Dani Woolf (She/Her)

User Experience Specialist

Founder & CEO @ Audience 1st | Content @ Nucleus Security | Customer Research Certified

Five years ago, I pissed off a CISO so badly in front of my CMO, he helped me build a $1M+ cybersecurity buyer intelligence business. That humiliating moment during a website messaging feedback session? Best career move I ever made. Here's the uncomfortable truth about B2B tech marketing most won't tell you:

Most marketers create buyer personas in echo chambers instead of interviewing real buyers to get direct buyer insights. They're selling to fictional characters while their actual prospects choose competitors.

I learned this the hard way when a CISO, my customer, publicly destroyed me for using a buzzword out of context. At that time, I'd never actually talked to a single security leader about their real problems.

Instead of defending my approach, I asked him for coffee to learn why I upset him. That conversation led to thousands of conversations with CISOs, security architects, and IT leaders who taught me what B2B marketers get dangerously wrong about technical and business buyers.

What I discovered:
→ IT buyers don't trust marketing because marketers don't understand them and their environments
→ The best "research" comes from actual conversations, not survey data
→ Skeptical IT buyers will tell you exactly what they need - if you ask the right questions
→ Authentic relationships beat aggressive outreach every time

Today I help B2B cybersecurity companies understand their skeptical buyers through:

🎯 CyberSynapse - Direct access to vetted IT decision-makers for buyer intelligence that actually drives revenue

🍳 Cooking with CISOs - A TV show that builds real relationships with technical leaders (yes, over actual food)

📺 YouTube/Content - Sharing what 1000+ technical buyers taught me about effective B2B marketing

Some of the most skeptical and hard-to-reach cybersecurity buyers have dubbed me the marketer they actually trust - and I teach other B2B marketers how to earn that same trust and credibility.

Ready to stop operating in the dark and start growing with confidence?

Visit the links in my Featured section to see how I can help.

Founder and CEO

I'm removing the barrier to customer insights for go-to-market teams in growth-stage cybersecurity companies so they can scale growth and retain loyal customers.

Dani Woolf

Virsec

My goal is to maximize revenue through all sales, partner, and marketing efforts. I lead strategic planning, development, training, and coordination of sales and marketing initiatives aligned with Virsec's business goals.

Vice President Sales and Marketing Operations

I joined Virsec, a cybersecurity startup, to build a sales enablement program aligned with their GTM strategy. Within a month of hire, I developed the training roadmap for the sales team, sales engineers, product management, marketing, leadership, partners, customers, and advisors and implemented the sales enablement platform. I developed sales training programs, and successfully onboarded 50+ new hires, which included cybersecurity fundamentals, messaging, product training, technical training, sales and marketing ecosystem, sales skills, sales tech stack tools, customer engagement process, and the sales operating rhythm.

I managed field marketing events and campaigns for the Enterprise and Public Sector teams. This included brand and product promotion and sales activities at conferences, tradeshows, and partner and industry events.

Sr. Director Sales Enablement & Field Marketing

Mediafly

Member - Customer Advisory Board

Coalfire

After managing learning programs for the entire company, I had the opportunity to specialize in sales. In this role, I worked directly with sales leadership to develop learning programs for the sales teams. During a sales reorg, I developed a change management program that included training on new processes, systems, sales operating rhythm, sales methodology, and sales leadership.

Director, Sales Training and Program Management

Thought leader within the organization responsible for developing and leading strategic, integrated learning and development programs and organizational change initiatives. I've been highly successful in this role because I'm able to adapt to fast-paced, rapidly changing business priorities and have formed strategic partnerships throughout the organization. I effectively manage numerous complex projects with tight deadlines simultaneously and develop programs that improve both business operations and employee growth and career progression. 

In this role, I partner with ELT and senior leadership to develop our training road map to ensure it is aligned with corporate strategy. For larger corporate initiatives, I coordinate cross-functional teams across multiple practices and develop detailed project plans and facilitate work groups. For smaller projects, I work closely with stakeholders to determine business need, PBOs, identify SMEs, provide a training strategy, and manage the entire project.  

I also manage a team of learning specialists and SMEs who design and develop training resources, which include eLearning, video, webinars, micro-learning, classroom, and social learning. This team is also responsible for managing our LMS and external training vendor content.

This work has resulted in improved operational efficiencies, streamlined business processes, acceleration of employee onboarding time, implementation of best practices and cross-functional teaming. I've also successfully implemented the company's sales methodology program, which enabled the shift to enterprise selling, increased deal size, sales rep productivity, and dramatically improved the way teams engage with our clients and each other. 

During my tenure, I've received several recognition awards, including Team Member of the Quarter (2018), Operational Excellence (2020), and Coaches Award (2020).

Manager, Learning Programs

Working with business leaders and SMEs, I managed and developed the learning programs for Sales, Delivery, Federal, and G&A teams. I also managed the LMS and external training vendors to ensure our employees have on-demand access to relevant, specialized training opportunities. The scope of my projects was diverse: I wrote and delivered an Agile Project Management course to help expand our methodology for complex, longer-term projects, developed several eLearning security courses for external clients, developed on-boarding programs, partnered with HR to develop career pathing, coordinated large training events, and more.

