Bruce Schneier, the world famous security expert writes about “How to Sell Security”
(This essay originally appeared in CIO).
Isn’t it strange that someone known for his security and threats expertise writes about selling?

Prospect and Utility Theory

His first approach is a mathematical/statistical one: the Prospect Theory, as one could expect from a security expert.
He explains that people have subjective values for gains and losses.
Then he elaborates on Kahneman’s and Tversky’s experiments contradicted Utility Theory.

Good read, about the psychology of the buyer weighing risks and costs based upon tests and probability.

Conclusion is the decision maker having the choice between taking a small sure loss (the investment in the security product), and a large risky loss (damage, hazard).

Selling security

The argumentation concerning the selling comes down to:
How to sell the investment in security, that has to protect the investor against the unknown cost of a risk?
The decision makers and takers need to:
- Understand the risk
- Be able to estimate the costs involved with the hazard
- Understand the method of the solution.
- Be confident with the solution.
- Trust the Vendor and the salesman.

Thus the buyer needs to see the risk and has to be convinced of the effectiveness of the product, solution or service works, without actually ever being capable to test it in real life before buying, still being able to estimate the cost.

The problem is if you invest the money, there is no immediate return as one has to wait for the breach to happen.

Spam filters are of a different kind

This is the reason why spam filters are selling like candy: the CEO immediately sees the effect in his email inbox.
That is an easy sell:
Just install the appliance as a demo and a week later the company can not longer live without it.
Spam filters are security too, but their apparent convenience and benefit puts them in another league.

Selling fear

One solution is to stoke fear. Fear is a primal emotion, far older than our ability to calculate trade-offs.
And when people are truly scared, they’re willing to do almost anything to make that feeling go away; lots of other psychological research supports that.
So fear sells, even for complicated technical solutions.
Maybe fear is in the security market even more important, as the ROI is difficult to understand and hardly to calculate.

Turning the negative into a positive sales

Security is about avoiding a negative, and the salespeople need to turn this into a positive in order to sell their security solution, by
- Using ROI (Return On Investment) models
- Claiming the solution or service will take care of the security
- The buyer can focus on doing his business.

Security expert into Selling

So why is Bruce Schneier writing about selling?
Maybe he found out that selling is the most important part in the business of a company?
Switching career from security to sales? Probably not.

Machine gun marketing

A machine gun is a fully-automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rifle cartridges in quick succession.

Machine gun marketing is fully-automatic sending of large amounts of emails: email marketing.

- You send thousands of emails to people you don’t know.
- You use your own email lists (exhaustive) and probably bought opt-in lists.
- You send messages with subjects, the majority of the addressees don’t want to know about at this moment.
OR
- You hire a call centre to call decision makers in companies from a purchased list.
- You have written a script for the operators on a subject that might not be of interest.

This is like shooting with a machine gun: hardly hitting anybody as it is like a spray of bullets.
You might get a few replies or hits on your website, but you have big overhead.

Moreover the next time you send an email with an interesting subject, the addressees could ignore it completely.
OR
People will click on the link, but bounce immediately as they misinterpreted the email or don’t relate their problems to the content of the landing page.
OR
When you call those who have been selected by the operators, they seem to have a different need.

Sniper rifle marketing

A sniper rifle is a rifle used to ensure accurate placement of shots at greater ranges than other small arms. A typical sniper rifle is built for optimal levels of accuracy, fitted with a telescopic sight and chambered for a military centrefire cartridge.

You could also target only those companies who have shown interest by visiting your website.
- You will send messages with the best suited message based upon the pages visited on your website.
These companies are a very precise target.
OR
- You call the decision makers from these companies personally with all your sales skills for knowing if there is a fit or a possible interest.

This is sharp shooting emails or cold calls, like shooting with a sniper rifle.

You will be very effective in generating visits or replies to your communication.
Thus very efficient lead generation: more leads, less work.

Less is more

So what is the most efficient lead generation?
Addressing those companies who have shown interest in your products or services by the visits they have paid to your website.
This is the advantage LEADSExplorer by providing the benefit of being more successful at less effort, less costs, less time.
Less is more.

