Last week we discussed how as a marketer and seller of your service, you may need to step away from a very tech-oriented mindset if you are going to land a client. This week we continue the discussion with our concluding blog post on the topic.

Here are two more topics you can discuss when presenting the case for managed services to a financial officer.

Business Continuity
Here you can go a little bit negative. Instead of focusing on the need to spend on redundancy, outline the costs of NOT spending money needed to protect the integrity of the operation in the face of a natural disaster, power outage, or cyber attack. Statistics show that a significant percentage of small firms go under after a disaster. Highlight the immediate loss of business, plus the drop in lifetime customer value as clients move to a competitor.

Security
Closely associated with business continuity concerns, security and pro-active defenses against cyber attacks are important because of their effect on the bottom line. Cyber attacks that cause data loss or business interruption represent an immediate interruption in revenues. Also, point out that there may be fines and penalties associated for failure to be able to prove the firm took reasonable and prudent measures to protect its client’s data.

When talking with a CFO, don’t emphasize the quality of a particular service or piece of hardware. Focus on the immediate and long term impact that quality can have on the bottom line.