Cyber909: Episode 19 with Irfan Jafar

Transcript

Narator:

Welcome to Cyber 909, your source for wit and wisdom in cybersecurity and beyond. On this podcast, your host, veteran chief security officer and Cyber Aficionado Den Jones taps his vast network to bring you guests, stories, opinions, predictions and analysis you won't get anywhere else. Join us for Cyber 909 episode 19 with Irfan Jafar.

Den:

Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Cyber 909, your podcast for some ideally entertainment, some wit and some wisdom. And we're actually recording this in the morning of Valentine's Day. So you are blessed because we have one of the best looking sales reps. I know Irfan Jafar. I'm going to allow Irfan you to introduce yourself. But the one thing I will tell you is we have a couple of little stories on Irfan and I and how we met and his journey as a leader. So let's get into this. Irfan, welcome to the show and god, you're a handsome man.

Irfan:

Oh man, Den. Well first of all, thank you for having me here and I'm really excited about this and really looking forward to our conversation today. My journey has been very interesting if you look at it because it's very difficult to really predict where you're going to end up. So when I started my journey was I did not know one day I will be a leader in the SaaS world in technology and helping our customers with those solutions. But my journey started, I moved from Texas after I finished my college and I started working in a startup company in Sowell. We were doing Windows Space and Thin client computing back then and Unix based terminals as well, if you remember Windows NT servers, and I'm dating myself, but I started my first year or two more like in sales operations and I was fascinated looking at salespeople, how they were operating and how they were helping their organization.

So I wanted to move into sales, but it's funny though that somebody told me, Hey, no, you're never going to be successful in sales. And maybe I wasn't coming across as somebody who's just trying to sell something and just more of a curiosity and more of an introvert at that time and still to a certain degree. So I decided to take the journey anyway, and that was like 20 years ago or so. And if you fast forward, I worked at many organizations, I worked at Oracle, I worked at Talent Riverbed, and then last 10 years or so at VMware where I really enjoyed and really found my success and helped many customers, including when you and I met at Adobe. I know we'll touch on that. And what I was finding as an ic, as an individual contributor, that anyone can lead, anyone can lead.

You just have to have that mindset that how you can show people what we can do, how you can help them, and in the process help yourself too and help people around you. So I always joke about it as anyone can be a manager but not a leader because if you don't have followers, you're not a leader. But I'll pause here, I know you want to double a little bit, but that's what brings me here today. The last three, four years I've been in a official manager leadership role and trying to help my organization from VMware to now Omnissa standalone company and a privately held company.

Den:

And so your current role, so you're a regional sales director at Omnissa. Do you want to explain to everybody, so where did Omnissa come from? It's a new company, but let's talk about the VMware journey and then how Omnissa spin out.

Irfan:

No, that's a great question and I'll touch on everything that's publicly available as well. So within VMware, at that time, my business unit was end user computing and in end user computing. We care about device management, end user experience, maybe physical endpoints or Windows, Mac, iOS, so on and so forth. And tying off it with security, if somebody is running a zero trust initiative, things like that. So integrate with other products out there. And then virtual apps, virtual desktops, VDI is not a new technology, but what has happened, evolution of it. So those were the key areas where we were helping our customers with. And when Broadcom acquired VMware, our business unit ultimately was spun off and that gave us an opportunity to be a standalone company. So everybody that was part of that business unit or many of the folks who are part of this business unit, we are now part of Omnissa. Obviously there has been some changes here and there, but our GM for our business unit at VMware is now our CEO at Omnissa. My role is still as a regional director, but now we are not tied to any other organization. We are a privately held organization headquartered out of Mountain View, and we are still doing the same thing, helping our customers with end user computing, but investing more.

Den:

And so the flagship product, is it Workspace one still? Is that the flagship?

Irfan:

Yeah, we still have the two flagship products, Workspace One and Horizon.

Den:

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. And Horizon's more like the VDI solution, is that right?

Irfan:

Yeah, and virtual apps.

Den:

Yeah, right.

