When You Focus on the Mission, You Will Make the Money | Evan Francen

Even if you don't win right now on customer acquisition - you will absolutely win on the churn rate.

People will not leave you.

They will stay with you forever because they trust you.

When I listened to Evan Francen, CEO of FRSecure and SecurityStudio, chat with Ryan Cloutier on their podcast, he said one thing that stood out to me:

“I don’t want any friends.”

I called bullshit.

And so, here we are, having a down-to-earth, candid conversation, full of “F'“ bombs and the “S” word 😱, about what motivates him, what his challenges are, what vendors do that piss him off, and the alternatives.

Look how that worked out!

Here’s hoping for a continued friendship.

Episode Highlights

• Complexity is the worst enemy of security. Vendors are adding to the complexity by telling practitioners to buy more tools.
• If people got rid of half the tools they have and actually learned how to use what they have responsibly, the industry would be in a much better spot.
• This is a service industry. We are not here to sell people a bunch of goods unless the goods are actually there to protect people.
• What really matters is understanding what a person's motive is and where they come from.
• Evan’s biggest challenge: getting people to speak the same language.
• When researching security products, Evan first identifies what actual problem he has and is trying to solve and only then evaluates if he even needs a tool in the first place.
• Information security is not about information or security as much as it is about people.
• Evan can tell when a marketer’s heart is in the right place; it is when a marketer actually inquires about the kind of problems he is trying to solve vs. pitching a solution to him and creating a problem for him that he wasn’t even thinking about.
• There are three things you need to build to get customers in this industry - trust, credibility, and likeability; if you can establish those three things, you’ll kick ass.
• Security vendors are fighting and kicking each other's ass over a market that's already being served - the enterprise; meanwhile, the underserved markets - small to mid-sized businesses - just sit there and flounder.
• The worst thing Evan has experienced from a vendor: false promises; it's better to have no security than to have a false sense of security.
• When you focus on the mission, even if you don't win right now on the front end - getting the customer acquisition - you will absolutely win on the churn rate. People will not leave you. They will stay with you forever because they trust you.
• If you are phasing into cybersecurity, take your time, keep it simple, and educate yourself.