Back to Basics! Understanding Your Digital Crown Jewels with Evgeniy Kharam | Part 2

In this episode of the Cyber Savvy podcast, host Mike Shelah continues his conversation with Evgeniy Kharam, discussing Evgeniy's new book "Architecting Success" (released August 2024). Evgeniy shares the inspiration behind writing the book, drawing from his 17 years of experience at Horjavek Group where he observed countless vendor pitches.

Key topics include:

• The importance of asking customers what they need rather than following rigid presentation formats
• How remote work during the pandemic changed customer engagement dynamics
• The evolution of sales engineering roles in the tech industry
• Effective communication techniques, including the power of open-ended questions
• The distinction between hard skills (predictable outcomes) and soft skills (dynamic interactions)
• Strategies for qualifying prospects and determining decision-makers
• Managing burnout in high-pressure sales environments

Evgeniy emphasizes the value of emotional intelligence in professional interactions and shares practical examples of how to engage customers authentically. The conversation bridges technical expertise with effective communication skills that are essential for success in cybersecurity and sales.

The episode concludes with information about where to find Evgeniy's book, available in audio, print and Kindle formats on Amazon, and on his website softskillstack.ca or softskillstack.com.

Want to hear more? Past episodes are all posted, including on YouTube! Follow and subscribe on your favorite podcast app to ensure you don’t miss out on the conversation!

Transcript

Mike Shelah (00:00)
 Hello everyone and welcome back to the Cyber Savvy podcast. I am your host Mike Shelah and today we are continuing our conversation with Evgeniy Kharam Evgeniy thanks for coming back with us. And I am very excited to talk about this book "Architecting Success." I am a book nerd for those listening.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (00:13)
 Thank you, thank you, definitely happy to come back.
 
 Mike Shelah (00:24)
 I have read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 books in the last 10 years, mostly around professional personal development. Sales is certainly in there. Public speaking is certainly in there. Communication is certainly in there.
 
 we, we, we touched on the subject in the first segment, which is you have to be able to take technical concepts and explain them to non-technical people. And I'll take it a step farther by saying a non-technical person is anybody that doesn't eat, live, and breathe your world that, you, you have to be able to explain yourself.
 
 So tell me when did you write the book? What was the inspiration for the book and what has been the response so far?
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (01:09)
 It's a loaded one, but I'll try to do it as quickly as possible. Inspiration. The book came out in August, 2024. The inspiration came from several things. One, I worked for a company called Horjavek Group for any of you watching Shark Tank in the audience, Robert Horjavek. And I had this unique experience to work with hundreds of vendors. So for almost 17 years in Horjavek Group, I heard so many pitches. I heard so many vendors.
 
 Mike Shelah (01:13)
 No, no, take your time.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (01:35)
 I was kind of collecting pitches. was collecting demos. I would see what people doing and the part that started annoying me quite a lot. It is going to be always a salesperson and a sales engineer. And the salesperson will say, Hi, I am blah, blah, blah. Let me show you my presentation. And then the engineer will say, and I'm blah, blah, blah. Let me show you my demo. And not so often people will ask, Hey, Mr. customer, we here for half an hour?
 
 We can show you a demo, can show you a presentation, we can talk about a solution. Guide us was the best way to spend this time. And yes, it's not working every time, but in majority of the cases when you can actually guide and be guided by the customer, it works better. You are dynamic, you're changing what needs to be done. This is number one. Number two, pandemic happened and we all work to work remotely.
 
 And I really saw a very big change because when I meet you in your room, we are attached to each other. We are very focused on each other. We are not on our devices. When we're talking over Zoom, Teams, Google, Riverside, we have screens around us. I have four screens. So I'm talking to you, but I still have a LinkedIn bouncing on this part. And I have something here on WhatsApp that I don't know what it is, that I forgot to close.
 
