Stop Pitching, Start Teaching: The Real Work of Evangelism

In this episode, Xander, Jeremy and I talk about what it really means to become an evangelist in your industry. It is not about having the loudest voice, the slickest pitch, or the best product demo. It starts with understanding the foundation deeply enough that you can make complicated ideas easier for other people to understand.

Using our experience in physical security as the backdrop, we break down why evangelism is really about teaching, translating, telling the truth about trade-offs, and helping people make better decisions. Whether you are in security, technology, sales, or any field where you want to become a trusted voice, this conversation is about building credibility by making other people smarter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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Intro from Phil

SPEAKER_01 0:50

To educate the members of PSA on best practices for cybersecurity for access control. In that session, we talked about things like obviously mobile credentials, but uh the importance of TLS and AES encryption, uh, modern credentialing standards and all that sort of jazz. While we were there, we ran into our friend Xander Alexander, who at the time was the Motorola evangelist. Xander has since moved on from Motorola, but we ended up recording a session that talked all about the role of evangelists sort of in this new age of digital media. I thought this conversation was actually really fun, and it's really relevant in today's day and age where sales is sort of taking this um more social media centric approach. In this session, you'll get to hear sort of my uh journey towards becoming an evangelist. Uh, same with Xander and Jeremy, and at the same time, we share useful tips, best practices, and what it really means to be an evangelist in the modern age. So, as before, I turn over the hosting duties to our good friend Xander Alexander from Security.

Xander's Intro and PSA Tech

SPEAKER_04 2:15

Welcome to we got the Mercury Minute, we got the inside track, and we got security all in one place at the same time. So, why would we not? You have to. I think I tried to do it at ISC West.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

We did try it and we failed miserably. I think I did it. I didn't respond to your text message. I didn't think what happened.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Phil got in. I did, but then there was a like a there was a concert happening behind the wall. I forgot about that. It was a whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

I forgot about that. The audio actually turned out decently. Oh, thank goodness. I was surprised because they were going, we had drums, the whole band was going in on it.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

You know those 90s rock bands.

SPEAKER_04 2:49

They they go hard, they go real hard. So, have you guys been to PSA before?

SPEAKER_01 2:55

PSA Tech? I was this is my second one. I was at PSA Tech last year. Uh, the location escapes me because I do a lot of traveling as you do. Yeah, but I feel like this one, oh man, fantastic. The quality of the conversations was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Were you here last year, or is this the first one? This is uh this is brand new. All right, so we're both two amateurs right here. I didn't get the little tag that said first time. I didn't either. But it's uh it's cool. The training that they do here, like what an experience, what an opportunity for integrators to bring all their people, yeah, and sit down in one space and have all these manufacturers in one spot and just educate and learn. I I don't know anything else like it.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Yeah. I feel like it's insane how much in how much they actually go in on the training aspect. I mean, there's so many rooms that are blocked off in this huge hotel, and how many people actually showed up? Let's be yours. So you've been here before, right? Right. So, what's kind of been your takeaway over the last couple days?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

I think that it's been an incredibly fun experience. Like I was just thinking about last night with the drag racing, uh, with the tiny cars. Drag racing with tiny cars, 50s band, everybody was dressed up, the food's been fantastic, the venue's great. And to your point, the quality of the educational content and the desire for the individuals that are here to really take advantage of that. Yeah. You know, I I ran into some folks from uh from a customer of ours out in Hawaii. I'm like, there are people coming from Hawaii, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Florida, all over coming here and they really are taking advantage of it. Unlike a Vegas, where you're kind of going, you're going for the show, but are you going for the show? Are you though? You know what happens in Vegas? You know, you're going out there to have a good time. This, however, is like, I feel like the quality of the education has been top tier.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Yeah, it almost feels curated, but I guess maybe that is because they have this network of integrators. So maybe that contributes, but not all integrators are part of the PSA network right now here. So there's also that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

