yes. And then there'll be more than one. There'll be two or three that they can look at and say, okay, I'm willing to pay this price for this or not that price for that. And I'm seeing that happening now. But I'm still aghast that 80%, I think, of the businesses in this town are still using Google and not commercial grade, residential grade product to secure their enterprises. It's beyond fathom. They're big enterprises. Yeah, that's an issue. And I mean, so soon I think they're an insurance company. When we have some UL, some of the guidance that we're working on in the industry, when we start to get product like that in the market, I think their insurance companies will change some of this, you know, they won't be covered if they're caught. Like if you have a fire and you had no fire extinguishers or sprinklers, probably guess what your insurance companies are going to pay. Yeah, well, then you'd pass there. But it's probably lied and said you did. So far back from the sales perspective, so how do you break through the executive rank to get them to understand that really they shouldn't just be relying on a security guard or some friend of a friend to provide their security system. Or whoever brought all their individual pages to them. Right. Yeah. I mean, how do you break into that? Well, the difference in today and let's say before 2006 is before you could break into it, by persistence, by creativity, you could push in. You can't push in anymore. No. You've got to be pulled in. Yes. In order to be pulled in, you've got to present yourself as an expert in the marketplace. And there are many ways to do that. The old-fashioned prospecting is still relevant. You still need to do that. Right. But you've got to combine it with traditional networking. You've got the social selling that you've got to do today. Here I can pump Chris's academy. So you sign up for Chris's academy. He'll teach you how to do all this. So in your vector firm, you've got, we can sign up. He's got an online academy. We've got an online academy and we can start getting introduced to the programs and the products. So what's the website that we can go to to get this? VectorFirmAcademy.com is for the academy. For the academy. VectorFirmAcademy.com. VectorFirm.com is my company. Is your company. But the academy is VectorFirmAcademy. I just had to plug that there. It was a natural thing. I'm glad you did because believe it or not, we're running out of time again. It happens. 28 minutes and 30 seconds. So anyway, Chris, this is number 138 in the series of solo cups. So I'd like you to highly secure that. So this is mine. That's yours. All yours. You've got 138 in the series. All right. And they're popping up all over the world. Yeah. On eBay. On eBay. So anyway, Chris, I want to thank you because it gives me a whole new perspective on how to look at how we're doing this sales. But these were like relationships, perseverance, expertise. Right. Right. Now I add honesty and integrity. Yes, always. And my handshake is my word. Yes, always. And that'll be the pieces that I will add to it. Anyway, thanks a lot for joining us on the show. Sure. This is Hibachi Talk in Tecawai. Every Wednesday at 1,300 hours. Yes. And live on YouTube. Check us out there. And also check out Hibachi.com. Check us out on Twitter. Check us out on Facebook. Anything like that. We look forward to any ideas and anything you want us to bring us on the show. And as we all will see at every show, one, two, three, how are you doing?