It's funny sometimes. Yeah, sometimes I can't keep up with all the names of products and stuff because I'm getting old. And, I've been doing this shit for 30 years. So for me, like VD, I remember building out VDI Citrix on Citrix Wind Frame on Windows NT 3 51, and I think the year was 1998. It was my first ever. And then when I went to Adobe in 2001, I was the guy that resuscitated three failed Citrix pilots and then built out their first formal Citrix infrastructure. And then I was probably one of about three or four people, maybe three people in IT who were really pioneering VMware and the days before ESX could be even clustered, it was a standalone ESX server and I was putting domain controllers on it and wind servers and all that shit. And even Microsoft wouldn't officially support our deployment. And I remember my boss saying that to me and he was like, well, what's your plan if this breaks? I'm like, I'll DC promo the DC down the domain controller and I'll rebuild it. I mean, you can just rebuild these things. I mean you've got an ESX image, just bloody rebuild it. And then we met, so I think we met around 2017. I mean I'm maybe getting a date so modeled, but I think it was 2017, early 2017. Yeah. And we were doing our VMware stuff. So there was Benzi Carlo, your team,

And you guys were core to our zero trust architecture and I'll share with everybody. Okay? Right.

Irfan:

I we became a core part of your zero trust ultimately. Right. I think you were still coming up with a strategy at that time, but sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but

Den:

No, it's cool. Well, the thing was, I think at that time the team were still exploring which vendors were going to be part of this solution because there isn't, and I would say this to this day, there isn't a vendor that can, when they say they do zero trust, there's not one vendor that does all components of a holistic zero trust strategy. But our zt, we were focused on users access naps and services regardless of the network they were on and doing a posture check and improving the security as part of that access. And you guys, so we use VMware's, VIDM, we use Workspace one, we used F five and we use Okta and we glued that shit together pretty much.

And we partnered with you guys, you guys at that time then spun a partnership with Okta and went to market with something that we all worked on. But I remember the first time you and I met and I remember what's really funny, I don't remember shit really about all these projects and stuff, but I'll tell you one thing. I remember I was running late to meetings as always, and everybody's already meeting's underway. We're sitting there, your team's going through how brilliant your shit's going to work, like all salespeople do. And I remember I'm sitting on a filing cabinet at the corner or the back of the room you

Irfan:

Had your on were

Den:

Intimidating

Irfan:

Me.

Den:

I just remember being like your team, your engineers had done the little dog and pony show and it was a very impressive demo and explanation of the product and the architecture and how it all fits in.

And I had two classic lines that I'll never forget, one which I use a lot, which is your technology is very impressive. And then I'm like, it'll be amazing if the price is a dollar, it'll be really shit if it's a million dollars, I can't remember. But I basically throw in there because any product you ever see in your career, it could be great, but it could be really not great if the price is not within our reach and it will be great if it's within our reach. And so an overpriced product really dulls the tone of the product. But then my classic one was I kind think I looked over at you and said, I'm guessing you're the sales guy. I remember then I'm like, and I bet you drive a Porsche convertible as well and some shit, and you just looked at me and you're like, how do you know that? And I'm like, I'm insecurity. That's my job. It's not my job to know this stuff.

Irfan:

I'm like, alright, so here am I driving my old Porsche, which I didn't pay a lot of money for, but perception is reality. And I'm like, I'm meeting with, or at least not my client, but you part of that group for the first time. And I don't know what type of impression I'm making after what he just said because he saw me in the parking lot and I'm like, oh, but timeout, I only paid.

Den:

Yeah. The funny thing was I didn't reveal in that meeting until later that that's how I knew you were driving the Porsche. You had driven into the parking lot as I was walking past. You didn't know who, you didn't know who I was. I didn't know who you were. I don't know if you saw me or not, but I saw you driving in and I'm like, at that time you had this really big head of hair, your hair's pulled back right now, but this impressive good looking guy, big hair looking like you mean business. And I remember when I saw you driving in and thinking, I bet he's a sales guy. And then we sat in that room and I was like, oh, this is genius. Now funnily enough though, when I speak to my team and there's people on my team I really respect and they're good friends to this day, Carlos and all these guys. And I just remember Carlos being like our fans, good people. And I think the thing for me is, and this is what I wanted to dig into next, sales and salespeople and sales strategy and philosophy and mindset.

