Revenue AlchemyTurning sales lead into gold

The Diagonal Line

Connected risk, in a language your CFO understands.

Your customers do not have isolated IT problems. They have connected infrastructure debt that runs diagonally across the stack, and each layer sits with a different vendor practice in your business.

Layer 0 to Layer 7

Follow the risk down the diagonal.

  1. Layer 0Schneider Electric (APC)

    Power

    Five-year-old batteries degrade quietly. Some APC management cards have also had serious published vulnerabilities (for example TLStorm).

    OpportunityUPS and battery refresh.

  2. Layer 2Cisco

    Transport

    End-of-life switches that are out of support and out of warranty. When they fail, repair can take days, not hours.

    OpportunityCisco Catalyst refresh.

  3. Layers 4 to 7Fortinet

    Perimeter

    Legacy firewalls that cannot stop lateral movement once something upstream has failed or been compromised.

    OpportunityFirewall refresh and security services.

  4. Layer 7Microsoft

    Productivity

    Dropped Teams calls. This is a symptom of trouble underneath, not a Microsoft problem.

    OpportunityNetwork monitoring and Microsoft security and support services.

The CFO narrative

Not an IT expense. A continuity investment.

A degraded battery at Layer 0 puts the core switch at Layer 2 at risk. If the network fails, the perimeter at Layer 4 has less to protect. And the first thing the business notices is Teams calls dropping at Layer 7. Fixing the battery is not an IT expense. It is a business continuity investment.

Each layer belongs to a different vendor practice, so each rep sees one slice. The Diagonal Line puts the slices back together, and gives your sales team a reason to have a single conversation with the finance director.

The sales play

Six steps from diagram to deal.

  1. Step 1

    Book the right meeting

    Ask for the customer’s CFO or CTO, not just the IT manager.

  2. Step 2

    Tell the Diagonal Line story

    Layer 0 to Layer 7, in the customer’s own environment.

  3. Step 3

    Show the risk scores

    Evidence, not opinion: NIST-based security scores for the assets in question.

  4. Step 4

    Present the business case

    Downtime hours avoided and risk points remediated.

  5. Step 5

    Register the deal

    Through the vendor’s deal registration process, with the Expansion Cheat Sheet attached.

  6. Step 6

    Claim the funding

    We handle the vendor claim once the deal has closed. See how →

Revenue diagnostic

Which of your customers sit on the diagonal?

Book a 20-minute call and we will show you what the Diagonal Line looks like across your own installed base.

Book a 20-minute call Take the diagnostic