saashunter2.0 profile picture
saashunter2.0 profile picture

saashunter2.0

Mid-Market Account Executive

Executive
Good Citizen
Fire Starter
+5

Security and legal reviews - pain in our ass right now….thoughts on how to accelerate?

I'm currently working for a Series A startup and we're selling to major manufacturers/OEMs and our sales cycles are averaging 8-10 mos. 

One of the biggest pains for us and likely many of you are the security and legal reviews. Since we're dealing with very sensitive data, we get stalled out after the YES. 

I'd love to hear how you and your team have been successful accelerating this pain in the ass process that nearly kills out deals?!
🧠 Advice
🔐 Cybersecurity
👓 Deal Reviews
11

25 comments

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CuriousFox
WR Officer
5
🦊
This is a good question.  I'm not in an industry where this happens, so I can't help answer you.
GDO
Politicker
3
BDM
Try to get buyin from them as well. Make it in their interest to move fast. Use the weight of a big name in your org. 

also some legal documents are just fine. But if they go to legal they feel the pressure to make annotations and changes. This because otherwise they do not have added value and their job has less impact. Try to not cc anybody when asking for a go on a contract. 
saashunter2.0
Executive
1
Mid-Market Account Executive
Thanks GDO. Good input for sure. Early all of our prospects want an NDA in place early on which starts the legal process. I think one factor here is that we’re selling to personas who aren’t used to buying software so they’re more cautious
GDO
Politicker
1
BDM
What kind people are you selling into? (yeah in my field NDA are standard as well)

oh and you´re welcome :)
saashunter2.0
Executive
0
Mid-Market Account Executive
Engineers and Manufacturing/Plant leaders
jackodiamonds
Opinionated
0
Account Executive
If it’s enterprise sales, legal is getting involved whether you send them the legal docs or not. Any company with a formal procurement process is going to be asking for them so you may actually be slowing yourself down if you try to avoid the legal conversation, especially if you’ve already realized that most of your buyers need to have it
payton_pritchard
Executive
2
RSM
A couple things that may help


-work with your IT/Security team to put together a detailed CAIQ that you can share early in the process. This indicates early on that you, and your security team, have your shit together and will save a lot of back and forth time as it covers a lot of general stuff right off the bat


-understand where roadblocks are coming up in security review and work communicate that to leadership (most common example for a company at your stage is probably lacking something like SOC 2 compliance -- but whatever it is make sure the business understands how it will drive revenue and gives you a path forward you can communicate to customers

-setting up calls between your security team and the customers can be helpful -- often so many of the requirements/questions in this process are general and don't take into account the specifics of your product. Getting these people on the phone together to talk through the specifics of architectures, data security, etc. as it relates to this specific sales can save a lot of time and energy for you
Donutpanda
Executive
0
Enterprise Account Executive
Caiq?
payton_pritchard
Executive
0
RSM
Consensus assessment initiative questionnaire

It's basically a generally agreed on base set of security questions that you can complete with your own responses. If you're selling some kind of (X)aaS sharing your CAIQ proactively should answer a good chunk (if not all) of your buyers questions and will save some back and forth by allowing them to come back with a much smaller set of questions that weren't addressed.
LordBusiness
Politicker
1
Chief Revenue Officer
Unfortunately, you just have to relentlessly follow up and "project manage" both the client and internal teams working to complete the reviews. You aren't a lone though, it used to only be large companies with all of the BS - now smaller companies are burying vendors in ridiculous paperwork. 
ColdCall
Valued Contributor
1
Account Executive
Do you have strong customer advocates/references? 

Hearing a similar company go through things can often help them frame and position security & legal reviews. 
Donutpanda
Executive
1
Enterprise Account Executive
Form a relationship with the procurement and legal teams directly however you can from there work with your champion or champions on slack connect or text to open up the lines of communication on the backend to make sure shit is getting done.
From there work to multi thread your leadership with your champions leadership teams with ghostwritten notes or better yet a meeting w them.
If you hit roadblocks get as far as you can with redlines and then get the last couple of redlines together and get a meeting with your legal and customer legal to finalize those points on a quick call.
Sellerguy
Opinionated
1
Sellerguy
Have you considered a managed service to tackle them for you? I know a few SC and security leaders working with SecurityPal. Might be worth looking into @saashunter2.0
TheOverTaker
Politicker
0
Senior Account Executive
Not familiar qith the industry but you could hire a hacker to steal some info and show them how bad they need your product 
saashunter2.0
Executive
0
Mid-Market Account Executive
This is excellent feedbacks and recommendations @payton_pritchard ! Thank you.
saashunter2.0
Executive
0
Mid-Market Account Executive
Yep thanks for identifying with this pain in the ass
MoonDog349
Valued Contributor
0
Sales Manager
Get contracts and docs in the hands earlier. Ensure you clearly understand their procurement, legal, and IT review process long before you get there (pre demo as a pre-req to see a demo).
saashunter2.0
Executive
0
Mid-Market Account Executive
Yep good points and recommendations @donutpanda

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