How to Leverage Dark Web Monitoring to Unseat the IT Provider
July 24th, 2018 by Brian Suerth
“I got this,” Ryan reminds himself. He rehearses his value proposition, visualizes himself handling objections flawlessly and knows how badly this customer needs cybersecurity.
He walks into the meeting with the client and he gives his pitch. He crushes it. The customer now realizes they have gaping voids in their IT network.
But then the decision maker says, “This has been really helpful and informative. I’m going to discuss this with the rest of the team, I especially want to run it by our IT guy and we’ll get back to you. Look out for an email in the next couple days.”
Ryan can feel his teeth clench while he tries to force out a smile. He knows that as soon as the IT guy hears about this meeting, there will be no follow up.
But what if there were a faster way to land managed IT services clients? What if we could generate several thousand in recurring revenue sales, in only a few touchpoints?
Most organizations in the managed IT services marketplace have overlooked one key tool that could dramatically increase their close ratio, especially on the first appointment – and that tool is dark web monitoring.
The first step is to run a dark web scan on your prospective customer before you meet them at the first appointment. The goal of the first appointment is to get the customer to say “yes” to a network analysis.
That way, once you make your offer and receive the dreaded, yet typical, “Sounds interesting... but we’ll think about it and get back to you” response from the customer, you can pull out your dark web scan and show the decision-maker all of the company’s compromised email accounts, passwords, site vulnerabilities and any other sensitive information that is available for purchase on the dark web, at that very moment!
Once the decision-maker realizes that anyone in the company may have the ability to compromise the integrity of the entire network, they’re much more likely to want more of your expertise.
I recommend this close: “Whoever is managing your network today is not doing it properly or in a manner that protects your company. Our role is to keep our customers safe while increasing their profitability and giving them a competitive advantage with the right technology.”
At this point, you’ve established your credibility, provided the customer with massive value and you’ve educated them on a solution, without asking for anything in return. It’s an incredibly strong way to begin the transaction, and if the incumbent IT guy hasn’t done an adequate job assessing the threats facing the network, you’ve just gotten the decision-maker to change how they approach IT in the organization.
The dark web scan is just one touchpoint with the customer, and of course, there’s much more to the sales process. However, this is an excellent way to get started.
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