Kaliba’s Cooper Knox recently sat down for a fireside chat with Matt Tatham, a Business Development Representative at leading cyber security firm Mimecast, to gain an insight into what it's like working at Mimecast and how he has navigated new ways of working under Covid conditions. 

Here’s what he had to say...

Cooper: Firstly, really appreciate your time today, Matt. A pretty cliche question first up, Matt, but what does a typical day look like in your role at Mimecast and how have you transitioned to the ‘work from home’ environment? 

Matt: My typical day begins with a morning meeting with the BDR team in which we discuss our plans for the day as well as insights from the previous day. From then, I'll jump straight into my emails. I have the opportunity to work with a lot of organisations across the Asia Pacific region - so that includes Hong Kong, Singapore, China, who are obviously a few hours behind us - and with Mimecast being a global organisation, I tend to have some emails come through from global overnight as well. 

So in the morning I like to spend my time catching up on those. After that I jump straight in and start doing the bulk of my role which is contacting organisations via phone or email and trying to understand some of the issues and frustrations they're experiencing in terms of cyber security, and helping them to keep their email and data safe and secure. 

Throughout the day I'll typically have a couple of other meetings, so these can be catch-ups with my Business Development Managers who I work very closely with in my territories. They could be BDR check-ins. So, catching up with everyone, seeing how everyone's tracking throughout the day and sharing our experiences so far.

There could be meetings with the marketing team to discuss current or upcoming marketing campaigns and how best we can take advantage of them as BDRs. 

In terms of how my day differs since moving to a working from home environment, I don't think it really does too much and I think that's a testament to how well Mimecast is set up as a company and how well they've handled the move. I'm pretty much able to do everything that I used to do in the office minus a couple of ping pong games here and there! 

Mimecast is really good at providing us with the resources we need to keep in contact with our teammates and with our workmates, continue our learning and development and celebrate the success of the company as a whole together. 

Cooper:Would you say the requisite skills are for success in your role as a Business Development Representative?

Matt: I'd say the requisite skills include communication. Obviously you're talking to a lot of people internally and externally and you have to be able to communicate effectively and promptly. 

The second one is time management. You're dealing with a lot of different meetings every day, marketing campaigns, different industries, so it's important to manage your time effectively.

And the next would be resilience. This role has a lot of challenges, as any role does, and it's important not to let the challenges discourage you.

Cooper: When you first started in this job what were you surprised to learn was most important in this role? 

Matt: Well being my first job straight out of uni, I didn't really know what to expect, but I would say I was probably most surprised by just the huge amount of information I had to learn in regards to Mimecast's products and the cyber security industry.

But in saying that, Mimecast provided a really good onboarding process that gave me all the training, resources and time I needed to become confident in my ability to communicate the products, and have conversations with prospects around the cyber security industry. 

Cooper: During Covid, what would you say some of the biggest challenges are that you've had to face?

Matt: It was a bit of a challenge at first to adapt to a working from home environment. I didn't have my BDR team around me and I couldn't just quickly jump up and run to someone's desk to ask them a quick question which was really frustrating at first. But once we established our regular meetings and best ways to communicate, all those issues quickly disappeared. 

Cooper: What would you say you enjoy the most about working in Mimecast? 

Matt: There's a lot to love about working at Mimecast. Everyone is really supportive, especially the BDR team. They're really good at sharing each other's ideas, sharing experiences and helping each other out. 

The free lunches Tuesdays and Thursdays, the healthcare contributions, the regular volunteering, charity and social events. Despite being a really large global company, Mimecast still feels like it's a family business and it's obvious to me that they really care about each and every one of their employees.

Cooper: Finally Matt, what are some words of advice and tips you'd give to someone seeking a similar position? 

Matt: The best tip I could give would be to stay resilient. Being a BDR can be hard work and can seem really repetitive at times, but it's also shown to be really rewarding and I'm really excited to see where this role takes me.

Cooper: So there’s 3 things we take away from today’s conversation with Matt:

1. Being a BDR is busy and challenging, yet rewarding work; with the right infrastructure and support, this is a dynamic job role that translates well to a working from home environment too!
2. Good communication, time management and resilience are skills necessary for success in the role as a BDR.
3. And finally, Mimecast seems like a pretty cool place to work if you are interested in cyber security sales!

We thank Matt and Mimecast for allowing us this insight into what it looks like to work ‘a day in the life of a BDR at Mimecast’. 

To watch the full interview, click here.

If you are looking for a job in cyber security, or you are looking to recruit in the cyber security sales space in Australia, Singapore or Hong Kong, please connect with Cooper Knox and the Kaliba team, and don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter too.