Hackers Grab 1.5 Million – Visa and Mastercard

I’ve been saying this for years – detection is the most important part, and your managed services program is a critical component of the detection strategy. I just finished up today’s webinar – the second session of, Accelerating Managed Services Sales. Both sessions, March and April, where full, with a waiting list. This article on Global Payments underscores the problem with most security problems – if you read the quotes from the experts cited in this article you will see the recurring theme, Firewalls and Perimeter security don’t do it.

In today’s session on managed services sales I presented several mistakes being made in the sale of managed services offerings. The biggest one is putting the focus on ROI – Return on Investment, or TCO – total cost of ownership. Is there a TCO savings? Probably – or maybe even a forceful “YES”, but don’t lead managed services sales with this. Risk is the motivator here, and companies are losing the battle according to last week’s FBI reports. If you’ve read my book, From Vendor to Adviser, some sound bites worth remembering from the above article include:

The Heartland Payment Systems breach exposed 130 million credit card numbers – credit card data is still vulnerable.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is highly prescriptive in nature, but simply complying does not ensure credit card security.
The perimeter-based approach is not sufficient and fails to protect critical data and internal resources that bypass these point solutions.
Firewalls, antivirus and [intrusion detection and prevention systems] are no longer enough to protect against rapidly evolving zero-day and insider attacks.

Remember, sound bites build credibility, however, as I explain in my book From Vendor to Adviser, they do not sell. They help you relate to executives as long as the source is credible in the eyes of the buyer – so steer away from Infoweek type sources when gathering these sound bites.

Join me on April 9th – 11th for a deep dive into the world of selling highly profitable security solutions and you’ll also get a one hour one-on-one session with me to review your business and create a more effective strategy for selling more profitable solutions.