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Transcript is auto-generated.
Welcome to Inside the Win. We’ll break down real world wins, showing you exactly how strategic partnership with our experts empowers you to tackle your most ambitious opportunities with confidence. Let’s jump in.
Today, we are sharing a security win that really stood out, not because it was easy, but because the client was incredibly selective. They weren’t just shopping for a managed security services provider. They were looking for the right partner to support their company’s aggressive growth.
I’m joined by our solutions architect, Trevor Burnside, who helped navigate this one end to end. Trevor, nice to have you on.
Yeah. Thanks for having me back.
Yep. So let’s start with the challenge. What made this customer different from the average security buyer?
I’d say the customer that we were working with or the client was very selective, extremely specific, very well informed, critical in a good way, knew exactly what they wanted and what they didn’t want from a security provider and a managed service provider.
Why were they being so careful?
Well, the specific client had some pretty big plans. Company was looking to more than double probably in the next year. Like many of our clients that we work with, a smaller IT team, but understood what they were gonna have to do to get to where they were gonna do. They knew the growth just gonna be too much for what they’re able to take on.
They were very competent as far as IT professionals, but they just knew that they didn’t have the scale to meet where the company was gonna go.
Didn’t have the internal resources to essentially, you know, set up and adequately address the risk and didn’t wanna staff a full security operations team.
Because outsourcing security wasn’t optional for them. It was strategic.
Yeah. Exactly. They they weren’t necessarily outsourcing because they didn’t know things or or they needed a you know, someone to tell them what to do. They knew really well, what they had plans for and what they wanted to do. It was outsourcing because they were planning ahead for the future, for the growth, and being able to, you know, be ready for that rather than have to backpedal.
Oh, yeah. Makes sense. So what risks were they most concerned about as they look to outsource?
Well, I’d say a couple things stood out in this one. A main theme was losing control of the environment. You know, when you’re bringing in an MSP or an MSSP, that that can be a consideration, right, of how much access are we giving up to a third party, how much can we still control, maintain.
Another aspect to that was vendor lock in. They didn’t wanna be locked in to any specific tooling or anything that a vendor would bring that if they had to pull them out, they would lose all that telemetry, that configuration, all that time that they’d spent doing that. So very a more than valid consideration there for sure. Something else that stood out was scaling too fast without proper monitoring and response. They wanted to bring in a partner that could scale with that, meet them where they’re at today and then grow with them. So another one of those things would be coming up with someone that can be an extension of their team that they wouldn’t outgrow in the next two years. So really, a lot of it was actually selling confidence, selling trust in an extension of their team, not just IT coverage or tooling coverage.
Wow. That’s a high bar.
Yeah. It was. And they made it very clear from the very beginning when we started talking with them.
So tell me this, how do we earn their trust in such a competitive process?
I’d say it started like everything else does. And maybe this was a little bit different than maybe what they’ve experienced before, but we really took the time to listen to them.
Took the time to understand what they were asking for, the tool sets they wanted. We validated those tool sets that they had chosen, made and, you know, listened to what they’re asking for and and agreed, yeah, this is actually a a pretty good setup that you’re asking for. Instead of, you know, just focusing on finding a vendor, we were focusing on who can do what they’re asking for and be an extension of their team. So not just a vendor to bring in or a supplier.
Dataprizes that we brought in, they walked them through how they would handle incidents, what the reporting looks like, how they would be an extension of their team, do all the things that they were essentially asking for.
Wow. So Dataprise showed them the operating model, not just the tech stack.
Exactly. And and in my opinion, that’s what they cared about the most. They they wanted that, trust and confidence that they would act actually as an extension of their team and that they could be a part of all the decision making, all of that. They weren’t giving up any of their their decision making or their access or anything like that.
Right. And the visibility, I think, was key is being able to see your environment from end to end.
That’s amazing. Yeah. So what did the final solution look like?
So, Dataprise, they designed it it was half and half managed services and managed security services. The customer wanted them to be the one vendor that could do both and very adequately.
So it included, you know, on the MSP side, twenty four seven help desk, network monitoring management, basic CSP work, things like that that you would expect from managed services, outsourced IT, so to speak.
On the security side, that ended up being you know, endpoint detection response, full SOC SIM, incident response when necessary, you know, a a full also outsourced, security operation center as well.
Nice. So just a seamless security without friction.
Yeah. Exactly. That was the goal of one vendor that can do both very high or very well and with a high degree of competency.
Wow. That’s awesome. So what changed once everything was in place?
To me, the decision point or where where it kind of flipped was when they finally had confidence in that.
Now Dataprise did a great job on the presell side on, you know, walking that customer through that confidence and building it with them throughout that time. Started out talking about tool sets and, you know, competency, things like that, but it ended up really being building that confidence in the pre sale cycle right from the very first call. And I think sometimes we forget that, how much that first call matters with customers and starting that trust process. But once we had that, they move forward with it helps them set up so that they can build the growth that they were looking for to continue their growth plan with new systems, expansion, hiring people. They knew that they’ve got a trusted partner in place to help them with that.
Security went from being an area of concern to something that they’ve got covered now.
Oh, that’s so awesome. That’s brilliant. So last question, Trevor. What’s the biggest takeaway for advisors listening to this story?
I’d say, you know, we do work a lot with some pretty sophisticated buyers. And what mean by sophisticated buyer, we do work often with people who know what they want.
Now we often do a lot of education with trusted advisors working with clients to help them along. But there’s a lot of people that come to us and know exactly what they want. Our portfolio is robust enough and large enough that we can meet customers where they’re at and if they have specific requirements or specific things they’re asking for, this was a good example that we have a portfolio that can address that and can meet customers whether they don’t know what they want or they’re very specific about the things that they and how they want to consume services.
Another thing I think one of the biggest takeaways is most successful advisors aren’t selling security tools. They’re helping clients find solutions. And I know we sound kind of like a broken record when we talk about that, about solution selling and outcome selling, but it’s just so true.
We don’t need to focus so much on the tool sets. We can listen, we capture it, we do our discovery and we bring the vendors that are going to give them the outcome and the solution that they’re looking for because what sold the deal was confidence and trust as much as being able to do the toolset.
So, I think advisors win when they recognize that moment, when the growth, you know, when working with clients and growth outpaces internal resources, especially on managed service services and managed security services. When customers know that and understand that, that’s where we’re seeing a lot of wins lately, just expansion of growth and knowing that internal teams can’t keep up or shouldn’t be trying to be a full security operation center when there’s a lot of growth coming.
So that’s something that people ask. I think security becomes an easy conversation when you frame it, you know, in some ways like how do we protect the business you’re building next or what your the growth that you’re planning for or not. What security products do you need today?
Exactly. Because at the end of the day, it’s really not about technology. It’s how do you get the company from point a point to point b faster and more secure than it was yesterday.
It’s exactly how security should be sold in twenty twenty six, strategically, confidently, in alignment with where the business is going through trust and clarity. Thank you for joining us today, and we’ll see you on the next win.