 So I'm not fully focused on the conversation. It doesn't matter how I want to. I may be 99, but I'm not 100%. And what I mean by this, we have seconds, minutes to connect with each other that the other person, the other end will care about what are we talking about. And this has become very, very important. I read Dale Carnegie a long, long time ago, to Find Friends and Influence People.
 
 And this was my journey of the connecting to people. So this is number two. Number three, I definitely saw the difference and the changes in sales engineering and sales. The sales engineer became much more important into the deal and the salesperson kind of moved a bit, not just to become a salesperson, but also become a procurement guru because the buying process becomes very, very hard. So they need to understand really how it's working.
 
 It was also another insight. And the last insight actually happened during writing the book. Because I realized I'm describing a bit and this is hint probably for the next book as well. The journey of Evgeniy as a second time immigrant with definitely not perfect English, definitely not perfect accent, somebody that speaks very fast, afraid to open up and talk to a big crowd of people. It took me a lot.
 
 to understand what to do and how to work with myself. So definitely, definitely on the journey to help other people immigrants and not immigrants, technology folks to express themselves better and in the language people can understand. This is the idea came from took me eight months to figure out what to do with the idea I was chasing.
 
 different publications until I realized it's a mistake and I end up finding an editor in Montreal, not far from Toronto. And in nine months we deliver the book.
 
 Mike Shelah (04:44)
 Wow, I love it. So I want to address your first comment around the Salesperson sales engineer pitch deck demo dynamic I've never been a particular fan of that myself. I remember many years ago I had taken a job with an IT company and the owner of the IT company Showed me this PowerPoint that he had put together
 
 and after he was done showing it to me he goes what do you think I said it it's it's a powerpoint he goes I want you to use it I said I will not and he kind of looked at me like why I said
 
 tell me which slide in that deck speaks specifically to the needs of the client that I'm engaging at that moment. And he goes, well, you know, I just, I just use it as a placeholder to know what I should be saying. And I said, well, I don't need that. You know, I prefer to instead ask the questions of the person about their business because that gets them talking. And I learned more about their business that way.
 
 Now where I do find value in something like a pitch deck is when we're, when we've intellectually agreed on both sides, there's value to me being a customer. Show me what being a customer looks like. So I used to have this deck that I had put together that would basically walk the client through
 
 Here are the tools that you get. Here's why we implement them. And here's the value to you as the customer for this tool. So it was a very, on a practical level, we're going to implement this tool. We implement this tool because it does A, B, and C. A, B, and C values you as a customer because of this. And that was our strategy and it was successful.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (06:23)
 Why me? Because you brought something very dear to my heart and it's a chapter about this in the book. You mentioned I want the customer to talk and I have a chapter in the book about questions. this is for people listening to us. This is not sales. This is consulting. This is conversation. This is almost everywhere. Even talking to your kids, not always working. They have a different ways, but still sometimes.
 
 Mike Shelah (06:31)
 Please.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (06:46)
 We have open questions and we have closed questions. And in many cases, we use closed end of questions where we should use open ended questions. I don't like the typical assessments, for example, in cyber. Do you have vulnerability management? Do you have firewalls? Do you wash your teeth in the morning? Yes. No, doesn't really help me beside check, check, check. If I want someone to talk.
 
 and we will just do the exercise. Mike, what is your favorite color?
 
 Amazing. How did it help me? Nada. It didn't help me a lot because like, Mike, why do you like blue? Now Mike feels like I'm interrogating Mike. Okay. Versus, Mike, what's your favorite color and why?
 
 Mike Shelah (07:18)
 Heh.
 
 so it's just that it's that little wrinkle at the end.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (07:30)
 Not interrogating. Not... Just like... So you can try to answer. Like answer. Let's see how it goes.
 
 Mike Shelah (07:36)
 I think it's largely because of the color of my eyes. So it just, you know, when I pick something out to wear, it just suits the color of my eyes.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (07:44)
 This is interesting because I actually, when I wear blue, my eyes become bluish as well. When I wear green, my eyes become greenish as well. So they change. I know it's something like chameleon. Do you have the same feeling or is different?
 