The Internet is a jungle

- Many communication channels:
   Website, blogs, social websites, on-line press releases,

- Many ‘brands’ per channel:
   Several websites, several social websites, several blogs, …

- Many distributors:
   Not a handful of established media distributors

- Many contributors:
   Nearly any one can contribute and distribute: news, information, and criticism.

- Many participants and undefined audience:
   Who exactly gets the message, is this the appropriate market segment?

- Many money doesn’t buy interest:
   Even if a company spends a lot of money, it is uncertain the message:
    * gets noticed
    * gets passed on.

No control:
- Single controlling party as used to be in the print and audio visual media.
- Control by money as used to be in the print and audio visual media.

Previously: the more one could spend the more coverage.

Thus for enterprises and corporations the Internet is an environment without paved ways: just like a jungle. Even in B2B business and marketing.

No rules in the jungle

There are no written rules in the Internet jungle.

What works today, might not work tomorrow.

Some companies try to impose rules, like Drudge Retort take down (see Scott Rosenberg for more info).
The company, Associated Press, sure is from another era and they cannot control the jungle.

The risks of the jungle

In this jungle there are a risks involved, as it is unpredictable and unreliable.
The risk of:
- Not getting any traction by bloggers, social websites.
- The message being used against the company or brand.
- Bad timing with a marketing campaign of a competitor.
- Wrong timing: messages about events are seen as more important.
- Lagging behind: it takes too long to get the message propelled.
- Addressing the wrong channels: these are not documented with statistics or well-defined.
- Destroying the brand name asset they have build over many years.

Corporations, enterprises and multi-nationals don’t like risks: they prefer to avoid risks by all means.
They miss control.

Small company? Then take advantage

This risk, the unpredictability and unreliability is giving an advantage to smaller companies.
They don’t have:
- a big board of directors
- a long decision and reaction cycle
They can take the risk as they are agile.

The space left open by the larger companies, is an opportunity to be taken by your small company.

Test and try

If the approach doesn’t work, try another method, another message another channel.
Smaller companies don’t have the asset of a big brand name that can be destroyed.

When small – be agile

As small companies, let’s be agile by using the Internet to propel our messages and our solutions.

Use LEADSExplorer in order to know the companies who are visiting your website, after reading your messages, in order to qualify them as leads by using website data and Internet Data Mining

Advertising

Advertising costs money
The amount of content is limited, as the number of messages that can be send is limited due to the costs involved per message in different channels.

Advertising needs to be tested through different markets to analyze if you reach the intended market.
Testing several times costs even more money.
You cannot believe the different channels for what they tell, as they are sales people.

Not advertising

Not advertising costs many times less out of pocket money.
Not advertising requires content to feed many free channels on the Internet.
Testing can be done through all the channels freely available, but will require time and effort. Persistence!

The jungle

As the Internet is a free space without any rules, the strongest in content and the best in addressing the channels will win.
It is a jungle where content and headlines rule.
Content for getting indexed by the search engines
Headlines required for catching the attention of people: remarkable headline.
Once the people start reading, the content needs to be remarkable.

Advertising versus not advertising

Not advertising costs les out of the pocket money, but will require qualities and efforts.
- If you are a start-up, all your time is to be invested as money is limited.
- If you are a larger company every hour of your marketing team, public relations needs to be paid. Thus not advertising might cost a lot more and the success is based upon the inventiveness of your managers and employees (remarkability).

Internet has a long memory. Advertising is shorter term.
Internet is a jungle. Advertising is organized: controlled by money and media.

Questions – choose

- Will both bring the same value for the same investment?
- The same amount of leads?
- What will bring quality leads?
- What will have the best lead generation?
- What will have the longest impact on lead generation?
- What amount of time will pass by during all these advertising tests?
- What will have the most impact?
- What influences my potential customers and my current customers?
- Can one rely on only advertising or on only not to advertise? Or are both needed in these times?

Choose
from Trainspotting by John Hodge.
Choose your future.
Choose life.
Choose to advertise or not to advertise – it is up to you.

