How to Approach Customers with Security Issues?

Posted by Cliff on Tuesday September 20, 2005 @01:30PM from the break-it-to-them-gently dept.

stuntshell asks: "We're a group of IT Professionals and we're starting our own consulting firm. We're most systems administrators, and not business admin, nor lawyers, and we're all have worked on big companies and most of the time the job to be performed was just passed on to us. The scope of the work we're about to perform will be security related, so how do you approach a customer in this kind of business? Do you wait for them to come and ask you to test their firewall? Or do you go scanning and discovering holes on other's network for you to offer them your solution? Do write a letter/email or do you propose a meeting? What works?"

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You hire a Sales Manager by QuantumG · 2005-09-20 13:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

and you give him a budget big enough to do his job. You know, sales? The basis of business? Oh, didn't think you'd need that? Note to investors: GET OUT NOW.

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How we know is more important than what we know.
Scanning? by Monte · 2005-09-20 13:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Or do you go scanning and discovering holes on other's network for you to offer them your solution?

Boy, does that sound like an astonishingly bad idea. Sorta like a locksmith picking the lock on your front door, coming inside and offering to sell you a better lock. Sounds to me like a great way to get shot.

Figuratively speaking, of course.