 Mike Shelah (07:57)
 No, I just think the blue becomes more pronounced. Mine are always blue, but when I wear a blue shirt, they just seem that much more blue.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (08:04)
 So when you need to choose a color of the car or something you buy, you go with blue?
 
 Mike Shelah (08:08)
 the answer is depends. Certainly when I'm picking out dress shirts, I do like to look for a nice bright blue shirt.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (08:13)
 So we move the conversation forward we learn you like dress shirts I connected to you I told you what what I like and why I like blue for support some pieces as well and I can go farther to understand Dress shirts is this the outfit what you do? But again, it's not Cyber but you didn't feel like I'm attacking you I hope so you feel like we're just talking about stuff that dear to your heart
 
 Mike Shelah (08:33)
 Yeah, great topic. Several years ago, was coaching a young man who was going to be doing sales for his father's company. They sold telephone equipment and structured cabling to businesses. And I got to work with him for 10 weeks. And I want to say it was around week seven or week eight. We were talking about some different topics. And I said to him,
 
 You know, he kept bringing up money as a deciding factor in sales. And I said, money is a factor. It's not the deciding factor. I said, you just bought a car, didn't you? And he said, yeah. I said, why'd you buy it? He goes, oh, because it was the best price. I said, okay, how much did you pay? He goes, $17,835. I said, really?
 
 That was the only car in the state of Maryland for $17,835. He goes, no. I said, okay, so why'd you buy it? He goes, well, the dealer had some different incentives going on and this was a car that I had been interested in for a while. And you the price fit my budget and then he stopped talking. goes,
 
 my God, you're right. said price is a factor. It's always a factor for people. They have to make decisions to a certain extent on the cost of something. I had another great conversation with a business owner just a few weeks ago who is contemplating changing his IT companies. And he was telling me about why.
 
 He feels like he's outgrown this company and his company is a 24-hour facility. They provide white glove transportation services for everything. Everything from cars to boats to planes. You can get a private jet from this guy if you want. As a result, they have to have 24-hour capabilities.
 
 and I listened to what was important to him and what was on his mind and I said I definitely think my company is an upgrade over what you have in place now but I don't think we would fill all of your needs and his response to that was no you probably don't
 
 but you probably fill enough of my needs for the budget that I'm willing to pay.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (10:51)
 Yes.
 
 Mike Shelah (10:51)
 So that communication
 
 is really critical to finding out where a customer is coming from.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (10:56)
 And yeah, we spoke
 
 in our previous episodes about understanding the customer need, understand what they need and what's happening. So I think this is a good example about communication. The customer will guide you what they need. There was not just shopping and you explain to them what they can get. So you guys met in the middle or somewhere to understand that it's actually a match.
 
 Mike Shelah (11:19)
 Yeah, and I'm guessing that goes a lot into architecting success. So how do you define soft skills? Because that's term that gets thrown around a lot. Yeah, it gets thrown around a lot today.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (11:28)
 It's a very wide term. Yes. Yes. And some people don't, some people
 
 don't like the term. Some people say it should be human skills. I slightly disagree and I like the soft skills and I'll explain it. We'll defend my So first of all, there's soft skills and soft skills are opposite than hard skills. Hard skills in my mind are things we do that we expect the same outcome, mathematics, chemistry, programming.
 
 We do something when we expect the same outcome. So soft skills is things that are very, very dynamic. This could be active listening. This could be emotional intelligence. This could be guiding. This could be vulnerability, ability to speak and to speak well, for example. But what I want to add here, and I'll an example about soft skills in a second as well. We also have places where we use soft skills. So communication in general, it's a soft skill.
 
