Mayhem Makers: Sam Asif, Account Executive

“Mayhem Makers” is a Q&A series dedicated to our growing company and everyone who works to make our product, Mayhem, the best security testing solution on the market.

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For this month’s profile, we talked with Sam Asif, Account Executive at Mayhem, who joined our company in December, 2022 and is based out of Orlando, Florida.

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1. Tell our readers a little bit about what your role as Account Executive entails. 

The primary function of my job is to connect with and build a relationship with customers. So, that involves understanding potential customer's needs and pain points, and then seeing if there's a fit between them and our product. Networking is a huge part of my day-to-day. I also make sure to keep up with trends in the application security environment and the market.

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2. What did your career path look like before you came to work here?

I went to school at UCF in Orlando and ended up staying in the area after college. I got a degree in finance, so I could have gone into a finance job, but I decided that I didn't want to sit in a cubicle all day. I'm more of an extravert. Talking to people is what I like to do.

So, after college, I went straight into tech sales at a financial technology company as a Business Development Representative. That was my first customer-facing role. And then I went from fintech to a job as an accountant executive at a different cybersecurity company, before coming to work here.

I wanted to stay in the cybersecurity space, because I have a passion for what we do. Mayhem is more developer-oriented than the company I worked for previously, but it's still cybersecurity.

There were a couple of reasons I decided I wanted to come work at Mayhem. First, for the product. Mayhem is groundbreaking technology.There’s nothing else like itin the market. That's what grabbed my attention at first. 

So I applied here, and I’ve been working here for about six months now. I enjoy my job. The daily tasks that I have now are very different every day. It's extremely rewarding. You get in what you put out. 

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3. What is your typical day like at Mayhem?

Like a lot of people, I have to have that cup of coffee in the morning before I get started. From there, I look at my calendar and see what the day holds. 

I connect with Brian, who is my partner in crime—he's my Business Development Representative—and we see what calls we have for the day, what customers we’re talking to, and what customers we want to go after. 

From there, I'll have customer calls throughout the day. Usually, it's a call with a customer that has an ongoing trial and is looking to onboard, or it's a call with a customer that's just trying to see what Mayhem does. Those are the typical calls I have throughout the day, as well as reaching out to new potential clients.

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4. What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on at Mayhem?

I don’t necessarily have a favorite project, but since we are kind of a newer team on the sales side, it's been really exciting to watch the sales team get built out. There's been a lot of changes already, which is great, and I can see the strides we're taking in the right direction. So I don't know if that's necessarily a project, but that's probably been my favorite aspect of the job so far.

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5. What have been your toughest challenges at work?

I would say just the day-to-day has its own challenges. When you work in sales, you face rejection 24/7, but it's nothing that I haven't seen before. Just overcoming it and prospering through it is probably the toughest challenge, but it's a good challenge.

I know that for every no, there's going to be a yes eventually. It's all about me communicating the product to people in the right way. I know that Mayhem is something that people need and that they can actually use to help them improve their workflow. 

So that's why I keep pushing through. I know there's going to be people out there who will benefit from using our product.

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6. When you are at work, how do you motivate yourself or what helps you focus?

I mean I just get up and go, really. I always start my mornings with a workout. I feel like that helps me get going, and I just don't stop from there. 

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7. How have you grown professionally while working at Mayhem?

I actually feel like I've grown a lot professionally in my time here. I know it's only been a short few months, but I've learned a ton from leadership. They're helping me out constantly, especially Shawn, who is my director. I've learned a lot about the marketplace, and he’s helped me advance my skills a lot just in the short time I’ve been here.

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8. What has your experience been with our company culture?

The company culture has been great throughout the entire team. I love our weekly meetings that sales and the marketing team have together. We all pick each other's brains and support and learn from each other, which I think is great. 

I know this company is going to be successful because of that and because of the team members that we have. Everyone's extremely motivated. Everyone's working extremely hard. It's hard not to love it here, to be honest.

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9. What parts of our company’s mission do you connect with?

I think this goes back to ForAllSecure’s backstory. The fact that ForAllSecure was founded by a group of hackers who won the DARPA challenge is unique in its own sense. We’ve taken this technology from that challenge, Mayhem, and made it into something that not only saves developers’ time but also helps them secure their environment against malicious threats. 

We're helping development teams, and we’re helping people that use their products to not get robbed essentially—whether it's a financial robbery or data robbery. I believe that's a good job to have and a good mission to support.

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10. What advice can you offer to someone looking to get into a role like yours?

I would say if you wanted to get into a job like mine, you would just have to understand the product and understand the marketplace. It's not necessarily rocket science. I feel like people think that cybersecurity is incredibly hard to understand, but I learned a lot about it in about a month. 

I didn't need to get a certificate or a degree or anything like that in order to do my job well. It might be different if I was doing something behind the scenes, but I'm not doing any coding or anything along those lines. Understanding the general concepts of it is pretty simple, and pretty much anybody can do it. You just have to have the willingness and desire to learn.

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11. Tell us about yourself outside of work. What are your hobbies?

I'm a basketball junkie. I play in a men's league on Wednesday and Thursday nights. And then, I also like to watch basketball. Actually, the NBA finals start tomorrow. So that's a big day for me. It's almost like a holiday. 

But that's pretty much my life: Telling people about Mayhem and basketball. Honestly, that's primarily what I do outside of work, and hanging out with my friends, and traveling when I can. Basketball consumes my whole outside life.

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