The IT market is built for sellers, not buyers.
That's why 80% of tech buyers regret their last major purchase. Deals take longer than they should. Teams get locked into platforms that don't fit, contracts they can't escape, and vendors they wouldn't choose again. The pitches, demos, and analyst reports are built to close deals, not help buyers make the right one.
Signed is the podcast for the buyers. Host Max Clark, CEO of ITBroker.com, talks with CIOs, CFOs, operators, and founders who've lived inside real enterprise tech deals — the ones who can explain what actually determined whether the deal worked.
Plus weekly Playbooks breaking down the moments that matter most: renewals, M&A, compliance mandates, office moves, budget cuts, and the specific plays that separate buyers who get it right from those who regret it.
If you're responsible for choosing, negotiating, or living with the consequences of enterprise technology, this show is for you.
New episodes weekly. An ITBroker.com podcast.
You bought the EDR. You checked every box your insurance renewal asked for. In this Playbook, Max Clark, CEO of ITBroker.com, breaks down why 60% of ransomware victims had a leading EDR product deployed when they got hit, and what the other 40% were doing that they weren't. From the four tools insurance actually requires to the ones nobody budgets for until it's too late, Max walks through the gap between owning a security tool and being protected by one, and the one line item most security budgets are missing entirely.
THE PLAYBOOK
00:00 The trigger: the EDR stat insurance doesn't want you thinking about
00:41 The mistake: treating insurance's four checkboxes as the finish line
04:22 The play, step 1: what security buyers skip past SWG, CASB, and ZTNA
09:07 The play, step 2: what actually gets security budget approved, and why ROI is the wrong pitch
13:19 The play, step 3: test your backups before you need them
14:38 What to watch for next: measuring security by detection and containment speed, not tools bought
RESOURCES MENTIONED
KnowBe4 (https://www.knowbe4.com) — the security awareness training platform Max says most clients end up on anyway
Okta (https://www.okta.com) — referenced as a strong IDP/SSO layer for building real ZTNA entitlement chains
Microsoft 365 E5 Security (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/e5) — the bundled EDR/security suite Max warns is only as good as the team configuring it
Target's 2013 HVAC vendor breach (https://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/02/target-hackers-broke-in-via-hvac-company/) — Max's example of the IoT/third-party blind spot most companies don't monitor
ABOUT THE SHOW
Signed is the podcast for buyers in a market built for sellers. Playbooks are the solo format — 10 to 15 minutes, one trigger, one specific play. New episodes weekly at itbroker.com/podcast. If the trigger in today's Playbook is one you're facing right now, book an intro call at itbroker.com. We help buyers make the right call the first time. Buy tech without regret. Follow: @itbrokerdotcom
Full Transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript. (https://share.transistor.fm/s/091f8646/transcript)
29 Sept 2026
Playbooks: CSPs
Buying Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or Azure direct feels like the simpler choice, until you need support or get locked out of your own tenant.
In this Playbook, Max Clark breaks down what a Cloud Solution Provider (a CSP) actually does between you and the platform: faster support and escalation, help recovering a locked tenant, engineering and migration support, and access to vendor funding you can't reach on your own, usually at little or no added cost.
If you're deciding whether to buy direct or through a CSP, or renewing that decision without ever having checked it, this one's for you.
The Playbook
00:51 What a CSP actually is
01:29 Why Microsoft and Google aren't built for support
01:55 Where a CSP sits between you and the platform
02:24 The vendor funding most buyers never access
03:19 The admin account problem most companies ignore
04:17 What happens when you get locked out
05:14 How a CSP changes your recovery and escalation path
06:11 Engineering, migration, and configuration support
06:38 Not all CSPs are the same
07:03 Tier zero vs. tier one support, explained
08:26 End-user support vs. administrative support in practice
09:25 Why a CSP rarely costs you anything extra
10:17 The bottom line: direct vs. CSP
About Signed
Signed is the podcast for buyers in a market built for sellers. Playbooks are the solo format, 10 to 15 minutes, one trigger, one specific play. New episodes weekly at itbroker.com/podcast. If the trigger in today's Playbook is one you're facing right now, book an intro call at itbroker.com. We help buyers make the right call the first time. Buy tech without regret. Follow: @itbrokerdotcom
Full Transcript
22 Sept 2026
Did You Choose Cloud for the Wrong Reason?
Which workloads actually belong in public cloud, private cloud, colocation, or bare metal? Jeremy Pease, CEO of Aptum, joins Max Clark to break down how application requirements, infrastructure costs, connectivity, resilience, and scale should determine where your workloads run.
They get into cloud migration and repatriation, why connectivity can cost more than the infrastructure itself, workloads that never needed the scale assumed in the original business case, and a colocation estimate that went from roughly $10,000 a month to $80,000 once the real requirements were modeled.
If you're evaluating a cloud migration, renewal, repatriation, or infrastructure change, this conversation gives you the questions to run before deciding where the next workload belongs.
Before your next migration, renewal, or repatriation decision:
https://www.itbroker.com/blog/cloud-workload-assessment (https://www.itbroker.com/blog/cloud-workload-assessment)
Jeremy Pease:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-pease-a53b972/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-pease-a53b972/)
Aptum:
https://aptum.com/ (https://aptum.com/)
More from Signed:
https://www.itbroker.com/podcast (https://www.itbroker.com/podcast)
Full Transcript
Click here to view the episode transcript. (https://share.transistor.fm/s/88986087/transcript)
Who has been a guest on Tech Deep Dive
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Joseph Cook
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YouTube views
36,819
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 76 / 100
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