Related to our post of “How to Be Different: ‘Being Remarkable’ – the salesman’ of 2 days ago, there is a great presentation “Sliced bread and other marketing delights” by Seth Godin from February 2003 on the TED conference (Technology Entertainment Design).
What is so remarkable about this speech on being remarkable: although the presentation is now over 5 years have gone, and still very actual.
Although Seth Godin speaks about 18 minutes (+ headed by a commercial), you will keep listening as it is entertaining, interesting and gives you insight.

His main points are:
- Ideas that spread win
- The century of idea diffusion
- Is it remarkable? (the purple cow)
- Mass marketing is required
- The TV-industrial complex is broken: TV adds no longer work (less effective)
- Sell to the people who are listening
- Safe is risky (in marketing) – very good is bad
These are plenty of concepts and views on marketing. It is about marketing in a new era.

The change since 2003

Maybe the big change, since this presentation in 2003, are the small businesses marketing opportunities that were not yet existent then: in 2003 large amounts of money was still required for marketing, whereas now many on-line services are free (requiring even more effort).
This change relates to the broken TV-Industrial complex.
No longer TV and TV advertising dictate people and is the prime influencer of people, as the Internet has gained the new leading position (especially in B2B).

The many new other communication channels on the Internet are becoming more important.
Online press releases, blogs (and their feed), forums, Instant Messaging, online awards/contests, ..
Ideas that spread win. Especially on the Internet.
So start spreading your ideas, concepts, solutions on the Internet by using free and paying channels.

This was exactly the same message of “Web marketing Favors Small Businesses – Less is more” on our blog yesterday.

Change driven by search engines

One could say: it are the search engines who are driving the change.
If people want to know something they search it on the internet (they ‘Google’ it up).
The more references on the Internet, the higher the likelihood of your products or solution being found and retrieved: thus more lead generation.
Ideas that spread (over the Internet) win.

Sell to the people who are listening

There are enough potential buyers in B2B, thus focus on those who are listening.
For example: those who visit your website: they have found your company or products/solutions somehow. Catch them while you can as they pay attention for a limited amount of time.

Safe is risky

As the Internet is open to anyone, playing safe won’t make you or your business remarkable enough in order to be found on the Internet.
Still being remarkable can be done by the salesman, but first the potential customer needs to find your (un-remarkable company, product or solution).

Content & effort & time

As the Internet has given access to marketing to a much wider group of people, the required content, effort and time invested will be very high in order to beat the competition for lead generation and customer retention.

Mike Moran has written an interesting article on “Why Web marketing Favors Small Businesses” for the Small Business Unleashed. We found it interesting because it relates to ourselves, that we have deepened it a bit further.

Marketing was dominated by large companies

The world of marketing used to be dominated by large companies having large budgets.
Thanks to the web, small businesses can use the Web to do more marketing than ever moreover the Web actually is an environment that allows small businesses to succeed, even against larger competitors.

1) Ideas
Having ideas that customers care about are the most important success factor in Web marketing.
Money can’t generate ideas.
Even when having multiple ideas, the more money you pit behind the ideas, the harder it will be to decide which idea is the right one.
Due to the amount of money involved, the safest idea will be selected instead of the best one.

2) To impress in house
Large companies spend money for impressing the CEO or President of the company.
Even if there is no relation between lead generation or customer retention and the marketing campaign on the Web.

3) Failing
Failing to experiment and to innovate are typical for larger companies.

How are small companies favored by the Internet?

In our view:
- Reaction speed:
A small company can react almost immediately upon an happening or an event, whereas in a larger company the campaign or budget needs to get signed of.

- Focus:
A small company has its focus on one market segment or/and has limited number of products or services.
Whereas large companies need to address different market segments and have different products or services to offer.

- Daring to experiment:
Trying out a new channel or method can be done easily on the Internet and the result can be measured. A small company will dare more than larger companies.

- Closer to the potential customer:
As the small company is very near or close to its customers, the marketing manager or the leaders of the company are able to think and write with the mindset of their customers.
Working in a large company makes you think differently and the distance to the customer companies is greater.
Most customer companies are small: they outnumber larger companies many times.

- One clear message:
A small company can succeed with one clear message, whereas the large company needs to explain the different offerings.
One message is enough for marketing. Multiple messages confuse the audience.

