There seems to be a widespread belief that cyber security startups need to put their credibility slide at the start of their sales deck.
You know... the slide with the customer and VC logos?! "We've got these amazing customers already and these super sophisticated investors have given us lots of money."
The prevailing wisdom is that the prospect has never heard of your company and therefore you need to show them that you are established and worth listening to.
But this is plain wrong.
They care first about what you might do for them.
I was at a startup that had just secured their first customer who was a well-known CISO. In the first meeting, he asked a lot of questions about what they did and how they did it. Only towards the end of the meeting did he ask "which VCs are backing you?"
Once someone understands what you might do for them, then do they think about how credible you are.
Getting this the wrong way round means that you end up answering the wrong question first. And you start off your presentation all about you. No, no, no!!
Put your logo slide at the end of the deck.
If you are a cyber security sales person and you put the slide at the end of the deck you get to discuss the prospects problems and how you uniquelty solve them FIRST.
And then when you deliver the logo slide at the end...
Tip #1: Lead into it properly You could say "and by the way this approach has won the support of these well-known companies and these experienced cyber security investors."
Tip #2: Tell a customer story. Hopefully this isn't the first time you will tell a customer story, but.... tell one now! Pick a logo and ask "Do you know John Smith at [logo company]? Well, here's the problem he was facing last summer...." and on from there.
Tip #3: Tell a story about one of the investors. Too often we skip the investors. If one of your VCs has a track record of investing in cyber, talk about it. Can you offer to introduce the CISO to the VC if he became a customer? This may well be valuable for the CISO.
If you start off with the logo slide you are starting the conversation focusing on ME.
If you put it at the end, you are starting the conversation focusing on THEM and then answering the credibility questions they have at the right time.
