When it comes to approaching prospects to discuss security and AV, they will generally have a poor opinion and a number of significant issues around their existing solution. But, if you treat that initial discussion like a feeds and speeds technical argument, the overall high apathy around AV coupled with the belief that solutions are ‘all the same,’ is going to get you nowhere.

Instead, you need to take the customer's perspective and explore the issues they are having with their endpoint security - especially if you’re going to manage it for them or offer them your services. In order to get the sale, you have to be able to position and relate what you can do for them - against what business and operational issues they already have.

5 Common Customer Pain Points with AV Solutions

So selling AV is not about selling at all, but listening to and understanding the pains that your prospect has with their AV. Luckily, that’s a quick discussion to get going as AV issues tend to be easy to uncover. I’d recommend you start with these 5 common customer pain points with AV solutions:

1. Efficacy

How well does the AV stop malware? How often are customers having to reimage machines? What calls will your help desk receive? Will users lose productivity? Is an AV solution necessary for mobile workers mainly? As I said, it’s easy to understand prospective clients' pain points and the potential costs you could incur and have to manage if you offered the wrong AV solution.

2. Performance

In recent studies by Webroot, performance came out as the No1 issue with nearly 50% of organizations having issues with AV degrading performance.

3. Complexity

Many AV suites are really complex to manage on an ongoing basis. There’s also the regular signature updates that can cause endless annoyance. End users also traditionally find AV to be complex to run and operate.

4. Visibility

We all hear about it taking up to 209 days, on average, for companies to realize they’ve been breached. So what visibility, what forensics, what audit optics will they get from their endpoints?

5. Support and Remediation

AV support calls tend to be a nightmare and can take a long time to get a resolution, if at all! Remediation too is a big issue, especially the time and costs involved in remediation.

With this information and other prospect-specific information in place, it becomes a lot easier to address these AV frustrations head-on.

Focus on the Problems You Solve

When recommending solutions to prospective clients, show them that you understand their issues and will proactively resolve them with the right AV package for their needs. Pro tip: Pay attention to who you're selling to and tailor your pitch accordingly. 

Using Webroot's next generation AV technology as our example...

Making the Sale

Remember that this is NOT a one trick pony sales process. You’ve got to focus on business value, mastery of the customer’s AV business and operational problems. You need to go through the stages of getting the prospect to understand

• Why they need to change
• Why they need to change now
• Why you and your AV solution

Again, using Webroot:

So that’s the consultative and informed sales approach I’d recommend you take. Get your prospects' views and agendas, understand their requirements (business and security) and their pains, and address them to win more AV business.

Read More Webroot Posts:

• Preventative Tech Tips for Cryptolocker
• The Current State of Encrypting Ransomware
• Information Security Trends You Need to Know About: MSPradio 49

Almost a year later, and these security concerns are still relevant...