It's interesting. I I do really like what PSA is doing just in terms of education. It's not just about being a buying consortium and you know, maybe you could get your your HID readers or your Motorola equipment for a couple of dollars cheaper. No, it's about really bringing value to their partners in in a very real way at an event like this.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

That's what so I think you guys talked, I talked as well. I had a breakout session, and my breakout session was surrounding at least the topic, I don't remember exactly what it was called, but forever RMR was a part of it. So forever recurring everything, and there was, I think that was the subtopic of it. But in essence, the conversations that came from out of that, I felt as if, well, not even felt, I think I seen with my eyes the fact that people actually leaning in to I felt the same thing in ours.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Everybody, like, sometimes I see people, they're like dozing off. And I'm like, am I really that boring that I make people fall asleep? Not a single person fell asleep in our session. That was happening.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

And to be fair, OSDP and AES 128 and TLS and mobile and CEOs, and it was yeah, it can get boring really fast, but everybody was so super engaged.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

So, what did you guys talk about? Because you tag teamed it, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:19

We did. We do the Phil and Jeremy show.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

No, I'm I'm calling us the MM boys because he does the Mercury I saw that at ISC.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Except when Phil started this, I didn't like catch on what he was doing. He's like, We're the MM boys, I'm the mobile guy. And I was like, I'm the OSTP guy. And he was like, That doesn't make sense. So false flat O guys.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Well, we have to caught on after that. Yes, I we have to we have to change our avatars right now. That the beginning of our presentation, uh, we're like action figures, like AI just action figures. I feel like we should be MM characters. I'll I'll like be the MM peanut. I'll be the purple one. You could be a purple MM. That's that's good. You guys should do. I wonder what the faces will end up looking at probably very, very strange. Nice phase. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

So what we talked about is it really boils down. We've been talking about this a lot lately, and it's gonna continue for a long time. It's around end-to-end encryption, security, best practices in the industry. So, how do we sell solutions, deploy solutions, configure solutions so they're secure all the way from the far edge where you're swiping your card, all the way to the access control software? And that ties in with video and other edge devices, and there's more of a play and more uh more overlap with IT these days, yeah. Very much so. And so this convergence of OT, operational technology, IT, and us being sensors out at the edge now. I think we need to talk about this more, and it's always been a very complex thing for people to understand. It is, yeah, but we need to understand it, and there's opportunity for end users and for integrators to talk about this and improve systems because the world is getting more and more dangerous, and cyber criminals are getting more and more sophisticated. And uh I think it's good that we can have these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Well, and especially in the world of AI and like the advancements in AI, and by the way, artificial intelligence has been a major theme running throughout this entire event. But you look at uh these models that are now super smart, super intelligent, and can find vulnerabilities way faster than even the most nefarious of hackers. And and what's happening now is people are recognizing this and saying, all right, I'm gonna unleash an uh a model on this attack surface and see what I can find. And and so now the threat landscape changes entirely. Um going back to our conversation though, as we start to educate or or be more in front of these types of cybersecurity-related issues, it's also an opportunity for us to reinforce best practices. It is, right? And and sort of like cover the foundational basis. You know, I'm always surprised, maybe is the wrong word, but I'm always surprised by you know uh the systems integrators, end users, not uh truly understanding not just uh

Evangelism in 2026

SPEAKER_01 9:15

what a credential is, but what a card format is, what a what uh encryption key is, how all that stuff works. And when you understand this and you you have that foundational layer, now we can start talking about things like AES and TLS. You have to build up this this level of education. And I feel like we've as as manufacturers, we could have been doing a better job of education over the last X number of years, but now that the world has taken to evangelists, this is our job, is to make sure that we can uh evangelize and get the information out into the world.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

All right, I'm I'm guessing that you see this on your side too, with different Omviv profiles and what these things, there's so much opportunity to educate very much so.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