 But where we use the communication is going to be different. is where we use the communication. Podcasting video, having your office set up is where we use soft skills. Having a good camp, for example, I could be an amazing speaker and communicator, but I can have a shitty camera, shitty microphone, shitty lighting, and nobody ever going to know how well I am speaking. Or I have a bad internet at home. So there are places where we use soft skills.
 
 and not just the soft skills itself. And I want to give an example about soft skills versus hard skills. For example, if I ask Chad GPT, how you doing? How you doing? How you doing? How you doing? Tell me I'm doing well. I'm doing well. How can I help you? How can I help you? Five times, six times. If I ask you how you doing, how you doing, how you doing on a fifth time, tell me again, what's wrong with you? And you're going to punch me in the face because I already
 
 Mike Shelah (13:08)
 Yes.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (13:09)
 And this happened quite a lot. If you're walking on the street and be having a conversation and you just tap into the puddle, your tone will change. The way you communicate is changed. Something changed in your persona, in your voice. If I'm a good friend or I'm a good listener or I'm curious enough, I will capture this and understand something happened. You may don't want to tell me this. like, hey, is this still a good time to talk? And you say, no, no, no, no, no, no,
 
 We will change from it. We are not there with AI and with robotics. We may going to be there one day. I don't know. But it's definitely one of the things that are important and in the era of AI, the ability to understand people and to tune to them becoming the more important in my mind.
 
 Mike Shelah (13:54)
 Yeah, and you just raised a very important point that people struggle with. So, you know, we joked a little bit about Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross in the last episode. I know, because I've been in sales my entire career now, which is over 30 years.
 
 and early on in my career, you did not ask for permission. You begged for forgiveness. So you would show up for a meeting and if the person was like, now's not a really good time, you would basically push yourself until the person told you to go pound, sand and three out the door. Whereas today, I think the truly successful businesses have recognized that
 
 You you may show up for a call like this and you may look at the person on the other screen and go, wow, they don't look like they're engaged. And you may say to them, know, if getting, it looks like you've got a lot on your mind today. If today is not a good time, you know, I'm happy to reschedule. I want to make sure this is a good time for you.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (14:58)
 This is a lot
 
 of emotional intelligence in EQ you bring in here right now. Same idea. Because people sometimes just stack on their own agenda and they like a bulldozer. No stopping. I have 50 calls I need to do today. No, no, no, no, no.
 
 Mike Shelah (15:14)
 Yeah, and you know, that gonna really serve you? Are they just checking a box to say, I met with Mike Shelah. Yeah, but was I really actually able to help you? Or were you worried about, hey, that next call in 20 minutes, I gotta have ABC XYZ prepared?
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (15:28)
 Yes, it is. And I also talk in the book and just myself as well, that in many cases, you can, you want to get to a no as fast as possible if the customers don't want to buy it because you're saving their time and your time to, in some cases, the customer just here for educational purposes and it's fine. It's okay. Acknowledge this, spend the time because the world is round. You're to come back to them or they will
 
 Mike Shelah (15:46)
 Mm-hmm.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (15:53)
 respect that you didn't drop them because you know, is not a prospect right now. Ask, you know, if you can come back in a few months when it can be appropriate. And guess what? In many cases, people change jobs and it's going to talk, you got to them again. And they will remember you that you made them feel good and that you respected their time and you did educational part.
 
 Mike Shelah (16:11)
 Yeah, any decision maker that is willing to give me their time when they know they're not in the market, that's that's sales gold. Because you.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (16:20)
 Reno is their
 
 decision maker. Let's go there. Let's go. Let's talk about this part. This is this is a fun part. Would you actually ask on a call, Mr. customer, just to understand better. Is this is something that you're responsible? Do you need somebody else to approve this? Are you the budget owner? It's a lot of vulnerability on a salesperson to ask this question, because like, why do you ask me this? You know, it's it's.
 
 In Israel called chutzpah, know, like you kind of, but you can, but you can do it nicely. You can ask them in a way they are respectful to them, but it's important to get.
 
 Mike Shelah (16:47)
 Yes.
 
