With more and more businesses being targeted regardless of size, business direction, or geographic location, Partners need to be having conversations with their customers about Cybersecurity. Hospitals and schools are as likely to become prey as retailers and banks. The criminal element is upscaling, becoming an industry upon itself. Many organizations find their ability to respond hampered by a lack of expertise within their staff and the overwhelming scope of the challenge. With customers at risk, you can be the conduit for help protecting their data, networks, systems, people, reputation, and ongoing viability.
Gerry Davis, SVP of Sales Engineering, and Joe Gabbert, Director, Channel – Southwest led the breakout session “The Non-Expert Guide to Being Your Customer’s Cybersecurity Expert” at the 2024 Sandler Partners National Summit to discuss how you can position yourself as your customer’s experts. They welcomed representatives from top Providers to share their perspectives, Jon Lloyd, Field CTO with CBTS; Jason Thompson, Security Product Specialist for Comcast Business; Forrest Knueppel, VP Channel at Coro, and John Britton, VP of Engineering at SilverSky.
The panel offered a diverse view on working with all scales of organizations, from SMB right through to enterprise, with highlights like:
- Cybersecurity is more than technology; it involves educating people, setting in place procedures, instituting processes, staying current, meeting compliance/regulatory standards, and constantly looking for vulnerabilities before ill-willed players do
- Know and follow the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 – Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover – as a useful roadmap
- Knowing what is important to your clients and their customers can dictate how they need to prepare for responding/remediating an event
- There are ways to access top-level solutions/approaches,QW without prohibitive cost and effort; bad technology configured well, however, will always supersede good technology configured poorly
- AI is increasingly being used for attacks; and can also be the approach to counter them as part of a modular strategy to address threats to Cloud apps, email, endpoints, data, and more
Leverage your Sandler Partners Sales Engineers and Provider expertise to find answers for customers. Your clients don’t expect you to know everything, but they do expect you to push the conversation and their security posture forward. Watch the session recording using the link below to help position yourself as the Cybersecurity advocate your customers need. Then, follow up with your Channel Manager or dedicated Sales Engineer, they are always ready to provide answers to any of your questions!
The Sandler Partners National Summit
The annual Sandler Partners National Summit is the largest independent technology community channel event held each year. It brings together Partners from across the US and Canada – influential leaders, and Providers – sharing information on solutions, selling approaches, and personal development. The atmosphere is always energetic, reinforcing the family “safe home” reputation Sandler Partners has developed over two decades. While other TSDs may focus on private equity plays, Sandler Partners continues to help solve problems that encourage trust, deeper long-term customer relationships, and ultimately success.