Den:

When

Den:

I think of a good salesperson, and I've said this to a lot of people, I don't have a lot of salespeople in my life that I would answer the phone if they called. It's about maybe a dozen and in 30 years, that's not a big number. But the one thing that they all have in common is building relationships and building trust. So why don't you share? You're a leader of a big team. Why don't you share the philosophies and the culture and how you try and groom and mentor people to be good sales leaders or good sales executives.

Irfan:

So I don't even look at it as that I'm in sales and I should be selling a whole bunch of product. I see that as a function of if you do the right things that happens, and I read this book many years ago, it's called Go Giver. So you got to have that go Go-Giver type of mentality. And that starts with also showing some curiosity in our meeting as well. I was really curious at that time, what is it that Den and the team are trying to achieve? Jokes being aside, and that was fun. And I carried to this day and even before that time as well, where put sales aside, you just try to figure out, okay, what is it that person, that group is trying to achieve? What problem they're trying to solve? What goals that they're trying to hit and how you fit in and how you can help.

So when you lead with curiosity and you lead with that mindset and then you also show up the right way, you got to show up prepared. You got to then live up to what you're going to say to them. So we are going to go in, we are leading with curiosity. We are asking you all these questions. We may not have all the answers that day, but if I'll say, let me find out how we can help, then I have to come back and let you know what we cannot do. It sounds very simple, how many people consistently stay true to their promise? Like, Hey, I'm going to do this and they'll come back. So I think in my mind at least, and the philosophy I have with my team as well, if you lead with curiosity and if you're really thinking about how we can help some money and forget that you're a salesperson, you're going to be able to build trust with the other side. And then when you build that trust and relationships just happen, you cannot just fake a relationship

By giving fake compliments or taking somebody to a game or expensive dinner. Those things can happen naturally, but don't try to trick people. I don't like that. And that's my philosophy back then. That's my philosophy now as a leader of the team, and that's the tone that I'd like to set. But then I also like to take the approach where as a leader, you should have a servant mentality mindset, roll up the sleeves and see how you can help them, how you can help remove roadblocks, but you also have to keep folks accountable. And I'm big on accountability as well, both my accountability or anybody in the organization. That's pretty much it. I mean I can expand on it a little bit more, but that's the core piece of leadership in my mind.

Den:

Yeah, I mean, one thing when I think of you, I mean there is the joke about how we met, but ultimately when we were partnering together, I felt that I could trust you. You'd done what you said you would do. There was no bullshit. The honesty and the credibility was established very early in the relationship. And collectively our teams delivered. And I don't even remember, I don't do a lot of vendor dinners. I intentionally didn't do that. Certainly before you'd done a deal, I wouldn't do a vendor dinner because I felt that was disingenuous from an integrity perspective after the deal sometimes. But more importantly, I would actually say, we'll, wait until we're successful. The dinners the celebration of our success together and then we continue from there. But I know a lot of salespeople that unless they can take people to games and dinners and stuff like that, they don't know how to sell. When covid hit, I could watch a bundle of salespeople just crumble because they didn't know, because the only tool in their toolkit was, let me wind you and dine you. It was like, fuck.

Irfan:

Right? Yeah. I mean you touch on a few good things. I'll unpack it a little bit. What I heard celebration is from a sales standpoint, don't think about, Hey, we closed a large deal and now we have to go celebrate with the customer, perform a customer standpoint. The work just starts now. And that's what you right. Until we see success in what we both agreed to after that, then we can go and celebrate. But just because somebody signed a contract with you, that's not the moment to high five and celebrate because the real work starts now. Unless, I mean they're just doing renewal. Extension is the technology they've already, but if you're rolling out new initiatives, the real work starts after you have that contract. And I did see a lot of people in Covid and especially in sales, even as a leader, I remember I would hear from other leaders saying that, Hey, my reps are saying that I don't know how to really sell right now because I'm not able to take my clients out for dinner or games and whatnot.

