This article originally appeared in the April 2024 issue of Security Business magazine. Don’t forget to mention Security Business magazine on LinkedIn and @SecBusinessMag on Twitter if you share it.
One of the most common objections we receive when helping our clients make the shift to selling more cloud and managed services is that their customers are mostly enterprise accounts. We often hear responses like: “They don’t need managed services. They already have enough people, resources, and capital. They can do it on their own.”
Our answer is always the same: “You are right. They can do it on their own, but should they?” I then ask them why Elon Musk has mortgages. He certainly doesn’t need them. Elon can pay cash for a home on his own, but should he?
Internal mindset is the number-one reason that system integrators are not selling more cloud and managed services to enterprise accounts. The position taken by most salespeople is that they are not going to sell something that their customers don’t need – which is justification for laziness.
Excellent salespeople influence their customers to pay more for solutions that will provide them with more value. Poor salespeople only sell their customers what they need, and their customers fall behind because of it.
The craft of selling has never been about need – that’s called shopping. Sales has always been about providing customers with the best situation possible. Until that shift in mindset happens, enterprise accounts will continue to struggle with on-prem systems managed by an internal staff. However, once a salesperson appreciates this perspective, a new world opens to them.
Here are three things that will make you better at selling cloud and managed services to enterprise accounts:
1. Their problems are more about agitation, uptime, and quality than about limited resources. When selling cloud or managed services to a small or medium-sized business, the problems usually stem from their need for people, capital, space, equipment, etc.; on the other hand, enterprise accounts have all those things – but they still have problems. Their issues tend to be problems like a security manager having constant agitation because they rely on the IT department for managing the access control system, or poor quality because their superiors have high expectations of user interaction, reports, and uptime.
2. The ROI is usually larger for an enterprise account, but it is also harder to understand. There are significantly more ways to gain a return on investment within an enterprise account than with a typical business, but finding the problems and associating hard cost-savings with solutions can be very difficult. For example, enterprise accounts with multiple locations that each have an on-prem system can gain a huge return from the savings in time and travel, and realize the opportunities associated with up-to-date features and higher work satisfaction. Measuring all those items can be difficult and time-consuming, but you must do it. More times than not, the ROI is undeniable.
3. Vision-casting is critical to influencing enterprise accounts to shift to the cloud or managed services. Making the shift from a self-managed on-prem system to a cloud system that is managed by an integrator is difficult for an end-user. If their problems aren’t that painful, then they will not move forward. In those cases, salespeople must cast a vision of what their customers’ lives will be like after embracing managing services. When they see how terrific things could be, they will see their current state as painful and consider a change. It requires a story and a vision.
Chris Peterson is the founder and president of Vector Firm, a sales consulting and training company built specifically for the security industry. Use “Security Business” as a coupon code to receive a 10% lifetime discount at the Vector Firm Academy. www.vectorfirmacademy.com • (321) 439-3025
