Why You Shouldn't Be Engaging with the CISO

When I first started working with cybersecurity go-to-market teams, I made the same assumption many others do:

The CISO is the ultimate decision-maker.

For years, I directed marketing and sales strategies toward catching their attention.

The logic seemed sound—target the top to seal the deal.

But over time, through qualitative customer research and candid conversations with CISOs and their teams, I learned a profound truth:

This insight hit hard.

For all the time, money, and energy spent crafting campaigns for CISOs, the real decision-making often occurs elsewhere—within the technical teams or lieutenants tasked with evaluating and implementing solutions.

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The Case for Engaging Technical Teams

While the CISO might hold the ultimate authority, their time is limited, and they rely heavily on their teams to research, evaluate, and advocate for the tools they’ll invest in.

I vividly remember sitting in one of the focus groups I facilitated last year, watching the CISOs Slacking their team on their mobile.

After the focus group had ended, they told me, “I asked them if they new of “so and so” vendor and what competitors they might be using - if they like who we are using and if they want to evaluate new solutions.”

These technical experts—cloud security engineers, SOC managers, and vulnerability management leaders, among others—are the ones knee-deep in the day-to-day problems your product is designed to solve.

They are the ones who will champion your solution—or reject it—based on its technical merit and alignment with their workflows.

By solely targeting CISOs, we risk missing these critical influencers and decision-makers.

Worse, we can alienate them with messaging that feels high-level, vague, or disconnected from their specific challenges.

Focusing exclusively on CISOs also creates an unbalanced narrative that downplays the contributions of the very people who determine whether your product succeeds in their organization.

Practical Shifts to Win Over the "Lieutenants"

So, how do you recalibrate your approach to engage technical teams effectively?

Here’s what I’ve seen work:

Make Sure You Define and Understand Who is Part of the Buying Committee

Include: Champions, Decision Makers, Influencers, Blockers, End Users

Understand: Relevant Job Roles, Goals and Objectives, KPIs/Metrics, Challenges and Pain Points, Buying Motivation/Triggers, Decision Criteria, Buying Constraints, Preferred Communication Channels, Market Anomalies

Craft Targeted Messaging

Messaging should speak directly to these customer.

Technical teams don’t want fluff; they want to know how your product solves their problems, fits into their stack, and reduces their workload.

Focus on technical outcomes, integration capabilities, and real-world use cases.

Enable the Sales Team

Your sales team needs to be as comfortable speaking to technical experts as they are to executives.

Provide training, collateral, and tools that help them tailor their conversations to the audience.

Encourage them to ask questions that uncover the specific challenges these teams face—and then listen.

Leverage Community and Peer Validation

Technical teams often rely on peer recommendations and validation from their community.

Hosting technical webinars, building forums for collaboration, or spotlighting real practitioners using your solution can go a long way in establishing credibility with this audience.

A Closing Thought

If you’re still focusing exclusively on the CISO, you’re not alone.

It’s a default strategy for many cybersecurity companies and it’s not without its merits.

But it’s incomplete.

Real influence lies in engaging with those closest to the problems your product solves.

Recognize the decision-making power of technical teams, meet them where they are, and empower them to champion your solution.

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