And I always thought that those are things that should just, if they're happening, that's fine. If they're not happening, it's fine as well. Nobody's really stopping you to the things that I said earlier. You can still talk to the individual, you can still figure out, but why are you doing this? Where do you want to go lead with why? As they say too, everybody knows about it, but a lot of people don't. Practice is the temptation of just doing the wrong thing is so much easier sometimes and other aspects of life too. And we'll touch on that later, just sales. So I think it's easier said than done is what it is.

Den:

Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned the why business. Yeah. I was listening to an audio book, I hate reading, but five whys, we're talking about business strategy, marketing and sales. And then there's like, why and why does your company exist? Why do you want to sell to people? And I've spending time on that area because I've been a recipient of this stuff, a practitioner for years. So all of a sudden now I'm on the other side where I'm now selling, well, I'm trying to sell,

Actually, it's not a muscle, which I am familiar with. And it's funny because I've reached out to you and a bunch of other sales friends, like I say, it's a small list, but I'm always asking and trying to understand what made you guys successful. And the common theme across everybody is this whole concept of we're building relationships. It's not the short sale, it's the long game. I mean, the theme that I got from everybody is all about, I've got a career in sales and a career sales person selling you this one deal might not happen, but let's keep the relationship, build the relationship and make friends. I mean, the reality is not all your friends, not all these good relationships are always going to buy from you, but your reputation and your brand actually spreads across the industry and across in their case, the valley here. So I think in any business context, building your brand, building relationships, and for me, trustworthy, I got a reputation of getting shit done. I mean, we delivered, we delivered really consistently. So where does brand sit for you and your team?

Irfan:

And if you're talking about personal brand, in this case, there's personal,

Den:

There's I'd say personal and team brand,

Irfan:

Personal and team brand, but not the company product brand,

Den:

Not the company. Yeah, not the product. So not brand marketing or product marketing.

Irfan:

I think you touched on a few things, and again, it is the definition of some of those things as well. And then I'll touch on brand. You talk about building a relationship with others. What I find, and this is over many years in talking to people, collecting data is like everybody has a different interpretation of these works. You say, Hey, you got to build relationship with your customers, or you got to build relationships internally, externally, but you have to double click on it and make sure that people are on the same page. What that means. So what we were talking about earlier, when people are just taking somebody to game or expensive dinner, that's not relationship building. Those things can happen as part of it naturally, but you got to understand relationship building is that you have to be there for that person. When you are committing to something, you have to show up, you have to do what you say and not just in sales. So it's internal, external and how you can help them, how they can help you.

So the definition is important, and once you have the foundation and the good interpretation of these words in the definition, the brand piece is really important. And what is brand? It is about, okay, how you show up, how do people see you? And if you're going to live the right way, people will see it. As they say, your action speaks louder than words. You cannot force yourself into the, Hey, I'm going to have a great brand. I'm going to go start telling people, oh, trust me, or I've done beautiful things here and I've done wonderful things here and this is why I'm so great. So you cannot really go and create your brand as such as well. So you have to lead by example. And then when it comes to the team brand, of course as a leader, you lead by example and then your team sees it, but then you also help them coach them how you build your brand.

And I have explicit conversations with my team member, like, okay, I'm going to help build your brand, but don't think of it as a negative thing. Building brand means that you have a lot of work to do as well. It's not going to be just, I'm trying to get you a spotlight, may be our sales kickoff or any other event, just for the wrong reasons. You have to put the work. But if you put the work and if you've really done wonderful things, then don't be afraid to share that with others because it's not self-promotion helping others, it's the Go-Giver mentality. Now you have an opportunity to help a larger team. And so that's how I see brand and I think brand is a critical piece, your brand, your team brand and how you're seen internally and externally.