- Content rich:
As the leading managers of a small company feel very close to their business, their passion and knowledge is in the content of their publications or communications.
In a large company the content needs to be written by someone “working from 9 to 5″. This person has certainly less passion and knowledge about the offerings and the market.

- Press releases and communications: freedom
These messages don’t require getting approval and censoring of the legal department, the VP of Sales, the CEO office.
Fewer constraints for press releases, presentation, speeches and interviews.

- Shorter decision times:
If someone in a small company has an idea, the hierarchical decision can be taken ‘next door’, not in the head quarters far away.

- Multiple communication channels:
As there are many communication channels on the web, a small company can use them just like large companies.
Probably the small company will use these channels even more efficiently.

- Free communication channels:
As many of the channels on the Internet are free, there are no limitations or constraints by budget anymore. Just the time invested.
Channels: Press releases, blogs, forums, comments on blogs, directories, award participation, even video or Instant Messaging
Of course smaller companies will use advertising too and spend money.
Still a lot of interest can be generated through free channels.

Conclusion points:
Equal chances or winning by shorter, faster decisions

The Internet has brought equal chances for large and small companies.
It is not so much the money to be spent, but more the effort and the effectiveness of the marketing.
The small company can take advantage by being smaller.

Content counts – money less

Of course a large company can pay an impressive country-wide or continent-wide ad campaign, which will have its effect and will generate leads.
However the small company with the right catching message, propelled over one or more Internet communication channels can have equal or even more impact at a minimal cost compared to the ad campaign.
Small companies just need the right idea with the appropriate message at the best moment.

Less is more

Probably “Less is more” applies for the marketing of smaller companies:

Less money, less constraints, less messages, less advertising, less waste of time.
More content, more initiatives, more innovative, more focus, more close to customers and leads.

‘Being Remarkable’

In his post How to Be Different: ‘Being Remarkable’ Paul Willians explains, based upon the book of Seth Godin “Free Prize Inside”, how to be different and being remarkably with your products in order to:
- get noticed
- to stand out from the crowd

It’s not enough simply to offer a product that is different… it needs to be WOW different, REMARKABLY different, RADICALLY different.
How is it done?:
“Differentiation is the act of making your products different from the competition (and each other) so that people pick you. But differentiation is selfish. It assumes that people are interested enough in your field to seek you out, to compare options and make a smart choice…”
This is a great assessment, but it has its limitations.

The problem of mature products

The definition works fine for new products or services, or those that are still on the innovation track.
However once this stage is over, when your products or solutions are mature and known since years the differentiation becomes a problem as no real new development takes place.

How can you differentiate in a market with mature products?
Actually this is the problem with the majority of products.
There is no possibility or chance of changing the product or service:

Most marketing and sales people are stuck within the current product offering and can’t change the product or service.
Of course colors or packaging can be changed, but the actual product remains the same.

Most products or solutions on offer can be replaced by similar products from the competition with slightly or minor different features.
Then there is no remarkable differentiation with these products.
And people are fast in distinguishing between a real difference or advantage and a not useful feature.

Why “no change possible”?

In order to obtain competitive or low priced products, mass production is required.
Mass production dictates uniform or standard products, thus the differentiation is inexistent or very minor.
Also as a producer of goods you don’t want to take risks, thus the products are designed for the average or most likely customer.
Investments in design, production facilities, training and marketing required for products in mass production is high. As the risk has to be minimized not much variations on the same theme are possible.
Thus in the end most products look the same.
Change requires time for design, preparing for production, and for marketing: the differentiators need to be explained to customers and they have to understand them.

Marketing

Some brands try to differentiate:
- Marketing can try to positioning the product or service at the high end of the pricing range, but you need to come up with compelling reasons for this.
- Marketing can also promote intangible benefits, benefits that are hard to measure.
- Marketing is also capable of creating a fear. Fear of buying the product with less quality from th competition.

This is in most cases about branding and trust, but hard to be different

Difference by the salesman

In those cases where the product is defined and fixed, the pricing is competitive, it is the job of the salesman to make the difference.
Else the products won’t sell or solely on lower price.

