According to the Identity Theft Research Center, 2017 saw 1,579 data breaches—a record high, and an almost 45 percent increase from the previous year. Like many IT service providers, you’re probably getting desensitized to statistics like this. But you still have to face facts: organizations will experience a security incident sooner or later. What’s important is that you are prepared so that the impact doesn’t harm your customers or disrupt their business.
In a recent report by the firm 451 Research, 62 percent of SMBs reported having a security awareness training program in place for their employees, with half being “homegrown” training courses. The report also found that most complained their programs were difficult to implement, track, and manage.
I’ve been in this business a long time, and I can honestly say that many MSPs lack a concrete sales process structure. That’s pretty worrisome because, let’s face it, you have to have a plan in order to succeed at just about anything. Imagine you’re an engineer working on server maintenance or a network infrastructure build—you wouldn’t do that without a plan, would you? Your sales strategy should be handled no differently.
Whether the SLA review is part of a quarterly business review or not, risk assessments can be used to showcase a few different things for your clients. First, the risk assessment can be used to highlight opportunities for improvement. Now, clients aren’t inherently receptive to risk mitigation, especially when doing so increases work on their end (hands up if you’ve had extended “debates” with a client about the merits of 2FA).
We recently highlighted how risk assessments bring value to your quarterly business reviews, but that’s not the only good use for risk assessments. They can also be used to help with the sales process, and even with prospecting. Given that marketing and sales remain perpetual challenges for MSPs, anything that helps improve these processes is definitely worth exploring. So how do risk assessments help with your sales and marketing efforts?
Restaurants outside of the U.S. adopted pay-at-the-table solutions years ago. Throughout the U.S., providers of this technology failed to implement a viable solution and all its inherent benefits. However, a paradigm shift for pay-at-the-table solutions is on the horizon, and resellers need to become educated to take advantage of the opportunity.
Cybersecurity technology is an integral part of any business, helping to reduce the risk of data breaches. Despite its importance, selling this technology is simply not as interesting, or as simple, as talking about features and functions of point of sale technology. Leading a conversation with security is a death sentence to a sale, as the average business owner does not have the time nor the technical understanding to realize its significance. Instead, resellers should keep their security knowledge in store to help express urgency at the end of a sale.
Scanning news headlines on any given day is likely to reveal yet another security breach, new cyber threats, or a recently discovered vulnerability in popular software. Previously, viruses could be attributed to single perpetrators, but current cyber security threats are led by highly experienced teams of cyber-criminals who are hell-bent on stealing company data.
Have you met the Hidden IT buyer? We’re not talking about the CIO or CTO that cloud resellers usually deal with. There are other employees out there who are buying their own software applications without even consulting the IT department. People like the VP of Sales, the Director of Finance or even the Human Resources Manager.
“I thought you were taking care of that!” -- When a client tells you that, you know you’re going to have a fantastic conversation. That’s because something bad happened, and revealed a common disconnect between IT service providers and their clients. The client assumes that the IT service provider handles every single aspect of IT service, including everything security related. You, the IT service provider, probably have a more realistic view.
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