Most cybersecurity pitches miss the mark. They’re packed with technical features and industry buzzwords, but they rarely address what buyers actually care about: real business outcomes. Todd Musselman has spent 20 years watching this disconnect play out. As managing director at KeyData Cyber, he’s led identity and access management practices at firms like Sideris, Hewlett Packard, and Pertivity. Along the way, he figured out something most providers miss.
Understanding What Buyers Really Want
Walk into any cybersecurity sales meeting and you’ll hear the same thing. Technology first, features second, maybe some compliance talk thrown in. Meanwhile, the buyers on the other side of the table are thinking about completely different things. They’ve got business problems to solve, and your feature list isn’t helping. Musselman sees this gap everywhere. Providers keep pushing what they’ve built, while clients are trying to figure out if any of it actually matters to their business. That disconnect? It’s costing deals. But it’s also creating opportunities for companies willing to change their approach.
Start With The Customer’s Business Problem
Here’s the part most companies get wrong. “Before writing a single service line, ask: what problem are we solving that the business actually cares about?” Musselman explains. Notice he doesn’t say security problem first. He’s talking about the stuff that actually keeps executives awake at night. Maybe it’s user experience issues slowing down the whole organization. Could be a digital transformation project that’s stuck because security keeps saying no. Sometimes it’s just operational friction bleeding money every quarter. “Not just compliance, but things such as user experience, digital transformation, or reducing operational friction,” according to him. When you solve one of those problems, suddenly your security service isn’t optional anymore.
Productize With A Clear Outcome
Nobody wants to buy a vague consulting engagement that might take six months or might take two years to see tangible value. Clients need to know what they’re getting. “A successful security service isn’t a loose bundle of tasks—it’s productized with a defined start, finish, and outcome that can be measured,” Musselman points out. The difference shows up immediately in how services sell. A 30-day IAM health check sells better than “IAM consulting services.” A 90-day zero trust strategy beats “zero trust implementation” every time. Clear packages make buying decisions easier because clients know exactly what they’re signing up for. No surprises, no scope creep, just clear deliverables with a timeline.
Build To Scale, Not Just To Sell
Winning the deal is just the beginning. Plenty of firms sell services they can’t actually deliver consistently. Senior staff get burned out delivering every engagement themselves. Quality suffers. Margins shrink. It’s a mess that happens more often than anyone wants to admit. The fix requires thinking differently from the start. “Design your services for repeatability, with standardized methods, templates, and toolkits,” Musselman advises. Build the frameworks that let junior people do senior-level work. Your best talent should be designing the next service, not stuck in delivery mode forever.
Market With Impact, Not Acronyms
Security jargon is everywhere, and buyers are exhausted by it. Privileged access management, zero trust architecture, identity governance. These terms mean something to security professionals, but they make everyone else’s eyes glaze over. Try this instead. “Instead of saying privileged access management, say: we help you prevent insider breaches by controlling who gets access to what and when,” Musselman suggests. One of those sentences describes technology. The other describes a problem getting solved. Guess which one closes more deals?
The formula isn’t complicated, but it requires discipline. “Start with the buyer’s world, package it for clarity, design for scale, and speak their language,” he summarizes. Each piece matters on its own, but together they change how services get built and sold. The cybersecurity market keeps growing because threats aren’t slowing down. But having great technology isn’t enough anymore. “The future of cybersecurity isn’t just about what we build—it’s about how we deliver value,” Musselman notes. The companies that figure out how to deliver value in ways businesses actually understand will be the ones still standing five years from now.
Follow Todd Musselman on LinkedIn or check out his company website for more insights on building cybersecurity services that truly connect with business needs.
