How can sales leverage your security posture?

Here are two truths about the current SaaS sales cycle. 

First: The economic slowdown being felt across industries means that enterprise buyers are increasingly cautious about where and how they spend their budgets. 

Second: The growing focus on security and privacy — from regulators and customers alike — has pushed companies to enhance their security postures. As such, having a robust security strategy is a competitive advantage for any SaaS vendor. 

The question lies, then, in how sales teams can leverage the second truth to mitigate the first. Vendors that can inspire trust and confidence early on in the sales cycle are going to be better positioned to close the sale faster, saving time and money for both themselves and their customers. 

In this article, we’re taking a closer look at how sales teams can leverage their security posture to do just that. 

Where security and sales come together 

You’d be forgiven for thinking that sales and security are a bit like oil and water — they just don’t mix, right? Wrong. In today’s tech landscape, equipping your sales reps with the right intel around your security posture could prove crucial in many a sales conversation. 

Companies that are doing this right have taken steps to include security information in the sales onboarding process, design seamless information sharing workflows between the two teams, and have stores of information that sales reps can access easily. Set up with the right resources, sales reps can then take the following three steps to build trust and shorten the sales cycle. 

1. Be transparent

You know it’s important to have security measures in place — but it’s just as important to talk about those measures. Just like the tree doesn’t make a sound if it falls in the forest when no one is around (or does it?), no one is going to know about your security posture unless you talk about it. 

Enterprises are under more scrutiny than ever when it comes to security, and that impacts their vendor selection. They need to work with providers that are just as rigorous with their security as they are. So, when they’re evaluating potential vendors, enterprise buyers are bound to gravitate to the ones that are open and transparent about their security practices. 

In practice, this means that your sales reps should be able to answer questions about your security posture from the very first call. In fact, reps should be as proactive as possible, offering up the information before the prospect has a chance to ask questions. Each sales deck should have a section dedicated to security, speaking to any standards (like SOC 2 or GDPR) you comply with and your roadmap for enhancing security in the future. 

Beyond being the mouthpiece for your security efforts, sales reps can also act as your ears. Each sales conversation is an opportunity to identify any security or compliance gaps that might hinder a sale — and that’s information that can be relayed back to the security team.

2. Bring your marketing team into the fold

While your sales team will play a big role in communicating your company’s security posture, they don’t have to do it alone. Your marketing team can be a useful partner in these efforts. 

Wherever possible, get the marketing team to share information about your security efforts. Whether it’s a blog post on how you became SOC 2 compliant, a testimonial from a client speaking to how reassured they were by your security posture, or a podcast episode where your CSO shared best practices being used at the company, these will all be valuable in shaping your company’s reputation as a secure entity. Plus, your sales team can then use those materials when they’re engaging with people on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other networks. 

3. Leverage the right tooling

As we’ve established, sharing your security information is important — so you need to equip your sales team with the right tools to do that. Not all of your security reports are going to be publicly shareable. SOC 2 reports, for instance, are meant only for private consumption and require an NDA for anyone outside your organization to read them. Getting NDAs signed can often take days, and that’s not great when you’re trying to shorten the sales cycle. 

With a tool like Pima, sales reps can get NDAs signed in minutes and make sensitive documents readily available to authorized individuals. This way, prospects can confirm compliance before even initiating the procurement process, thus shortening the time to sale. 

Sales and security: Unlikely partners in crime

More than ever, having a strong security posture is a competitive advantage for SaaS vendors. This is a truth that isn’t going away. Companies that want to stand out against their competitors need to make strong partners out of their sales and security teams, educating sales reps on how to talk about security so that they can better secure new customers. 

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