 Yeah, one of my favorite ways to address that is who else would be involved in this decision on your end? You know, typically when I talk to the owner of a company, they like to consult along with their finance person as well as their operations person. Would you want to do the same?
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (17:19)
 You're not asking them directly. You're asking them in a way they can go back and it's another way to do it, 100%. So you choose the way you communicate, but you're getting into the same answers in many cases. One of the techniques I used to use, again, and I'm on a technical support side usually, at least in the past, was sales. I will ask on the call, Mr. customer, just to understand to be on the same page.
 
 I want to make sure my team is prepared to help you. Are you going to install deploy by this quarter, next quarter? It's a very innocent questions from a techie that basically help the sales person to understand how real is this deal. I never had somebody not telling me because they know I'm not asking for a sales. I'm asking for technology information to support them.
 
 But in reality, I'm asking for a sales question.
 
 Mike Shelah (18:12)
 Yeah, and that's a favorite of mine as well. When is this a priority for you? Is this a priority in quarter two, quarter three, quarter four? Because what I wanna do is I wanna come back to you when this is something that you want to work on.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (18:28)
 And coming back to vulnerability and guidance, I think it's totally fine when you build the report, when you build the conversation. Please guide me what's the best way to work with you company. Is there anything particular I need to make sure is ready? Do you need third party assessments? Do you need me to do XYZ? Let me help you. Do you want me to help you to build a business case? But guide me, tell me what needs to be done.
 
 And it's also qualifying questions
 
 Because the last things you want to do is to start the POC or POV and nobody gonna touch it.
 
 Mike Shelah (18:58)
 Yeah, one of my favorite books ever is called The Challenger Customer. And it talks about the dynamic that there are 5.6 people involved in a business decision, depending on the size of the company. And some of those people are skeptics. Some of those people are advocates. Some of those people are time wasters. Some of those people are simply enablers of a yes men.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (19:03)
 you
 
 Hmm?
 
 Mike Shelah (19:23)
 And the more you can understand who you're talking to at this moment and where they fit into the conversation, the better the likelihood that you can help the customer.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (19:35)
 Yeah, I agree. There's so many different interesting parts in the communication level, but I also want to touch base on one part in the book that was a bit of surprise to me when I was writing this because I was not going there. And it came out of the writing of the book. And it's a burnout. We talk about burnout quite a lot, but in sales and not just in sales, we are so
 
 dedicated and we're so focused on the task we need to do. Like, I'm going to do 10 calls, 12 calls, 20 calls a day. But we're not always present on this call. So what happened if you're getting Mike doing four calls and a fifth call, somebody kind of slam us against the wall? You have a very bad call. How do you come back full of energy, full of enthusiasm on the call number six?
 
 Mike Shelah (20:24)
 Yeah, it's a great question.
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (20:24)
 I mean, you recharge
 
 your battery so so quickly. It's not easy, but there's techniques, there's a way to do it. This is a self-awareness that you need to understand that this has happened because part of the problem people don't understand. Oh, I actually burn out. They're not doing a self-check. They're not helping themselves because you want to be in your best form to do the work you need to do.
 
 As I mentioned before, you have a great voice, you're a good communicator, but the tools you use around you are not helping to shine the light on you.
 
 Mike Shelah (20:56)
 Yeah. Well, Evgeniy, this has been a great conversation. I got my copy off of Amazon. Where else can people go to find your book? Or is Amazon the place to be?
 
 Evgeniy Kharam (21:01)
 Thank you.
 
 Amazon, so there is the audio version right now, starting from December, there is the printed version, there's a Kindle version. I have a website as well, softskillstack.ca or softskillstack.com where I have more information about the book and I have information about like blogs and the podcast right now about communication and sales as well.
 
 Mike Shelah (21:30)
 Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Well, Evgeniy Kharam, thank you so much.
 
 for joining us again on the Cyber Savvy Podcast and to our listening audience, we hope you have enjoyed this episode. We took a slight step away from our normal Cyber conversation, but still kept the Cyber nerd in it. So thank you for listening. Remember that today's podcast is powered by DTC. To learn more, go to www.dtctoday.com. And remember, at DTC, we make shh.
 
 IT work. Thanks for tuning in.