Our Best Advice Q&A series returns from its summer vacation with Michael Matta, chief executive officer and co-founder of Solink. He shares the best advice he’s ever gotten, gives pointers to security industry newcomers and names his ultimate career inspiration.
Security Sales & Integration: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Michael Matta: The best business decisions start with a deep understanding of your customers.Think about their opportunities, problems and ways that you can meaningfully impact their success. That’s never served us wrong, even when it’s a situation where a customer’s unhappy. Those moments are often the greatest opportunity to turn a negative experience into a lasting relationship.
Early on in our customer journey, someone told me, “You will live and die as a business by how you react to the feedback you get from customers.”
Because we never wanted to miss that feedback, we built a 24-7 customer support line. There were only a couple of inquiries every week in the beginning. Now, we engage with thousands of customers but the core of how we approach customer support is the same: How do you continue to be an extension of the customers?
How do you ensure they see you as they do their own team members? How do you build that relationship and trust by being there when your customer needs you most? That’s the best advice I’ve ever been given.
SSI: What advice would you give to those looking to achieve success in the security industry?
Matta: The best advice I can give is to solve a problem that others believe can’t be solved or one that no one wants to tackle because it’s too difficult.
When we started, very few people thought the words “cloud,” “security” and “enterprise” belonged together. We heard, “that will never work” more times than I can count. Today, cloud-based security has become the standard. Sometimes, the biggest opportunities come from challenging assumptions that everyone else accepts.
The other lesson I’ve learned is to stay relentlessly focused on the customer’s real problem, not just the technology. Business owners have an instinct for when their operations are running at their best. They know when something isn’t quite right, even if they can’t immediately identify why.
That’s where technology can make the biggest impact. While reducing loss and improving security are important, the greatest opportunity comes from helping businesses operate more efficiently, improve the customer experience, increase revenue and drive measurable business outcomes.
If you focus on solving meaningful problems and delivering real value for your customers, you’ll build something that stands the test of time.
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?
Matta: When it comes to listening to people who have walked the walk, we have some amazing experts as customers. Some of these clients have been around the industry for a long time and some are new but all of them are driving change across roles in operations, security, IT and loss prevention. I’m in awe of what they have to go through and how they play defense against all the challenges in the physical world.
Their jobs are very, very difficult. They’re anticipating every possible combination of things that could happen. Someone could walk in with a gun or an angry customer might create a violent atmosphere. Someone could slip and fall or the building can catch on fire. And they’re challenged to be very efficient with how they spend their budget. The 1% of the 1% lands squarely on their shoulders.
People need to be very resourceful and they need to be calm under pressure. Many of our customers are heroes in the way that they react and in what they do day to day. It’s really fun to support them and lead them. They have a very high bar of what will work, what’s successful and what’s not.
Click here to check out all entries in SSI’s Best Advice series!
