Our Best Advice Q&A series continues with Jonathan Perillo, principal at Safyst and member of the Life Safety Alliance. He shares the best advice he’s ever gotten, gives tips to young security industry pros and names the person to whom all others in the space should always listen.
Security Sales & Integration: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Jonathan Perillo: “The art of the phone call.” It’s easy to simply send emails, messages, texts and other digital communications. It feels good to click “send” and be done with something. But human connection in the workplace is becoming more and more important.
A simple phone call, or even walking over to someone’s desk, can not only save weeks of email exchange but typically builds trust, collaboration, transparency and makes future dealings easier.
SSI: What advice would you give to those looking to achieve success in the security industry?
Perillo: Do not try to be someone that you are not. The security industry has so many incredible mentors and role models, but what makes each one of them remarkable is that they embody themselves, not others. Security is a very personal industry, which includes a large and diverse population who work to build each other up.
It is also built on trust, filled with people who are natural investigators, so trying to be something other than yourself can fracture your relationships.
SSI: If you could point to one person in the security industry and tell up-and-comers, “Make sure to listen to what they have to say,” whom would you pick and why?
Perillo: This is difficult, with the amount of incredible talent we have in the security industry. There are so many different fields, each with their topical experts. However, there are people who have guiding principles and universal application and I think Dr. Gavriel (Gav) Schneider leads the way in this respect.
Gav has a significant amount of published work but he leaps off the paper to me because of how his principles are positioned with the current changes the security industry as well as where I believe it is heading.
Click here to check out the entire Best Advice series!