Den:

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I've been trying to get, there's a brand coach that we used at Adobe. I pulled her in at Cisco and we're hoping to get her on the show because one thing I learned is you can be conscious about your brand and drive and manage your brand or a lot of people in the world, you don't even think about it. You all have a brand how people think of you, that's your brand. So we all have one,

But do you want to be in control of it or do you want to just meander through your life? Now, you also mentioned there was two things I picked up on one sales kickoff. You and I, you've managed to have, I guess your organization have me jump on a little stage with your team and we'll talk on that sales kickoff about selling to executives, selling to CSOs and CIOs, what matters. I've done a few of those with quite a few vendors over the years, and I always get excited to sit there and share with salespeople because I am so vocal about what pisses me off and what excites me about salespeople, right?

And I think it's good for me to sit there if I'm that upfront about it, well, hey, it's good for me to sit there with salespeople and tell them what I do think is good and what I think is not so good. And then I'm also a member of the CISO Society. There's a Slack channel with 1400 CISOs. So some of the questions for that SKO, I'm sending their way to try and get some other ideas or thoughts from other people because maybe I'm just a hard ass now you mentioned life. So outside of work, I look at it like a high performing professional. Regardless of what we do in our career, there's a balance between healthy mind, healthy body. So that enables us to really go and excel in our roles, our profession. So when you think of that, what does that make you think of and how do you keep your brain and body all healthy, a fake guy? So what do you do there?

Irfan:

Yeah, I mean that's a great question. And then what you also find that your personal life and your professional life are so tightly connected and how you show up in your personal life trickles over your business life and vice versa. You were touching on earlier about brand, and I'm going to get into what do I do outside of work and fitness? It starts with end in mind using Steven Covey's line, and I've mentioned this in other podcasts as well. So even if you're building a brand starts with end in mind. You need to know where you're going, where you want to be. So going back to staying healthy, staying fit, got to have a vision like, okay, this is where I want to be. And then you have to have enough discipline to execute on your vision. But if you're not going to have a vision, then it's going to be very difficult for you to do the hard things because staying fit is staying healthy does not get you immediate benefit in one day.

It's this consistent effort that you have to put in. And it's like hitting a rock a hundred times. The hundred and one hit will break the rock, but it's the 400 hits that you took, did all the work. So workout, staying healthy, eating healthy, it's all about doing things consistently. And then things start to compound, right? The book about atomic habits, the author talks about that as well. And I was talking about Stephen Covey earlier about beginning with end in mind. So I take that approach with the end in mind and then it makes it a lot easier for me to, hey, how soon I'm going to get up and work out because I know why I'm doing it. And I also understand that it's small increments every day, and that's what forces me to eat and eat healthy, stay healthy. A lot of things that I do are not easy for me either, right?

People say, I don't know how you do it. I'm like, okay, difficult for me as well. Now it gets maybe incrementally easier when your body adapts to that. That's true. But at the end of the day, we all are human and I try to make sure that I know what the end in mind is, but I look at end in mind in two different ways, the good ending and the bad ending because it's not just a reward that will motivate you. And Dr. Huberman talked about it with one of his guests where you also have to think about the what if and things will look really bad, but what do you want do to prevent that? So in my mind, prevention is the key to a lot of,

Den:

It's funny, right? Because I'll draw the parallel to say in cybersecurity, you could pay for it now and be proactive, or you can pay a lot more later when you're reactive. And when I translate that into health, I think of it like you're going to pay at some point pay now or pay later.

Den:

Because

Den:

If I don't have good exercise and good mind and body,

Den:

Then

Den:

At some point I'm going to be in a world of hurt. And I'd say I'm speaking from some level of experience where from my stress, and I'd say personal stress and bad habits and stuff led me to be going under surgery that wasn't ideal at the age of 48. And I look at it like, holy shit, I'm paying for this. I'm paying for a series of decisions. The other thing I think you're kind of getting at is discipline and consistency.

