Business Solutions Magazine recently did an interview with several CEO’s of security companies including our own Christian Renaud.

Here are two particular questions that were asked we feel is of value to VAR’s.

(From: Q&A: Should You Be Selling Security Now?).

How can a VAR just entering the security solutions field develop a portfolio of security products that addresses a wide array of customer needs?

Christian Renaud, Palisade Systems: It is Product Management 101: Everything starts with the customer. You must be talking to your customer about their business needs and the threats they are facing because every network is as unique as a fingerprint. That means every security approach needs to be tailored — that is what you want to do because that is what makes you valuable. If you are having that dialogue with your customer and start to think — “Boy, this smells like DLP, and I don’t have a DLP solution” — that is your guidance right there. From there, take your engineers and explore. You need to find the vendors in that space and make the vendors convince you which product is the best fit for your customers. Then that vendor partner will gear you up, catch you up, and get you ready to offer that security solution. When you are new to a vendor’s solution, it shouldn’t be a two-legged sales call that you’re making, but rather a four-legged call with your vendor rep.

Any advice for a) VARs looking to add security to their practice and b) existing security VARs and MSSPs?

Renaud: We recommend VARs start by doing a security assessment, a tool your vendor (if you selected well) will often provide to you. When the customer sees that security assessment report, you have the right opportunity to start selling a solution. Our partners have found DLP is a great “foot in the door” solution, mainly because it offers access to so many other solutions needed for a true secure network (antivirus, access control, etc.). VARs want to find that “foot in the door” solution that allows them to build a sense of urgency around one solution and then just walk down the trusted advisor path to others.

See full article at:
http://www.bsminfo.com/article.mvc/QA-Should-You-Be-Selling-Security-Now-0001