Fear will keep driving security sales

Selling on fear is one way of getting an almost sure-fire sale

With our five-part How To Sell Security series drawing to a close this week, it is clear that the security market has ballooned into one of, if not the, most important sectors in our industry, and that opinions on what technology should rule the roost are continually diversifying.

While everyone agrees that the sector will continue to blossom (after all, while there continues to be money to be made from hacking, there will always be hackers, and while there are hackers, there will always be a need for security solutions), it is difficult to see which technologies may fall by the wayside as others drive on to become the de facto standard.

The uptake of wireless technology, the rise and rise of IP, and the growing complexity of security breaches, whether internal threats, phishing, spyware, email viruses or Trojans, will all play a part in helping to decide the dominant technology.

But whether a single application that does everything under the Unified Threat Management approach is the answer, or more dedicated applications or even a managed services approach is the way to go, is undoubtedly causing some confusion, not just for resellers but for end-users as well.

It is this confusion that may be leading many channel players to continue to sell security on fear. If resellers are unsure of the technology themselves, having simply tried to catch a ride on the security bandwagon at the first opportunity, then selling on fear is one way of getting an almost sure-fire sale.

But in reality is there any other way of selling security? The very nature of selling anything to do with security, whether that be house alarms, fences, a great big dog or a firewall, is based on the purchaser's fear of what might happen.

End-users must be presented with a business case detailing total cost of ownership and return on investment, yes. But it is impossible to calculate either without a mention of the risks of what might happen should security be ignored.