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Sales are complicated. You’re not just articulating the facts about your product or service, you are also navigating emotions and perception to get the deal closed. In a tech setting, that’s about building trust and confidence.
The faster that trust is built, the quicker your sales team can sell the value— or what your product or service can truly offer the customer.
A strong security initiative is an important beginning step for building that trust, and we’re here with five ways hiring a CISO as a Service or vCISO could help your sales team to excel:
1. A vCISO will take care of customer security questionnaires.
You or your staff are spending all your time filling out time-consuming security questionnaires. It’s something you are simply forced to do, as your customer won’t sign your contract until it’s complete. Oftentimes, these questionnaires list hundreds of questions about your products, technology and company— so that your customers can assess how you manage risk before agreeing to a partnership.
Fortunately after hiring a CISO as a Service, this paperwork becomes their job. In reality, it should be their job. These security professionals have an in-depth understanding of what a risk assessment entails, and an acute awareness of your security policies, protocols, previous audits, etc. to answer more accurately than your sales team.
2. A vCISO team will build a robust security program.
The whole reason your customers are making you fill out those security questionnaires is to show that your business will be a trusted partner, one who won’t leak their shared data or cause security or reputational problems for them vicariously.
When hiring a vCISO, they will be responsible for reducing your risk and protecting your assets, enhancing your security program and your partner’s trust. As a result, your sales team will spend less time talking about information security and more about the value of your product/service during the sale cycle.
In addition to increasing your protection, a vCISO can produce white papers and other materials that can double as marketing assets for your sales team. Penetration test results and other results displaying your preparedness in the face of threats will help to build confidence during the sales process.
3. A vCISO is considered an external auditor.
When it comes to hiring an in-house CISO vs. outsourcing one as a service, one major advantage is that an external security team is unbiased. It’s easier for internal staff to miss gaps in their own protection, but when hiring an impartial third-party vendor, they are less likely to overlook internal biases.
By getting an external auditor to sign off on your security program, you can demonstrate that your program meets industry standards, objectively, lending trust your sales team can use their advantage.
4. A CISO as a Service can prevent bottlenecks with Research and Development.
Your R&D department and sales are often in conflict: whereas research and development can cause delays on product/process releases and affect your sales team’s commission, sales could push for earlier release and affect testing or development.
A CISO as a service can help to ensure neither department is holding up the other by driving the creation and management of the innovation process. These specialists can foster rapid responses and better communication, and oftentimes even offer strategic insights or help in the development of new technology.
5. A CISO as a Service can enforce a privacy readiness exercise.
Privacy is a hot topic for many companies. There are often costly consequences for exposing personal data or breaking legal protocol, and security measures aimed at reducing this risk are very important to potential customers.
Your vCISO can require a privacy readiness exercise to identify gaps and inefficiencies in current processes. This data and resulting updates can help remove the compliance and privacy barrier from sales, building confidence in your cybersecurity program’s strength.
Empowering Your Sales Team & Beyond
Don’t let information security concerns be a barrier to your sales team. Empower them with the tools they need to get the deal closed by hiring a trusted CISO as a Service.
In addition to enabling your sales team for success, vCISO offer a lot of company-wide benefits. Here are a few things you can expect.
Our IT security experts are ready to help. Contact us today.
