How to Get a Prospect to Test Your Security Product

I’ve never met a harder sale than cybersecurity to the IT team,” admitted a security vendor. The challenges are unique at each firm and they are reluctant to even take a call let alone share real concerns. ”In the security products market, cybersecurity vendors simply want to be considered, and that often requires compelling a prospect to test the darn product. But getting a response from a prospect, let alone a product test, is often a Herculean task. One vendor I spoke to said he would often have to initiate ten contacts with a prospect before he’d even get an acknowledgement. Companies whose primary objective is to test products can’t even keep up with the volume. As of last December, 451 Research was aware of more than 1,600 security vendors. “Those were only the ones we had time to write down,” said Wendy Nather (@WendyNather), formerly of 451 Research and now director, advisory CISOs at Duo Security. “That wasn’t even the total number of products!”