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How To Sell Technology That Hasn’t Hit Customer Radar

A year into its new channel and sales strategy initiative, Palisade Systems has hit upon a winning technique that is helping resellers gain traction at end customers’ sites for a technology that is still not on the radar of many companies – a data loss prevention device. The sales technique has taken the company’s channel […]

Written By: Jessica Davis

Jan 26, 2009

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A year into its new channel and sales strategy initiative, Palisade
Systems has hit upon a winning technique that is helping resellers gain
traction at end customers’ sites for a technology that is still not on
the radar of many companies – a data loss prevention device.

The
sales technique has taken the company’s channel program from zero to
nearly 60 in just a year. That’s 0 percent of sales through the channel
in the first quarter of last year to 57 percent of sales through the
channel in the fourth quarter.

The new technique? A
try-before-you-buy program for end customers that places a Palisade
Systems device at their site for five days during which the device
performs an audit of data leaks. The device identifies sensitive data
leaving the company through e-mail, instant messages and other means,
and stops the flow.

"At the end of the day DLP is still a new category," says Monty
Holloway, vice president of sales and channels at Palisade Systems.
"Most organizations don’t have budgets for it. So we rolled out a
secure assessment program. Partners find an end user who is willing to
receive the appliance for a five- day evaluation. At end of five days
we’ll give you 18 to 40 page customized report showing you data
leakage."

And that’s been a chillingly effective technique. Holloway says one
health care company in the northeastern United States showed more than
200,000 violations of their company’s data loss prevention policies
during that five-day trial.

Demonstrating
the actual data loss has served as an effective sales tactic for
Palisade’s channel partners, whose ranks have swelled from 16 to 130
over the course of 2008.

Another differentiator for Palisade Systems’ sales process
for channel partners comes in the form of a new pricing model that
offers end-user companies the 36-month perpetual license but pays
partners 30 points of margin on the deal upfront. .

Holloway says that Palisade Systems’ technology is geared toward
sales-minded resellers. The device can be shipped to the customer site
and set up in just 30 minutes remotely, he says.

Palisade Systems also offers a deal registration program and a mandated dual engagement strategy for its inside sales reps.

So far the program has escaped much of the economic shockwaves from the
current recession, says Steve Brining, director of channels at Palisade
Systems.

"We anticipated there would be a big knock to sales," he tells Channel
Insider. "But we haven’t seen any declines. We think it’s because of
the fact that we are an operational expense and not a capital
expense."

How To Sell Technology That Hasn’t Hit Customer Radar

Jessica Davis

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