Yeah. And what I recently found out when I was at ISC is that OneViv has, I don't think, I think they call him an ambassador, is I forget his name. But him and I had great conversations. I think he also used to do forensic, forensic stuff, such as what I used to do. And so I was very like, oh man, we should sit down and have a conversation just about that. So to your point, and just kind of slightly shifting a little bit, let's talk about the state of the evangelist. Because I feel as if more and more companies, although the role has been out for a very, very long time. So you got uh, what's this guy's name? Guy Kiyosaki, I believe is his name, who started out with Apple and Steve Jobs came back and we kind of helped reinvent Apple. And so there's always kind of been this evangelist happening within the tech industry. It does not seem as if the physical side of the security industry has ever had that, but now we do, and we're gaining more and more and more of them. And other companies are starting to track on, and I think HIV brought on kind of another one as well. And so let's talk state of the evangelist for a second.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Yeah. It seems when I go on LinkedIn, seems like every week I'm starting to see more, and they may not be called evangelists, but there are people doing this, and people are realizing that there needs to be education, there needs to be storytelling. I think a lot of what we do is really story. It is, yeah. And we're not so maybe I'm boring when I talk about OSTP. If I'm boring when I talk about OSTP, I'm sorry. And I try not to be boring. I'll swear from now on then. So just to wake you up. Yeah, like, oh, what'd he say? Uh he's not boring, but I I think there's I think there's uh so much opportunity, and manufacturers are finally catching on and saying, look, we can't just send people data sheets and cut sheets and expect them to read it and understand these complex things. Yeah. So, in my opinion, I think it's we're going to see more of this, and it's going to happen really soon for a lot of other manufacturers.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I fully agree. I I think it's really good for the industry in general. It's it's I think it's been a boon for HID. Uh, if if I can shout you out a little bit and not make you embarrassed or blush, but it's really hard to get excited about a red board with blinky red lights. Yeah, it's like, oh, OSDP, TLS, oh, a lot of the boards went from the boards went from red to you know, green to red to black, and what's really the difference? And you can talk about this, but the the challenge is it can become very boring, it can become very dry. And what ends up happening is the industry ends up floating down to the lowest common denominator. That that's what we see all the time, like with weigand wiring still being used, or prox cards in in my world still being used. It's like, why are you doing that? Oh, well, it's easy, and I don't know any better. And the reason why they don't know any better is because as an industry, we haven't really done a great job of uh getting that education out. And I think brands at HID, Motorola, and several others are starting to realize that if you put a face to the product, and that face can be interesting. I I guess I have an interesting face. My mother always said I had a face for radio.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

It's two ways that that can mean.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

She did. Um, but if we can, if if we can put a face to the product, interesting or not, and have that face be uh a good storyteller and and really explain to folks the why behind the the shift, then people's light bulbs start to go off and they go, oh, OSDP's not as scary as I thought it was. You know, I didn't do I have to read through 50 pages of technical jargon. No, you can call Jeremy. Oh, mobile access. Yeah, I heard Bluetooth or NFC, I'm not really sure. Are my readers compatible? You know what? I'll just keep selling cards. Or you know what? I see this guy, he's constantly talking, talking smack on LinkedIn. Let me call him. And believe it or not, and I have so many stories of this, I was just on a call yesterday with an end user uh that that basically said, Hey, I saw your video on YouTube. Yeah, I spoke to uh my channel partner, my systems integrator, and they actually recommended that I call you so you could get the straight information from them, and then we will work with the systems integrator to make sure that they get a solution that's that's delivered. That's the value because we we all, the three of us, our three companies, we don't sell anything directly to the end user. We're all about just putting out the good information and so that it's the old phrase, a rising tide lifts all ships.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

What are you seeing?

