sales, marketing and growth · cybersecurity
building pipeline for cybersecurity vendors.
Getting the meeting, winning the deal, proving it and making partners sell. I run this work in sales, marketing and growth, then share what held up and what didn't.
Free: five working kits for POCs, stalled deals, partner launch, distributors and entering Europe, plus one short email a week.
what are you trying to do.
Seven jobs, each with its own reading order. Pick the one in front of you.
- 4 guides
where to sell first, and through whom
Which country, which kind of partner, and who is on the ground, before the first deal.
- 4 guides
getting the meeting
Content and campaigns that produce meetings for you and for your channel, measured in pipeline.
- 6 guides
winning the deal
Qualifying hard, multithreading early, and killing "no decision" before it kills the quarter.
- 4 guides
selling to regulated and public buyers
When a law decides parts of the process: Polish tenders, smaller public purchases, NIS2 and DORA.
- 5 guides
proving it with a POC
Success criteria signed before the install, a date for the verdict, and an exit if it slips.
- 8 guides
choosing partners and setting the terms
Recruiting is a sale with its own business case. The terms you set before signature shape the channel for years.
- 12 guides
making partners sell
Recruiting ends with a signature. Activating ends when a partner's seller brings you a deal.
a signed partner is a logo, not pipeline.
Recruiting a partner ends with a signature. Activating one ends when their seller brings you a deal. I write about the second job.
start where it hurts.
Pick the situation you recognise. Each one opens the guide that deals with it.
- Deals stall after a good demo and quietly close as lost.your biggest competitor in security deals is "no decision"
- Your champion says yes and nothing moves.map the buying committee before the demo
- POCs run past their end date and nobody decides.how to run a security POC that ends in a decision
- The security review starts after everyone else has said yes.the security review is a second evaluation. start it with the POC
- Partners signed months ago and none of them has brought a deal.a signed partner is a logo, not pipeline: the first 90 days after signature
- Partners ask for more discount and your direct price undercuts them.the channel price waterfall: from list price to the CISO
- You are choosing a distributor for a new country.one distributor per country or two: the arithmetic for a mid-sized European market
- Buyers arrive with a shortlist you weren't on.the day-one shortlist: most security demand is decided before the first form
- Every customer asks about NIS2 and your deck says "compliant".NIS2 in a sales conversation: what the law asks of suppliers, and what it doesn't
guides.
- 001your biggest competitor in security deals is "no decision"
- 002how to run a security POC that ends in a decision
- 003one distributor per country or two: the arithmetic for a mid-sized European market
- 004the channel price waterfall: from list price to the CISO
- 005deal registration is a promise. here is where it breaks
no guides match that search.
free tools, no email needed
Calculators and checklists from my own pipeline work. They run in your browser and send nothing anywhere.
all tools →- channel price waterfallFollow one deal from list price to the customer and see what each party keeps.
- partner program scorecardTwenty statements on how easy your programme is to sell, from the partner's side.
- distributor shortlistCompare up to three distributors on nine weighted criteria.
- no-decision deal checkIs a stalled deal stuck on the status quo or on indecision?
who's writing.
I'm Dawid Winiarski. I run sales, marketing and growth at a cybersecurity company in Poland and work with vendors, distributors and integrators across Europe. Before security I spent close to ten years in B2B sales, marketing and startups, two of them as CEO.
Everything here comes from that work. One problem per piece, every number with its source, and the things I'm still testing marked as such.
more about me and how I work →Security Revenue · weekly
one issue a week from the work.
How security vendors build pipeline. Each week: one thing I tried in deals, POCs or partner work, what it changed, and what you can do about it on Monday. About 700 words. The five working kits come with your welcome email. What's in an issue →