Training and Curriculum Specialist

Colibri Group

As the Content Product and Marketing Manager, I partnered with ELT and senior leaders to align corporate strategic initiatives to product development and GTM strategy. I was responsible for developing and driving a content road map strategy for key market segments, expanding curriculum, and creating new products and new features that engaged members and customers and supported real estate career progression from pre-licensing through continuing education and professional development. This was all accomplished by coordinating cross-functional teams across multiple departments and industry experts, developing complex project plans, and targeted marketing campaigns. I also created a train-the-trainer program and was responsible for recruiting, hiring, and developing new on-site real estate trainers.

Through professional networking in the industry, I created and maintained working relationships with dozens of partners, coaches, trainers, speakers, and authors who actively contributed content for our courses, webinars, podcasts, and professional development education. Through my leadership and vision, we increased our average NPS score on continuing education courses from 51 to 84. 

I established a professional webinar series for customers, prospects and members. Through partnerships with key industry leaders, webinars on in-demand topics were held weekly for CE credit. With this education-driven marketing strategy, our company quickly gained trust in the industry.

Content Product and Marketing Manager

Donor Alliance

As the Training and Development Specialist at Donor Alliance, I implemented an enterprise-wide LMS.  As a result, all employee training files are now 100% electronic.  I worked closely with Regulatory Affairs to ensure employee training is fully compliant with FDA, CMS, UNOS, AATB, and other regulatory agency standards.  

I was responsible for new hire curriculum development for all clinical and non-clinical staff.  Working closely with senior management, leadership, and subject matter experts, I designed course training materials for a wide variety of media including classroom education, independent eLearning, mLearning, social learning, on-the-job training, and live webinars. In addition to LMS site administration and instructional design, I wrote and taught software courses including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, InfoPath Designer, SharePoint, Publisher, Project, and many more.  

I worked directly with the Human Resources Director to improve organizational development programs for leadership, team building, and new hires.  I redesigned the new hire orientation program, developing an extensive onboarding experience. 

I was an asset to Donor Alliance in this role because I was able to build a training department from the ground up, define methodology, create new processes and procedures, and establish cross-functional working teams to develop and teach content. This resulted in increased job satisfaction for clinical and non-clinical staff, decreased onboarding time, reduced risk, reduced employee turnover, and improved quality.

Training and Development Manager

Front Range Community College

Served as trainer for the FRCC Community Relations Division, implementing classroom training classes to college students and customers on Microsoft Word, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint, Project, Outlook, Publisher, Project (intermediate and advanced proficiency levels). 

Recognized for top performance and consistently rated as “Excellent” on survey results

Software/Technology Trainer (Community and Professional Development)

Mission Critical Systems

Facilitate wide variety of classroom and web-based software training classes. Plan and execute custom curriculum and training content for clients, including custom software applications, operating systems, FileSite, SharePoint, and web site management.

Commended and rated as “Excellent” on survey results.

Led the development and production of eLearning videos, which are currently sold globally.

Researched, designed, and developed training curriculum for Microsoft Office suite.

Software Trainer/Curriculum Designer

Houlihan Lawrence

I was hired as a consultant for this long-term project to partner with executive leadership, product managers, and software developers to implement a proprietary back office MLS-integrated software application including CRM, document management, lead management, website and e-marketing tools in multiple phases.

Prior to launching the program, I established cross-functional working teams to write business use cases, document work-flow, perform gap analysis, and write business requirements. I then partnered with software developers to build this into the product. I tested the software, wrote technical training manuals, trained their corporate trainers, and led in-classroom technical training classes.

IT and Training Consultant

GMAC Home Services

As the Business Technology Liaison, I led large, complex projects that were developed for corporate-owned offices and then implemented at the franchise level. I coordinate cross-functional teams across senior leadership, multiple business units, project managers, application developers, and technology vendors. Established development requirements and priorities by conducting research and leading focus groups. Evaluated, identified, and resolved gaps in existing technology to streamline office workflow. Collaborated with IT departments to track vendors and specification development requirements. Performed various duties, such as researching for latest technology trends and vendors, preparing RFPs, and participating in contract negotiation. Worked closely with IT and technology vendors to coordinate and assist in the development, customization, and integration. Trained and supported pilot groups, users, and support staff.

Served as project manager and trainer, leading the successful implementation of transaction management systems in more than 80 offices nationwide.

Streamlined and recorded eLearning training courses, as well as established “Train the Trainer Program” for existing trainers within each division.

Collaborated with real estate office personnel, brokers, individual realtors, title officers, mortgage brokers, REO asset teams, and leasing/management companies; developed needs analysis, identified and established workflow and new processes, detailed business requirements, and use cases for multiple projects and various software applications.

Skillfully planned and administered software implementation with IT, Training, Marketing, and Communication divisions.

Directed the development of instructor led and e-learning training curriculum and materials.

Business Technology Liaison

As a revenue operations and GTM sales enablement leader, I’m committed to driving success by developing and executing strategic programs and initiatives that align with the organization's goals. I have over 20 years of experience in roles that have allowed me to learn almost every aspect of the business for start-ups, mid-market, and enterprise organizations across various industries, with the past seven years in cybersecurity.

I leverage my diverse background in learning and development, program management, sales, and marketing to provide strategic leadership and operational oversight for functional teams throughout the organization. I coordinate and align key initiatives around company strategy, planning cycles, resources, and metric accountability to ensure optimal performance, efficiency, growth, innovation, and customer and employee satisfaction.

I’m very much an agile, boots-on-the-ground leader and firmly believe that operational excellence comes from knowing how every decision affects the entire ecosystem and being a problem solver. I’m passionate about ensuring employees at every level are motivated and invested in business outcomes, and empowered to influence and implement change.

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The Battle

Dani Woolf

Julie Nelson

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