SPEAKER_04 14:39

So, to your point, over the last several weeks, I have received numerous of DMs. Hey, can I get your calendar right? Can I get on your calendar? Can we have a conversation? And yes, the answer is yes. But prior to that, I would say once again, it's probably been about the last four weeks, for about the last month, and just different whether they are end users or companies that just want to know more. So I'm having these, but it's been spun off from the content that's being put out. Yes, 100%. And so that leads me to another question. What do you think maybe we can help the people out in the world? If maybe you're not a technical evangelist, right? Perhaps you just do sales, but you're looking to upgrade a bit.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

This is such a passion of mine. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

What would you say if we could give three things to the people as to what encompasses the skill set that we have that they could use? So that could be content based on create how we go about creating content. It could be how what things do we use to help tell stories. I know use cases are a lot with that. And so, but what are your what are your thoughts? We'll start with Jeremy.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Well, Phil said he this is his passionate thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

So even when I can't say a thunder. I I do feel passionately about this because I I fully believe that the evolution of sales is more influencer-based. It is more what we're doing, especially in the professional world. Like you could see the rise of Instagram, TikTok, TikTok shops, all that. Like pee, the people's eyeballs have gone obviously to their phone and to social platforms for making decisions for their own buying behavior. I fully believe that platforms like LinkedIn, um, Reddit, a fantastic community on Reddit. Don't get me started there. Um, I got myself started. Um platforms like this enable a more B2B type of relationship. So as a salesperson in 2026, especially if you know you're newer to the industry and you don't you don't come with all like the preconceived notions of the way things ought to be. Yes, uh-huh. I think you could really make a name for yourself by just putting yourself out there. Like if I was a brand new business development manager for any company, I would just be creating content. Now, the the one piece of advice that I would share with everybody is just do it. Don't worry about what kind of camera you have. I mean, we're sitting here thousands of dollars of equipment, don't get me wrong. But you could start with your phone, yeah, with some basic video editing, and just do it. Uh, I encourage you, go to my this is not a shameless plug, go to my YouTube channel, just search for Phil Coppola on on YouTube and go look at my third video. My first two videos were for Sony, and it was there was not really, I wasn't really talking. My third video, I think, was my first one that I ever posted when I was working for Genites. Okay. It is as raw and unpolished as you could possibly get. And I was telling Jeremy this yesterday. Sometimes it's not about the polish. If the content is good, yes, people will come back to it. And sure enough, even that video, which like you could see my daughter's little bicycle on the side. I was in my garage. There was one video, maybe like two or three videos later, where I'm in, I live in New Jersey. It was the winter time. I'm wearing a skully cap, freezing my butt off in my garage. But and and nowhere near what I would do today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the point is, those videos gained traction because it was exposing to people what was possible through that piece of software. And so I would just encourage anybody, if you're if you're thinking about it, just get in front of a camera and and say your thing. My my uh I'll give, I guess I'll give a second piece of advice. All I did was I took my standard PowerPoint deck and I just took one slide out of it, and I made a video about that slide. And then the second slide, third slide, fourth slide, and before you knew it, this presentation I was giving for one hour to an end user turned into hours and hours and hours worth of content that generated demand. And so then people would call up and say, Hey, I saw you can do this. Can you also do that? And then that starts a business-related concept.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

Give me an idea, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:56

It works. Phil, that's exactly how I started. I took my PowerPoint and I'm like, Well, how much is there to talk about Mercury? So I took my PowerPoint and I was like topic by topic, but I'm hearing integrators that are hiring new technicians and they're having the technicians watch this as training. Because it's like Mercury doesn't have like a true training platform, so I can put them through and I can be like, just watch three videos, it'll take you four minutes. And they're picking up the information and you're not having to travel. So it's making, I think, everybody more efficient, they can learn on their own time, yeah, and your message lives forever out there versus being in a meeting one time less. Yes, and it's always on.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

It's like if you're at it's 11 o'clock at night and you happen to be on LinkedIn and a video from Jeremy comes up around YouTube, and you know what? I have this issue, and um, I don't know what OSDP is, and you just search OSDP. Jeremy's video is gonna come up, he's gonna educate you, and and you're done. You didn't have to figure out who you needed to call. And then when you have more questions, who are you gonna call? That's you call Jeremy.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

It's funny, I got a message today, an email today, and it was from an end user, and he was like, I'm struggling getting OSDP secure channel to work. And I went to AI, I think he went to Chat GPT, and it was like documentation, and then the second thing was my face. Awful snow. He was like, he took a screenshot of it, and he's like, Look, you you're showing up on AI now. And I was like, how amazing. So, like education, it just like snowballs and snowballs and snowballs.