The salesman has to come up with differentiating ideas, advantages or benefits compared to the competition.
These can be:
- Ordering conditions: being flexible with order quantities or timing
- Delivery conditions: being flexible with scheduling and speed of deliveries
- Packaging: adjust the packaging to the need of the customer
- Labeling: using suited labels to match the client needs.
- Payment terms and conditions: flexible in scheduling the payments

Typically these additional features relate to the supply, the logistics, the use within the buying company or payments.

The salesman can also win the confidence of the purchasing party, by having:
- The references
- The better or more convincing story
- The suited advantages and benefits for each person involved in the decision process
- The better understanding of the situation of the customer
- The best matching proposition thanks to the knowledge about the customer
- The established relationship

The salesman needs to be inventive, when there is no more invention in the product.

The salesman makes the difference

How to be different: “Being Remarkable” is in many cases organized or orchestrated by the salesman.
He needs to make the difference, as changing the product or the service is not possible because of the too high investment.
He needs to position the product or service to the needs or the perspective of the customer.

He needs to be remarkable, as he needs to make the sales for his commission and the company.
Selling and getting paying customers is the driving force behind every company.

Some salesmen sell more than others, they do make the difference.

Never forget:
If you have a remarkable different product, marketing needs to tell and explain the potential customers the difference and the benefits related.
This takes time, money as the potential customers need to understand the benefits and advantages.
Thus the total investment is much higher than the costs involved with designing and developing the product or service.

Preparing the event

You are organizing an event for your partners or customers.
The program not only has speakers from your company, but you managed to get one or several interesting speakers – not related to your company.
And you have even a new product announcement ready.
The venue is in a nice location in the main city of your country.

By emailing an calling, you and your team manages to get 43 inscriptions. Not overwhelming, but sufficient for the event.

Thus you seem to be heading towards a good and successful event.

The no show at the event

At 8:10 am – you and your staff are present for preparing the room for the start at 9:00
At 8:30 am – the registration desk is ready (43 name tags are on the desk near the entrance) and breakfast is served.
At 9:00 am – nobody has shown up yet.
At 9:20 am – a first attendee arrives and he wonders why he is the first.
At 9:35 am – two people more have arrived.
At 9:40 am – You need to start the presentations; else you cannot present the entire program.
At 10:30 am – one more attendee arrives and apologizes for being a bit late.

At 12:15 am – the well-known speaker arrives just before lunch and he wonders what he is doing on your event.
At 12:45 am – it is lunch time and there is way too much food for 4 attendees and your 4 employees.

In the end your event is a waste of time and money. And those who have attended won’t attend again, even though the content and information given had high quality.

Do you recognize this?
Getting less people at your events?

The Internet is to blame for the decrease of attendees

Even on industry specific conferences or events with pre-registration on the Internet, people just don’t come anymore.
It’s the Internet that kills these events. It is the comfort of having all the information at one’s desk.

How to get people attending?

Some leading companies have seen this coming and have anticipated already by organizing two day international events in a great location or special environment. Preferably not yet on the general tourist trails, in order to have a reason more to attend.

They limit the amount of information and have changed their content more into infotainment than real information.

- During the first day, the program consists of a specific or unique happening to make a splash and to meet people: to network.
- In the evening, a walking dinner is organized in a restaurant in a location to remember.
- The next day the 4 hours of presentations with the real information, messages, and statements are given.
- Then after lunch the participants can have a free afternoon.

These events still get a good venue, but at a high cost.
The main advantage is that the salespeople can talk with the customers, potential customers or partners during the entertaining activities and the walking dinner.

What to do instead?

So what should you do to get your event a success?
Spending all this money on infotainment events?
Or just forget about it and seek other channels?
Or should you embrace the Internet and explore new communication channels? Like blogging or give webinars or put streaming video messages on your website?

What method or system could give you the necessary leads and customer retention?

Video killed the radio star – MP3 killed the CD – The Internet killed the business event.
This is called change due to technology.

Fear since always

Fear in marketing has been around since probably ever.
We all know “Wash washes whiter then Wide”.

Can hurt your brand

As Seth Godin points out in his blog post “The marketing of fear“: up selling is bad:
“Scaring people (scaring good customers) to make $100 is stupid. It hurts your brand. It makes it less likely they’ll open the envelope next time. And most of all, it’s wrong.
You can do it, no one can stop you. You shouldn’t do it, though, because you burn brand trust and you can’t get it back.”

