By Brandi Crown, Director of Sales at Syncro
If you have a tool that has proven to improve threat protection for your clients, but you don’t know how to sell it effectively, it’s a lose-lose for everyone. Your client misses out on a great solution that would ramp up security and you miss out on revenue or have to deal with the fallout after an attack. Yet with the right approach to selling your clients into cybersecurity products, it doesn’t have to be this way.
I sat down with Jennifer Bleam, MSP sales coach and best-selling author in the channel, to talk about persuasive cybersecurity sales and how businesses can nail their next sales pitch. Let’s dive in:
Identifying the True Meaning of Discovery
Discovery is not for you, as the salesperson, to discover anything. Effective discovery helps clients understand the depth of their challenges. Clients’ problems are often larger than they initially perceive. It’s not just about pointing out issues but explaining their impact and making the clients care about resolving them. Discovery is all about demonstrating the massive gap in their current setup.
To put it simply, you want to help the prospect realize that they’re standing on top of a frozen lake that isn’t truly frozen over. If they make the wrong move, that ice is going to crack and cause a massive domino effect of problems if they don’t leverage your expertise.
The Cybersecurity Sales Lever that Builds Empathy and Drives Need
During the sales process, the requirements set by cyber insurance providers actually work in your favor. You can say to a prospect, “Hey, your insurance company needs to see these five things in place. If you don’t have them, you won’t get insurance or it’s going to cost a lot.” The more you empathize with prospects and convey that you understand their concerns, the better. You can explain that while you acknowledge their concerns, it’s beyond your control, as these are the policies of the insurance carriers. Your role is to help them meet the necessary criteria.
This sales lever not only positions you as a thought leader, it also strengthens your relationship with clients and prospects. It’s important to highlight that no insurance carrier will provide coverage without these essential measures in place. The advantage is that we can address all these requirements, and it represents a reasonable investment. However, our focus isn’t solely on fulfilling insurance prerequisites, we’re also actively mitigating risks.
How to Use Emotion Without Pushing on FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt)
Humans often make decisions based on emotion, especially buying decisions, so figuring out how to bring in emotion without forcing FUD is an essential skill. Selling anything involves selling the implication. No matter what you’re selling, the message remains consistent. Taking no action will result in a negative outcome.
For cybersecurity, there are a lot of companies that solely focus on all of the features. Even if that is how a vendor is selling to you, avoid the temptation to sell that way to the end user. It’s crucial to understand it’s a completely different sale and therefore requires a completely different technique. While it is important to explain some features at a high level, remember that what you’re really selling is the benefit of comfort and the avoidance of an ultimately time-consuming and costly outcome.
You can lean into those emotions with business implications or impacts. If you asked your client, “What is the impact on a business if they get a ransomware attack,” we all know that intuitively, they’re dead in the water. They can’t access their files. They can’t access their bank. And worst of all: downtime. You won’t be able to pay your team. You won’t be able to track time. It’s devastating.
This is the kind of conversation that your client or prospect can relate to because it’s a reality if they don’t take cybersecurity seriously. Talking about business impact is how you create emotion, and it’s the emotion that ultimately creates a sale.
Positioning Your Bundle Against Competitors to Seal the Deal
It’s not advisable to only insist that clients should have cyber insurance or to merely provide it as an option. We strongly advise making your cybersecurity program a mandatory component of your business offering instead of providing it as a choice. This means that prospects cannot opt out of it. If they choose your business, it must include cybersecurity.
Bundling these services together offers several advantages. For one, it reduces your risk as a business because everyone is on the same preferred solution stack. Secondly, it streamlines operations, eliminating the need to reference agreements to determine if remediation is necessary constantly.
But on the sales side, caution is necessary. If your pricing is higher due to the comprehensive nature of your offering, you must clearly communicate the value. Ensure that clients understand they are receiving a distinct, comprehensive package, setting you apart from competitors.
One effective approach is to present the package as a unified solution. For instance, offer both your business and cybersecurity together for a competitive price. This not only simplifies the decision for clients, it also undercuts the competition, as they may struggle to distinguish between various proposals.
By clearly presenting what your package includes, you make it easier for clients to recognize the value, thus encouraging them to choose your comprehensive offering over others. The key is to demonstrate the value and address the specific pain points effectively.
Sealing the Deal
Mastering persuasive cybersecurity sales is not just about selling a product or service; it’s about helping businesses understand the urgency of their cybersecurity needs, empathizing with their concerns, appealing to their emotions, and offering comprehensive solutions that stand out from the competition. With the right approach, everyone can win – businesses get the protection they need, and vendors and service providers secure their success in a competitive market.