SPEAKER_04 20:25

That's right, man. So my piece of advice has nothing to do with either one of those. Audio matters. Yes. That will be my piece of advice. Audio matters. Your video can look like crap. Yep. But if your audio sucks, we just can't we can't power through. No, we can't power through at all.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah, I will say not, and not just like you gotta make sure, and sometimes it's unavoidable. Sometimes the audio and the video get out of sync.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

That that drives people bonkers because you can't watch that.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

You can't. So my last couple of videos I used of Riverside while we were at ISC, right? Remember you asked me about it, and as I was doing those videos there, the audio is slightly off. I can see, I'm not sure if everyone else can see it. It's driving me absolutely bonkers because I mean, there's all the content, not all the content, but all the podcasts that was shot during that time.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Which is why for a beginner, for a beginner, I highly recommend just doing it on your phone. Go out and buy one of these, one of these. But go out and buy a cheap set of wireless mics that can plug into your iPhone or your Android, and and you're done.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

They do great noise cancellation easy that they plug into your phone. Yep, it is super simple and made it makes a world of difference.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yep, really, it really, really does. Well, from a technical side, good lighting too. Lighting is key.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

It's not a killer, but it's really nice to do it. No, it's a killer. You you said go look at my third video. If you go look at some of my first videos, I was sitting in my bed. I didn't really have any lighting. There it was cloudy outside. And I was trying to use like cover my bed. Yeah. So I had like a background. And like you see, like half my face, and the audio sucks. And but luckily the content was good and people still appreciate it. But I need to go back and I'm gonna refilm those now that I know what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 22:21

Now that I have the tools in place, I'm gonna go back and redo it.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yes, 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Dude, so kind of with all of that, you are of the opinion that evangelism is the the new sales. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

100%. Does that resonate with you at all?

SPEAKER_03 22:40

It does. I think it's more than just sales, though. I think it's like your personal brand. So today, Motorola and HID and HID and Mercury, 10 years, we may work for somebody else, but our brand, it's like an ongoing resume. Like you imagine going and talking to a potential new employer, and they can be like, Holy cow, they make some good stuff. Like I know exactly what I'm getting. So I think there's a lot of personal brand stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Well, ends with the two and and also with that, there's documentation. How many posts I've made, how many reactions, how many impressions, how many comments, uh, how many people clicked my links. Yeah. So all of that stuff is encapsulated versus, you know, sort of the older school way of sales, you reach out to somebody via email, maybe they get back to you. Maybe you have a conference call, maybe you meet them at a trade show, you get a car, there's a lot of follow-up. There's it's very hard to document that. Whereas with what we're doing being more digital, being always on, it's it's way easier to document and really to show your show your value, not just to your organization, but in industry-wide as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

That's that's how you get selected to be uh the the most uh of of PSA chat.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Yeah. Dude, that that uh what did we have yesterday? What was it called? The sock, what is it called? A socking hop? Yeah, I was completely drained after that. Oh, yeah. It's a lot, it's I put out a ton of energy. I didn't realize how much energy, and then I walked out of the room and I was like, oh I need a nap after every every kind of thing like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

And I will say too, uh, going back to like advice you could give people, please, for the love of all that is good and holy, you got whatever you think your 100% is, yeah, go 150% because the camera drains, like if the camera adds 15 pounds, I do look lighter than this in person. Yeah, me too. But same here. Yeah, exactly. But it the camera really like drains your energy. So you have to bring 100, and that is also true for Teams calls, Zoom calls, go to me. If you're doing virtual, you really have to amp it up and and bring that energy because it does it does shine through the camera. It does. But you know, if you're if you're just gonna talk to the camera and be a hundred percent and talk normally, you put people to sleep.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Let me show you an example. This is why you should go with OSDP.

unknown 24:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Yeah, yeah, no good. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

No, don't do that.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

But I could say, guys, if you go OSDP, let me tell you about why this is gonna change your life. Yeah. You're gonna say, maybe I'll pay attention.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