Fear is omnipresent

Many sales and business propositions are related to fear in one way or another.
In some cases the fear in the sales pitch is very clear:
- Insurance
- Get security for the premises
- Get IT security against viruses and Trojans

In many other cases the fear is indirectly related:
- New approach to CRM, better than what your competitor has.
- You’re competitor has bought it, so why wouldn’t you? (If not you will be out of business soon)

Thus it not always the big bad thing “when the disaster strikes”, but more like “missing the opportunities” or “lagging behind”.
Like:
- If you don’t attend, you will miss…
- If you don’t use this, you will not obtain …
- If you don’t innovate with this solution, you will be lagging behind …
- If you don’t take this additional feature, you will be exposed to …
- If you don’t invest in this, then your competition will be ahead of you …
- If you don’t take the maintenance, the next bill will be costing more than the maintenance …
- If you don’t subscribe, the additional cost will be higher or delivered later …
- If you don’t sign up now, the price will be higher at the event itself …

Try to find a sales pitch where fear is not related somehow.

ROI is hard to calculate or even impossible

As Dr. Carmichael CSO of McAfee points out in this interview with TechNewsWorld (by Jack M. Germain – 04/24/07 4:00 AM PT):
“The business challenge for CSOs is the reality that security standards do not speak about cost. Business managers think in terms of, “What did you do for me with that million dollars I put in your security budget?” Business managers do not want the CSO to say, “You’re not in jail.”"

When an investment is being made normally the Return On Investment (ROI) is calculated upfront.
In case of many fear related sales, it is hard or even impossible to calculate the Return On Investment. One cannot estimate or predict precisely the amount that could be lost.
Already understanding the scope of the damage is not evident: What will a virus cost to a company? What will a fire cost to a company?
There are too many probabilities for different events to occur involved for a single case.

On the other hand: for an insurance company it is the inverse: they calculate the risk spread over many customers with many risk occasions: that’s when maths and stats work: by large numbers.

Up selling with fear: be careful

In case of up selling; fear is a dangerous gamble to use as the customer has already committed to the main solution, and you could lose the entire deal. Up selling might seem easy and a quick revenue increase, but it could, as Seth Godin points out, destroy your credibility, burn your brand name.

However in order to deliver a complete service, the up sell sometimes is required or even beneficial for the customer.
At the moment of signing up the customer doesn’t has the knowledge or experience with the solution or product. The results haven’t been experienced or the impact of the solution isn’t obvious yet.
An additional item or service could be required to make the implementation or deployment fully successful.
Then the salesman needs to come up with good additional reason to up sell the complete package. Then fear is probably the easiest way to get the customer convinced for the additional service.

Thus up selling using fear can be good, but in order to sell a separate item or service, not entirely related to the main solution is better not to do, as afterwards the purchase could turn against the company.

Fear is the driver in many sales occasions

Fear sells: in many cases sales is the main driver for selling
Also fear gets propelled as people do pass it on to others, especially in the cases where the “disaster” really happened.

Calculating Return On Investment (ROI) is hard to do, if not impossible.

When up selling, fear is to be used with caution and depends on case by case.

Seriously boring

Most B2B websites contain information about products and services. They are very strict, very business, very serious and in the end probably boring: thus not entertaining at all.

A website for a retail store has the same problem: information on products and pricing, but no entertainment. Their main way to get referenced is to have knock-down prices on products: then people will tell friends about it.

Look at Hema a Dutch retail store with a very entertaining web page.
Let it load and then wait a second or two and watch what happens.
It uses the very same page layout as you would expect from a retail store.

The actual store is on another page: here.

The Hema example shows how an informative website, where visitors mainly come looking for bargain prices can be turned into entertainment in order to get remembered.

Stand out with emotions

Stand out from the crowd in a competitive market.
Make people smile, laugh or give them emotions and they will remember you better and longer.
And with a bit of luck people will forward your entertaining website to their relations.

We haven’t achieved making website visitors smile or bring them emotions.
Currently we just hope our new approach to lead generation and crm are disruptive enough to get remembered.

So what are you going to do to get emotions to your visitors on your website?