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Aaron Peterik Shares Winning Advice for first-time Sponsors of Pax8 Beyond

• Ian Richardson

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From Booths to Buy-In: Aaron Peterik’s Playbook for Winning Pax8 Beyond

Episode Description:

 What separates a vendor with a busy booth from one that builds a sales pipeline? Aaron Peterik, Director of Channel at Zero Networks and former Pax8 insider, joins us to share real-world strategies for dominating Pax8 Beyond. From microsegmentation to sales team alignment, Peterik unpacks what actually works for MSP vendors trying to stand out, connect authentically, and convert leads into long-term revenue. If you’re planning to exhibit—or just want to sharpen your MSP sales game—don’t miss this one.

Topics covered:

  • Microsegmentation and Zero Trust: What MSPs need now
  • Booth KPIs that drive revenue—not just scans
  • How to prep your team two weeks before the event
  • Why MSPs ignore your pitch (and how to fix it)
  • The surprising value of hotel-lobby conversations

🎧 Listen now. Show up better. Sell smarter.


Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com
Book time with Carrie here!


Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.

Carrie Richardson (2):

Hi there. Good afternoon. My name is Carrie Richardson. I am a partner at Fox and Crow Group and your host of the WIN podcast. We're talking to people who will be participating in Pax8, people who have some experience doing this and have some advice for the people that will be attending this year. With me today is Aaron Peterik, who is the director of Channel for Zero.

Aaron Peterik:

Zero networks.

Carrie Richardson (2):

How are you doing today, Aaron?

Aaron Peterik:

I'm great.

Carrie Richardson (2):

I'm doing well. Thank you. we're in Nashville. enjoying the, very humid weather here. I forgot that it gets up to 85, in the south in the middle of spring. So it's been a little, warmer than we would've liked.

Aaron Peterik:

I'm in Denver, love Nashville. I try to get out there as much as I can, which is not often enough, but yeah, I love Nashville, Been in Denver for about 10 years Denver gets the whole gamut of weather today it's a little chilly, it's sunny out. that's the beautiful thing about Denver we get a lot of sun throughout the year, but you never know. It could be, 80 degrees one day and 30 degrees, a couple hours later. So it's all about wearing layers out here. anyone that lives in Denver or ever been to Denver, you know, layering is very important.

Carrie Richardson (2):

Patagonia Vest is the wardrobe essential for everyone in the channel at PAX Zero.

Aaron Peterik:

That's right.

Carrie Richardson (2):

Now you have some experience with PAX Before you joined Zero, you were a member of the team over there. tell us a little bit about what you think we can expect this year at PAX 8 beyond.

Aaron Peterik:

Yeah, PAX Zero does a great job with Beyond. been with Zero Networks for a year now. Prior to that I was at PAX Zero, for about five years, doing a variety of roles. the last couple years I was on the vendor management side. all the vendors that PAX 8 works with, I was partnering with to help them go to market and, take their solutions to the SMB market and work with MSPs a big part of my role was to work with them for beyond I was at Pax 8 for the, inaugural event of beyond. This will be the third year of beyond now. Watching it morph into what it's become, has been really fun to watch and be a part of in the early years of being at PAX 8 and, working on the vendor sponsorship side making sure all the vendors, had what they needed, to be successful in the early events. And now. Sort of switching over and now I'm on the vendor side has been fun to see both sides of that equation. PAX Zero beyond has, has really grown to, to levels that are really gonna require PAX Zero to move. I. You know, probably to a different location outside of the Gaylord, here in Denver next year. they've really outgrown that space a little bit, and I'm sure they'll be looking for a larger venue next year, given the size and gravity that this event has turned into. But yeah, it's really fun event. If you haven't been in the PAC Zero beyond before and you're in MSPI highly, highly recommend it. It is definitely one of the best events out there for MSPs. lots of really good speakers, lots of really good entertainment and the way that PAXs structures the overall event for the MSPs, is really impactful and beneficial for them.

Carrie Richardson (2):

I understand it's about doubled in size from the first year I was at the inaugural event. I didn't get to go last year, so this is our first time sponsoring an event. So what advice would you have for vendors like us who are, budget constrained and first time on the floor? What should we expect and how can we get better results?

Aaron Peterik:

Yeah, I would say, from a vendor side, you want to make sure that you're fully ingrained in the entire event, right? I see a lot of vendors. whether it's PAX 8 Beyond, or, other MSP events go and they're there for the vendor exhibit. They're there for the expo. work in their booth and then they're doing other things To really maximize your time, to maximize your ROI from these events, it's important that you're engaging as much as you can. Attending. the breakfasts, the lunches where all the attendees are eating, And not just doing the expo, going to different sessions to see what they're learning about and what's being communicated so that when they're stopping by your booth and the exhibit hall. You can use, some of those conversations and other sessions, during your conversations with them, it's not just about selling your solution, it's about learning about their business, talking to'em about how the event's going so you can relate to them, build trust, things like that. for PAX 8 Beyond, and other MSP events as well, just make sure that you're fully ingrained in the entire event and not just showing up for booth time.