Yeah, yeah. All right, so let's just slightly. Let's talk about in-person events and basically the public speaking aspect of our job. It's my favorite part, by the way. Is it is one of mine too, which makes me feel as if you know what's very interesting about this job, at least Motorola's job description when they put this out here. Never have I ever seen this before. And the jobs, and I still have it. It requested or asked, or was okay with please have theater experience.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

Oh you know, that's interesting. Did you have theater experience? Uh a little bit. I had zero. I don't have any theater experience. I'll let me tip my own heart. I'm the best comedian in a show when I was in high school. Did you really? And I was the mascot at RIT. Oh, so now you know why I'm so crazy. Somebody go find pictures. So I need to see this.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Well, but for you, uh well, no, Jeremy's already talking. So for you, as far as the public speaking aspect, how do you go about preparing? Yeah. And then executing.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

I think it's all about the story. So, like, we always have this PowerPoint behind us. I try to have zero words on my PowerPoint. Okay, yeah, and it is just like it it's probably more for me, just to like keep me organized. But I know my story, I know my content, I know the message that I want people to take away. And I'm just a glorified storyteller at that point. Um, so I mean, that's what I do. And it there's prep in practice, but I think it comes with uh seniority and knowing your product and just talking about this for 20 years. Like you know what you're talking about, but how do you find the things that are going to be interesting? What's the value that that brings to the person listening to you?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah, yeah. And it's not like you know, you're it's like it's not like you're a nobody getting in front of thousands of people. You're an industry professional with expertise and perhaps, may I even say, a passion for what you do. And so there's no reason to be nervous. There, the the people that are there are there to learn from your experience and and from your product. And so you just get out there and you just do it. And I know that that sounds so like boilerplate. Just get it. Just go out there and do it. But really, it is just that. Now, look, are you gonna be great the first time out? No, but the more you do it, the more you get over it. I there's a there's a line in my head that that always resonates with me. It's a it's a line from Jerry Seinfeld. I apologize, Mr. Seinfeld, Mr. Butcher's. But he he has a great joke where he says, you know, the number one fear of people is public speaking. Number two is death. So if you're at a funeral, you'd rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy. And I um I that's so funny to me because I'd much rather be doing the eulogy. Maybe that says something about me, I don't know. But it's it's not as uh it's not as daunting as I think people make it out to be. They hear public speaking and people kind of claim up. But if you're in sales and you really want to be sort of like in this evangelist type of thing, you really have to be able to get out there.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

You can just picture everybody naked. I know you're picturing me naked right now all the time, all the time. Or you can say dumb humor things like that, and then people groan and then they don't expect anything out of the presentation. Right. So then when you give a good presentation, they're like, oh, okay, it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

If if we could give a a tip, because I I love where you're going with like having no words on a slide. That that's my goal. Sometimes you just you can't get away from it, you have to, but the fewer slides you have, the better. Because what I find is when I watch some folks that are not great at public speaking, they their safety blanket is their slide. Yeah. And they'll just start to read off of the slide and death. You will kill the room that way. But if you don't have, if you take that safety blanket away, you say, All right, here's a picture. And that what this picture means to me is mobile access and mercury or whatever it is, then you can tell a story and you're not encumbered by the words on the slide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

I wholeheartedly agree. There's this resource. Well, this person has several different books. I think I believe her name is Nancy Duarte or something of that nature. And so she goes all in and has several books around public speaking, around putting together presentations, and the whole minimalist factor is part of that. And so I do have words on the slide, but there is, especially if there's one that I have put together and it's not so Pelco or Motorola driven, because a lot of times where we speak at, it you have to speak in the abstract. So, for example, at PSA, I just speak abstractly. Now, I'm talking about things that a problem that Motorola can solve or that that Pelco can just add Pelco to it. Right. But not having it actually on the screen itself, I think provides more value. Once again, as you said, it's the picture, it's the mental picture that you put with that, even if the words are minimalistic, that I believe stands out.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah, absolutely. If if I have to put words on a slide or if there's going to be a technical slide, I will speak to it, but I know that somebody's gonna come up to me at the end and say, Hey, can I have a copy of your slide deck? So now all the information is already encapsulated here, but I didn't belabor the point and repeat every single word.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