So if you become consistent, it becomes easier. If you're disciplined, then you'll start. Most people subconsciously, we don't like change, and change is painful or I'd say uncomfortable. And I think the minute you start to make the change, then gradually over time, what I'm part of phrasing and taking away from what you said there is it becomes easier over time because it becomes the new habit. It becomes a new normal. Not to say that it's ever easy, but if you know why you're doing it, then yeah, it makes sense. When I think of you, I think of someone who's disciplined in their personal life and professional life, what piece of advice would you give either your younger self or actually aspiring new people in sales?

Irfan:

Right. No, I mean that's a great question because hindsight is obviously 2020 and there's so much advice you can give to your younger self. I started this podcast talking about when I first was getting into sales, there are senior individual in our organization at that time telling me, Hey, you're not going to be successful in sales. And it did impact me a little bit. It shook me a little bit because I had nothing to show for as far as sales is concerned. So for a short period of time, it impacted my confidence. But what I learned that over time is the belief in yourself is more powerful than others telling you that it cannot be done, but you have to put the work of force. We talked about that.

And you have to be prepared to fail and fail forward as they say. There's so many examples of athletes, they fail so much and then they find success, the shots they practice in the gym, they're probably miss a lot more than when the actual game is happening. So the advice to younger self would be believe in yourself and the folks listening in who are starting in their career earlier, just believe in yourself, but put the work. There's a lot of emphasis on work less, but I think put the effort, work on your craft and become the best version that way. Become the best version of yourself that way. So that's the advice I'll give to my younger self. I don't know. What was the other part of the question? I forget.

Den:

Well, I think, and that's really the same version of it, which is what advice would you give to people you're mentoring, which I think you touched on. What's the best piece of advice that you've received in your career?

Irfan:

Yeah, I mean, over the years I've received many advices that are I carry forward with me and it's hard to just pin down to one. I'm sure you struggle with that as well. If you just have to distill down to one and you feel like that, okay, no,

Den:

No, by the way, it's a shitty question because you're like, wait a minute one, just one piece.

Irfan:

Just one piece. I think it goes back to my earlier comment and the advice that I'm giving to others, which is you have to believe in yourself. But again, it's the interpretation of those words because we hear so much, it's overused, but I expanded with believe in yourself. But you have to put the work

To put the work because you believe in your future self. You have that end in mind that this is what I'm going to be. So put the effort to all the things that are required to do to become that person, but believe in yourself that you can do it. Believe in yourself that you have it in you. Believe in yourself that you will become the best version of yourself that you aspire to be. So the advice that I got over many years from many leaders and people in my personal life as well, you got to believe in yourself, not ground shattering, right? It is just like you hear it so many times, but I've heard it too. And I take it to heart,

Den:

And you and I are big believers in a positive mindset and stuff. So the reality is, and I would twist the word, it's like fail many times. I can't remember, was it maybe Steve Jobs that said, this is you're not failing, you're learning. The reality is we're not going to get things right all the time. And someone who's just learning their craft has to, in nature, you're learning your craft, which means at the very beginning, you're not very good at your craft, you're just learning. So think of someone playing the guitar. I'm a musician, I don't play guitar actually, but someone playing guitar the first time they pick a guitar up, they don't know how to bloody play guitar. So practice, practice, practice, practice, be disciplined and put the effort in. And if you practice at your craft, then you can become an expert in this case, guitar player, in your case, sales professional, in my case, whatever it is I do, I dunno.

So yeah, so our fan, we're ticking down the minutes we're over. I always try and do the 30 minute thing and then some days I'm like, oh shit, it's an hour later. So I really appreciate your time, appreciate your support, your mentorship, your guidance, not just for me, but for those around you. We've had success together. I see. In the future, hopefully we'll have more success together. Han, thank you very much, man. I appreciate it. And hopefully we'll get you on the podcast again soon and we can talk about maybe the continued journey and what's next for you and the career. Thanks

Irfan:

Ma'am. Den, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it and looking forward to it, and many more conversations that we will have down the road. Thank you so much.

Den:

Excellent. Thanks bud. See you.

Narator:

Thanks for listening to Cyber 9 0 9. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and don't miss an episode of your Source for wit and Wisdom in cybersecurity.

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