Strategies for Cyber Security Sales Teams

“We need more salespeople for our anticipated growth,” said the CEO of an enterprise cyber security firm. The digital transformation and remote work environments create heightened security concerns among end-users and growth opportunities for providers. Enterprise providers, like Microsoft, Cisco, and Amazon Web Services, are all searching for experienced salespeople with cyber security expertise. Finding cyber security experts is challenging enough, but experts with enterprise sales skills multiply the challenge. This article explores strategies to help organizations scale their technical sales force.

Demand for enterprise cyber security sales executives has never been greater. The number of enterprise clients spending more than $1 million annually on cyber security continues to grow. Merging market conditions, like cloud migration, modernizing IT infrastructure, and heightened threat awareness, drive demand for cyber security. Selling security solutions to enterprise clients requires a diverse set of skills. In addition to thoroughly understanding the technology, skills such as account planning, pipeline management, accurate forecasting, negotiating, and closing with multiple stakeholders are critical to success. Developing a sales team to meet the increasing demand for cyber security solutions is vital for success. Let’s explore a few options.

Everyone Is a Salesperson

The United States Marine Corps says, “Every Marine is a rifleman first.” It does not matter if you are a cook or jet mechanic. All Marines receive basic infantry training. Providing basic sales training for all technical hires has multiple benefits for the organization. First, it creates a culture in which all employees who interact with clients can contribute to revenue. When junior remote support technicians or senior field solution architects have basic sales training, they are able to deliver better value to the client while supporting the sales team.

The second benefit of including basic sales training for all technical hires is that it will open alternative career paths never considered. There are prevalent stereotypes non-sales professionals carry about selling. They view selling as being pushy and aggressive. Instead, modern selling is all about uncovering problems and finding solutions. Exposing technical roles to modern sales principles will alleviate stereotypes and attract more candidates for sales.

Create a Core Cyber Sales Team

There are 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs worldwide that are unfulfilled. The harsh reality for sales leaders searching for sales talent is that this shortage will not improve anytime soon. Hiring alone will not effectively meet this demand in the short term. This shortfall requires sales leaders to re-imagine their sales model. One solution is to merge sales specialists into a core business sales team.

Sales specialists trained to sell specific legacy products or services is a popular model. Enterprises worldwide recognize that cloud platforms consolidate and simplify legacy technologies, driving value across the organization. Cyber securities providers worldwide recognize that when existing clients adopt a platform solution, they spend more and stay longer. As enterprises consolidate their providers, this creates a “winner-take-all” or “winner-take-most” scenario. Utilizing sales specialists to facilitate cloud adoption is a resourceful strategy. 

Transitioning from sales specialists to a core business sales team requires different sales skills. Sales specialists must demonstrate the platform’s economic impact across the client’s enterprise. In addition, they must transition from understanding the client’s current technical issues to anticipating future business needs. For a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), this is a business decision as well as a technical decision. Training existing sales specialists as trusted “business” advisors will accelerate cloud adoption without hiring more headcount.

At Janek, we developed our sales methodology based on the trusted advisor sales model. Working with enterprise clients across various industry verticals, we can validate that buyers prefer sellers who position themselves as an advisor rather than sales specialists. Advisors can expand their footprint, provide more sophisticated services, and prevent competitors from encroaching.

Re-recruit Previous Employees

Sales Executives who left for perceived greener pastures can be engaged in a “Welcome Back” campaign. Creating a process to rehire top sales performers is an effective strategy in a tight job market. Often departed sales talent quickly discover the grass is not greener. It is not uncommon for sales reps to start thinking a few months after leaving, “This might have been a mistake.” Informing previous sales executives that they are welcome to return creates a funnel with high conversions.

We have found that employee development and sales staff turnover go hand in hand. Sales staff turnover is preventable. Cyber security professionals are knowledge workers. As such, they recognize the value of education. In addition to their computer science degrees or technical certifications like Certified Information Systems Security Professionals (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Managers (CISM), formal competency-based sales training provides a path to career advancement. Formal sales training keeps the team engaged. A committed sales team is less likely to leave.

In Conclusion

Cyber security may be one of the most recession-proof industries today—hundreds of billions of cloud dollars will be sold in the coming years. By 2030 the global cyber security market is expected to exceed $500 billion. Forecasts predict the industry to compound annually at a growth rate of 12 percent. This demand has created intense competition for cyber security sales professionals.

A 2021 Accenture global survey of 4,744 respondents found that 85 percent of CISOs view cyber security as a business objective like revenue growth or market share. The recent ransomware attack on Hanesbrands cost $100 million in sales and highlights how business critical cyber security is to enterprises. As cyber security becomes a business objective, developing a sales force that can orchestrate the business value in conjunction with technical aspects is indispensable.

For cyber security firms to compete in a tight job market may require sales leaders to reimage their sales team. Exposing all client-facing technical staff to essential sales training will help them articulate value to customers while supporting sales. In addition, sales training will remove outdated stereotypes and open sales as a viable career path option among the technical staff. 

CISOs will look at the business value across the enterprise. Enterprise-wide adoption increases the complexity of the decision. Cyber security sales professionals who position themselves as trusted advisors rather than sales specialists will have more influence in purchasing decisions. Trusted advisors have an executive presence, can articulate value, and align their solutions to the client’s strategic opportunities. 

In cyber security, great people are a prerequisite to delivering great sales results. For cyber security firms to execute their sales strategy, sourcing sales talent is an area of concern. Organizations that are experts in attracting, developing, and engaging their sales talent will be the most high-performing companies winning in the digital transformation sweepstakes.

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