I have a question. You just did just a notebook. Yeah. So I say that's the Mercury Minute. Stay open and stay secure, my friends. See you all next time. What do you have a little tag?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Oh, uh typically it's like uh I'll do like the common influencer thing where I'll be like, hey, you know, Xander, thank you so much for having us on. If you'd like to learn more about Xander, his contact information will be below. If you like this video, make sure to smash that like button, hit subscribe, and we'll see you on the next one. That's what you always say. We'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

But you got a point while you do it. You have to find the camera. I don't have one for Motorola as of yet. But it but if I'm being fair, please watch till the end.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Like I don't even know if people never even get that one.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

No, which I mean attention spans are short. So, question for you, maybe we'll maybe make this the last question. Data, right? So data on the content that is being created. So for me at least, at Motorola, our two lanes that we operate in is the public speaking aspect, and then we double down on content creation. And so for that being the content creation piece with all the data points that comes in, the analytics that come in. How much attention do you give to that?

SPEAKER_03 32:00

So I probably don't give nearly enough. Um when I here, you guys can all help me out with this. So subscribe to the Mercury Metallica, and then I'll maybe pay attention more. But like I get frustrated sometimes. Like I'll I'll see on I don't know, I think I have 450 subscribers on YouTube, which feels like nothing. That's way more than me. It gets really, it's like discouraging sometimes. It's like, man, I feel like nobody's watching it. But then on LinkedIn, I feel like that's where everybody watches. And when I walk around here, it's happened 12 times. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love them. And then I'm like, okay, I can keep it up. Yeah, so I I don't pay attention to the numbers very much. Um, but I probably should. I maybe I don't know how to use the numbers for something in power. Like, could I use this number to change to grow? I I don't know how to do that, so I think I just ignore them. But what about you?

SPEAKER_01 32:58

I I obsess over the numbers. So uh I I really pay attention to watch times, particularly on YouTube, because it starts, it's a graph and it starts here and then I almost always always no but very few people ever make it to the end. But I always know that a message resonated based on how many people actually do make it to the end. And I always say, like, and and I'll use this anecdote, and actually, you were you were part of this years and years ago when I was still at Genitech, I did a a video, which was a webinar, which is again one of the worst pieces of content you could produce on on the internet. And it was labeled uh Best Practices for Access Control in 2021, something like that. It was me, you, Tim Gilger, and I think Paul Russell from HID. I was still at the end.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

Hold on, I gotta give Paul a shout out. He was just blowing up my phone.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

So I um we sit there and we have a conversation like this, and it was two hours long. It's like an hour and 45 minutes. That video ended up being one of my best performing pieces of content. People stayed all the way to the end, or like they would pause and come back because the content was so good. So I feel like everybody is like, it's gotta be short, it's gotta be punchy, you gotta have a good hook and this and that. No, you have to have good content. If the content is good, people will stick with it. And the people that stick with it the longest are the ones that need it the most. I did another similar type of video with a systems integration partner of ours uh named CTCI. It was me and this gentleman, Rob Thatcher. Hello, Rob. And it was just like, all right, take me through an installation. We're gonna upgrade this reader from a prox point two to a Signo, we're gonna program it with a mob key, we're gonna change it from Weigan to OSDP, and then we're gonna issue a credential from Genitech into um into uh uh uh a mobile credential through through Genitech and we'll get it to your phone. Great. Two hours, two hours just going through all of that. And believe it or not, people stick with it because to your point, hey, I'm a new technician. What what do I need to know? Watch this video, watch it all the way through the end, and in two hours, you're gonna know exactly how to rewire a mercury panel for OSDP. You're gonna understand how to push a mob key to uh to a signal reader, you're gonna understand how to take a thin line two off the wall, which we spent like granular. Here's here's where you pull it off. Here's the screw. You went you went step by step. We went step by step, but that's the type of content that resonates. Now, is that good content for LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube? Like every platform, I feel like has its own sweet spot. But yeah, I I obsess over the numbers. You know, linked LinkedIn irritates me because it counts a view as somebody that spent more than three seconds. Yeah. I'm like, that's not a view. And it just drags your numbers way down. I'd love to be able to, and if anybody from LinkedIn is watching, I'd I'd love to be able to get some more granular view of like what the what the average watch time is, or like if I could take everybody that's watched it for 20 seconds or less, get them out of this report. Yeah, then show me everybody that watched it longer, or show me who watched it for longer. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