Carrie Richardson (2):

how far in advance do you begin preparing for an event like this?

Aaron Peterik:

I would say probably, depending on what role you're in, right? If you're on the marketing side and you're. focused on the booth and, the swag items that you're gonna hand out. you need to, prepare for that stuff well in advance, so you can purchase those things and, get those things created and shipped in time, So there's the whole marketing aspect to it. I would say from a general sales perspective. probably two to three weeks out, anything further than that, you're reaching out to the audience and attendees a little too early. They haven't really prepped for that. They're work on another things and everything. Two weeks out is when I really start to, hone in and focus on what we're gonna do at the event from a selling perspective. What the agenda looks like, how to engage with them and if possible, do some social media, reach out to say, Hey, we're going to be attending this event. If you're attending, reach out to us. We'd love to connect with you. Start to schedule some coffee meetups, dinners and lunches with, various attendees or folks that you wanna connect with that are gonna be there. any kind of pre-event reach out, you can do, if you get a list and know attendees prior to that, that's obviously ideal because you wanna try to engage and schedule time with those folks, in advance of the event, if you can. share where your booth is gonna be, things like that. a couple weeks out, you really wanna start to invest some time into, social media awareness. driving some excitement about what you're gonna do at your booth. things that they can pick up and learn from you during this event.

Carrie Richardson (2):

What have you done in the past that worked well

Aaron Peterik:

Yeah, to me it's about scheduling, trying to get actual meetings scheduled prior to the event. one thing that I've learned is when you get to these events, People are busy, they're being pulled in a million different directions. There's so much information being thrown. at the attendees so when you get to these events, it's hard to, schedule time and lock people down into meetings I try to do as much of that as I can in advance. a lot of these events, the ROI really comes from if you can do a lot of, excitement and driving awareness as to. what we're gonna be sharing at this event. where you can find us. why you wanna stop by and the benefits to you and your business, those are gonna impact, the amount of people that you're gonna be able to get and traffic that you'll get at your booth, as well as the takeaways and ROI that you can expect to get out of the meeting.

Carrie Richardson (2):

How do you prepare your team for engaging with MSPs on site. Does everyone have a different role to play or is everyone doing the same thing?

Aaron Peterik:

I would say part of that depends on the booth size if you have a big booth and are one of the premier sponsorships where you have a lot of real estate on the floor to cover, you'll need demo stations. You'll need. folks focused on bringing people into the booth. you might have a little table where you have meetings inside of your booth if you have a really large booth. if you have a smaller booth like a 10 by 10 typically you'll have two or three people in attendance there. for those folks it's, more about, engaging with everyone that walks by from a prep perspective on the vendor side, leading up to this, you really wanna understand the size of your booth. You wanna understand, what the goal is Is it to get leads? Is it to share a new product or solution Is it to, get excitement, what is the overall objective of the meeting for you? make sure that you're aligned on, roles and responsibilities as well as key messages the coaching I would always give vendors is. you want to have your 30 second elevator pitch down because a lot of folks are gonna walk by and you want to be able to grab their attention and try to pull'em over to your booth to give more information You need to be really crisp on, the benefits, you can provide to them as they're walking by so you can hopefully pull in more people to your booth.

Carrie Richardson (2):

are there KPIs you hold your team accountable to at the event?

Aaron Peterik:

So, we wanna understand, how many people we talk to. out of that list of people how many demos are we scheduling? we always try to get, demos scheduled so we can have more one-on-one time to learn about their business. There's only so much you can cover in a booth atmosphere, right? in most cases partners aren't going to these things to be sold. they're going to get educated. If your messaging can be focused on education and the problems that you solve, as well as the benefits to what your solution offers, you're gonna get more interest there. And so then ultimately it's about communicating that. It's about trying to schedule as many demos and then out of the demos scheduled, what kind of. trials can you get scheduled with those partners, to try out your solution and then ultimately, how much revenue can we get out of that as well?

Carrie Richardson (2):

So in your experience, what does the drop off look like between demos scheduled at the event and demos that people show up for on average? What's the no show look like?

Aaron Peterik:

Oh, good question. that's gonna vary depending on the product to be honest. But, typically we'll see about 30%. if there are a thousand attendees, we're gonna try to get, at least 10% of those scheduled, if not 20% of those scheduled for demos. we probably have, a pretty high number for show rates. let's call it 70% roughly. The folks that are, that are going outta the way to actually book a demo Those are the folks that you want to talk to. they understand the need. I see a lot of vendors offer something for scheduling a demo, right? scan this QR code and you get put into a drawing for a Yeti cooler or something like that. I've never been a big fan of that, to be honest, because doing that, you're now incentivizing people to do something that they may not want to do just because they wanna win a prize. And so my coaching to vendors has always been. you wanna get people that are interested in your solution so that when they're scheduling demos,'cause time is money, right? Not just for the partner but for you as an organization. if you have a lot of false leads false meetings scheduled and you're getting no show rates that's a waste Something else to keep in mind if you're a vendor coming to these events,

Carrie Richardson (2):

What I've seen a lot of is, people getting paid per scan and telling people please, can I scan you? I get paid for every person that I scan. What have you seen that works for encouraging people to provide their data? How many people are giving out Gmail accounts to register for PAX 8 beyond? How many people gave their actual email address or the phone number?

