5 Ways To Improve Your Security And Disaster Recovery Sales Conversations

Talking The Talk

Having a more successful sales conversation around security and disaster recovery is easier than you might think, Jeremy MacBean, director of business development at IT Weapons, said Monday in his breakout session at XChange 2014 in Los Angeles. The event is hosted by CRN publisher The Channel Company. The trick is -- don't talk about sales, he said. Instead, MacBean said to work on building out your organization's role as the trusted adviser around security, disaster recovery and more. Take a look at five tips he said helped his business grow its conversations around security and disaster recovery, and consequently its sales.

Hold A Round Table

One way to change the conversation around security and disaster recovery is to hold a round-table discussion with CEOs, CIOs and CFOs to just talk to them and present a few examples of why the technology is important. The main thing is to make sure the presentation doesn't have a purchase order end goal; it's about furthering the relationship as a trusted adviser and helping them understand the technology rather than seeing it as another bill to pay, MacBean said to CRN.

"In the end, for me it's about making people trust us," MacBean said in an interview with CRN.

Be Honest

If you're being honest about the technology, and not being a salesperson, clients are a lot more likely to listen, MacBean said. If you push sales too hard, you might actually have the opposite effect than you want, he said, because you could end up damaging the relationship rather than growing it for the future.

"I think if I had a recommendation to give to people to achieve [better sales] is have confidence in what you do and be honest and have a conversation that's not sales-focused," MacBean told CRN. "If you're open to that and have something to contribute to that conversation, they'll come."

Be Able To Navigate Their Road Map

The best way to have the most productive conversation with the client is to sit down and really work to understand their business, MacBean said. He suggested asking them what their pain points are and understanding their business road map in order to better understand how you can act as an adviser.

"There's ways to have the conversation that aren't transaction-focused. Those are the conversations that we try to have," MacBean said in an interview with CRN. "At the end of the day, people want to do business with people they trust."

BYOD For Your Business

It's easy to change the sales conversation, especially around BYOD, MacBean said. If businesses want good, smart talent to take them seriously when applying for jobs, they have to adopt BYOD, MacBean said, and that means bringing security conversations into the picture to protect the devices from wherever employees choose to work. Instead of presenting BYOD security as an added expense, MacBean suggested showing businesses how investing their time and resources into BYOD and security enables and empowers the next-generation workforce. Just talking about security policies is a "bummer," he said, but it becomes a whole different type of conversation if it is about empowering employees.

"It's about building business for the future," MacBean said. "That's exciting."

Get In The Driver's Seat Of The Conversation

Technology is maturing, MacBean said, and end users are becoming more and more ready to adopt emerging technologies. However, it's up to the solution provider to decide who sits in the driver's seat, and solution providers who are in the business of helping other organizations should be leading the charge.

"It's not just them driving it," MacBean said. "They're going to do whatever they want ... you have to be involved and get involved, and bring some of value, if you want to be part of it."

Plus, he said, talking about the future of technology is way more interesting than talking about fulfillment.