Um we're gonna cut that part out, make sure we tag LinkedIn too.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Yeah, exactly. Please. It sounds like that's a great revenue opportunity for LinkedIn. Like if you could show who's looking, like if you could pay for that, I would pay, I would pay for it. Because that's like right now, instant leads for us. Exactly. You watch six months of my mobile my mobile episode, like I should reach out to you.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, absolutely. I hey LinkedIn, I work on commission, by the way. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_04 36:33

All right, so Mercury Minuteman. Yeah, any last words?

SPEAKER_03 36:37

I would say not that you're gonna die or anything. I'll be in the casket. I'll be in the joke. And I'm still naked. Oh, jeez. And we're inappropriate. Look, I'd say follow us, pay attention. If there's other evangelists out there, if there's other salespeople, focus on this stuff. It matters. People are watching and it's making an impact.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Yeah, uh I I reiterate that uh to my uh brothers and sisters out there that are evangelists, like the three guys sitting at this table, uh Bear with Hanwan now, uh Vinny, uh Pione. You should definitely follow his content. He's more on the systems integrator side. So if you really want to see how like a systems integrator does it, he's a great resource.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

And then he does like a quick, you have 30 seconds to tell me what's cool about your platform. So it's like super fast, but it's like you were at the show and you didn't have to deal with all the mess.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Yes, yeah, I love his content. Guys like Benji, the door-dork, Chad Cooper, um uh with CCTV fails and folks like this. I I I really uh I really appreciate those guys. And we actually have a text uh string together where we we kind of share uh information or like you know, best practice tips and tricks. Hey, does this work? Does that not work? So I would say, like, if you're interested in getting into this, you know, feel free to reach out to us. So clearly we're we're open books here, and ultimately, my goal is obviously I want people to buy mobile access, please and thank you. But really, what I want to do is just provide good content, good information to the industry. If I can make somebody's job easier, that's that's the goal. If I could just impact one life at a time, yeah, that's that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

And I would say if there's people out there that are looking to start doing stuff like this, it's you start with your phone and get a good microphone. But there's other things that you can do, like how do you edit video software?

Outro

SPEAKER_03 38:31

Videos and what kind of lights do you get? And what failed for you? And what do you need to buy? Should you get a teleprompter?

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Right, what kind of tripod?

SPEAKER_03 38:41

Yeah, so you can come to us and like that's super easy for us now. We've been through that. We failed and failed and failed and finally figured it out and got hope. But ask the questions and simplify your life.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 38:56

Should we end on a clap? You want to do it?

SPEAKER_04 38:59

End on the clap.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

End on the clap just at pilco. Can we do it together? Yeah. Ready?

SPEAKER_04 39:05

Hold on, I'm gonna give the count. So one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Okay, one, two, three, four. I got you. All right. Ready?

SPEAKER_01 39:14

I'm ready. And we'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_04 39:19

Thanks for tuning in to Security! Avengers roundtable edition.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yep, so today's episode is brought to you by HID Mobile Access, the most secure and convenient way to open doors with the device you already use every day. With HID, organizations get flexible, future-ready solutions that easily integrate into workplace and tenant experience apps, creating a seamless journey from street to suite. If you're ready to modernize your access control experience, try it for yourself. Sign up for a free trial at HIDglobal.comslash solutions and click on mobile access.