Aaron Peterik:

There's a ton of bad practices out there, right? There's a lot of people that just show up to these events to get swag items to bring home to their teams, I see that all the time. And that's why I've never been a big fan of do this and you get this." I want real leads. I want folks that are really engaged want to learn about what we do why we do it and have a real problem. I don't want to just fill our CRM with a bunch of false leads and junk that is gonna take away from priorities that we should be focused on from a partner perspective. there's a lot of bad practices out there. I would encourage, vendors to not do that unless they wanna waste their time and build false leads in CRM. as a CEO of these vendors, everyone is always asking for what's the ROI coming outta these events, right? And yeah, you may be able to put a thousand leads into your CRM and that might look good. It might feel good. But then how many demos are you scheduling, how many of those are ordering a POC or some kind of trial, And then how many of those are actually converting to revenue? the more leads you put into your CRM, the more things you need to manage, the more noise you're making and sending out into the market with different email campaigns and so forth. there's just a lot of waste that happens with that.

Carrie Richardson (2):

Is there a process that brings the data into your CRM automatically, or do you do something to vet what you bring into the CRM After the event, are you auditing the list of scans or do you use a form that pulls it directly into HubSpot or Salesforce?

Aaron Peterik:

you can upload, Excel files into your CRM pretty easily. a lot of these events, including beyond, vendors will get a lead scanner. So depending on the, the level of sponsorship you have. Your sponsorship, will either come with a lead scanner or you may have to purchase that. on the side, I would highly recommend if you're a vendor attending PAX Zero. you have a lead scanner. if it doesn't come with your sponsorship, it is well worth the investment And so with that lead scanner you know who's coming by your booth. you don't wanna just get a full list of all the attendees, at the event, because that's a lot of noise you're putting into your CRM potentially. You wanna know, you wanna understand who actually came by and who you talked to, You can then input some notes about that conversation. who did you talk to? Where are they from? Why did they stop by? what kind of problem are they looking to solve that your solution might be able to fill? What are they using today for this? That can go into your CRM. utilize a lead scan if you can, that can get auto-populated into your CRM, HubSpot, Salesforce. You can create, different campaigns and cadences to reach out after the event as well using this information. But those are gonna be the information that really determines what kind of ROI you get out of this, the event is one thing, but the real work starts after the event. It's in the follow-ups, in those, communications that you send out, as well as those meetings that you're able to get scheduled afterwards. the more notes and details you can get on each of those interactions, the better success you'll have after the event.

Carrie Richardson (2):

So for Zero at PAX 8 beyond this year, who should be coming up to the booth to talk to you? What problems are they trying to solve? Tell us a little bit about what you're gonna be talking about and the best fit MSP for your services.

Aaron Peterik:

zero Networks is in a unique spot for managed service providers. we do, network segmentation. we are the only vendor, offering, what we call microsegmentation to the MSP channel and the SMB market There aren't any other vendors in the world offering microsegmentation in an automated way, to the channel. We're gonna use beyond as a way to highlight and educate MSPs that in most cases, don't really do segmentation. A lot of MSPs utilize, VLANs to do segmentation today, which is not a secure method. we use these events. especially here to, highlight, the challenges in network segmentation and the overall, issue that all MSPs and businesses have lateral movement. breaches are happening every single day, We see reports on ransomware and the number of breaches almost every single hour it seems like these days. The question is, when someone breaches your network, what security, measures do you have in place to prevent them from moving laterally and accessing all of that sensitive information that we need to, lock down. there's a lot of money being spent on perimeter defenses, trying to prevent threat actors from getting inside the network. we play inside the network. we segment that network. so that if one machine or one user is compromised and breached, we prevent that breach from spreading across the rest of the network. which is then gonna hopefully prevent ransomware. It's gonna protect your data. we're gonna be spreading the word on microsegmentation, how we do it in an automated way. It's agentless. we have a patent on how we apply MFA at the port level so no one else in the world can do this except for zero networks. we allow. customers to put MFA on any connection inside of a network. if you wanna stop, Julie, in your organization from accessing this server, you can do that. And you can require Julie in this example, to MFA before she gets access to that. And so our services can do that. It locks down networks. it is true zero trust. Then we also have, a remote access solution called Connect, which is A VPN replacement. it's the speed of A VPN, but has, added layers of security utilizing MFA that I just talked about as well.

Carrie Richardson (2):

thank you very much for joining us today, giving us advice on how to take advantage, of an event the size of PAX 8 beyond, we will publish your booth number so people can find you and talk about the only solution for microsegmentation in the MSP space. Thanks a lot, Aaron.

Aaron Peterik:

thank you.

Carrie Richardson (2):

see you

Aaron Peterik:

Looking forward to it.

Carrie Richardson (2):

Take care.

Aaron Peterik:

Bye.

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Carrie Richardson

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Ian Richardson

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