Can you sell a security solution? Of course, you can. You’ve been successfully doing it for many years and your company has been profitable, as well. You have benefited from the incredible growth that the physical security industry has experienced in the past few years that has supported thousands of integrators with new business and a recurring revenue model. Security end users are requesting innovative technologies in door hardware, access control systems, video surveillance and more to secure their facilities.
How is the Sale Changing in this Highly Competitive Landscape?
However, things change, and today that sale may not come as easily as it used to. Today’s business landscape is highly competitive, and having a good product or service is no longer enough to meet and exceed an organization’s revenue targets and to grow and scale the way they need to.
Even more, the make-up of who is selling security solutions is different. With smaller integration teams, businesses can rely on more close-knit relationships, and the person pitching a project would typically be a member of senior management, with a deep knowledge of all their clients and their products.
Today, many larger integration firms are required to bring a variety of experience levels into the business to keep costs low. The account manager who is selling to your clients may have an engineering background, instead of sales, and may lack some of the deep industry expertise of their predecessors.
Further complicating the sales process is the flood of new products coming into the market each year; this barrage can overwhelm end users to the point where they simply continue to order the same products that they have been ordering for years. Even more, the commoditization of physical security products continues to erode the profitability for systems integrators.
A Different Method for Selling
I
t’s time to shake up the way that you do business if you want to continue to be profitable. Instead of selling a product to an end user based on its functions and benefits, account managers need to shift the conversation to talk about the impact of the security solution. Before asking an end user for their requirements for an upcoming project, an account manager should ask questions about what business problem they are trying to solve. What specific security risks are they trying to mitigate?
This different way of selling – impact selling – will have its challenges. It will require you to flip the script on tradition, so that you solve a problem rather than sell a product. You will need to hold off on making any product recommendations until the end user provides enough information to communicate their real struggles and issues. Yet, it’s the way that your firm will not only remain profitable, but also will grow and experience new revenue streams.
By switching the conversation with end users to talk about the impact of a security product, account managers can present a solution to help the end user to mitigate security risks and potentially solve problems that they even didn’t know they had. The end user will look to your team as subject matter experts and a true partner in their efforts to secure their enterprise. Impact selling can allow you and your team to become true partners to your customers, and help your firm to achieve profits you have been looking for.
