We have all had the unpleasant experience of dealing with a used car salesperson. We all know the drill. They try to strongarm you with multiple different tactics that ensure you don’t leave the dealership without signing on the dotted line and taking the car home. 

We all associate this with sleazy salesmanship. One of the worst? The Take it or Leave it offer. 

Here are the basics: 

  • The salesperson offers a too-good-to-be-true discounted deal 
  • They say, “This is a take it or leave it, one-time offer. No negotiations. In fact, if you try to negotiate, the deal is off the table.” 

 

This is an unfortunate tactic that leaves the consumer with two bad options. The discounted price means that the seller knows the product isn’t as good and can only close the deal by making the price as attractive as possible. And the pressure forces you to make a decision that might not be the best for you, short-term or long-term. 

Here’s the other unfortunate thing: We see this tactic all the time in email security. Many of our other competitors undercut price significantly and offer the take-it-or-leave-it approach. 

They’ll say, “This is our last and final deal. We’ve discounted it significantly. But once 48 hours pass, the deal is gone. If you try to negotiate, we walk. What’s your choice?” 

Furthermore, the way in which this is delivered is also suspect. These Used Email Salespeople go directly to the customer with this discount, bypassing the standard practice of submitting pricing through a partner. This is a big red flag, especially when the prospect and vendor are already engaged with a customer’s partner, or know, like most email security deals, that the deal will eventually go through a partner. This shows a lack of respect for the important role of the partner, and shows a lack of respect for the customer’s preferred method of procurement. If the deal does go to a partner, telling the partner how much to charge a prospect is price fixing.  

We know why companies do this—because they can’t win on product. We believe we have an advantage when it comes to our patented, prevention-first protection, our rich set of capabilities and our history of innovation. The other products are inferior, and these companies —and the consumer—know it. And because there’s so much pressure to win-win-win, now-now-now, this is the only chance they have. 

We do things differently. We believe in and stand by our product. So we won’t subject our customers and our partners to the used car sale tactics because we know our product is the right product for your organization. We are the only full-fledged email security solution on the market, offering pre-delivery, API-based inbox protection, along with a full complement of threat protections, from dynamic malware sandboxing, URL click-time protection and emulation, protection for collaboration and file-sharing suites, DLP and access to ThreatCloud, the largest threat repository on the market, which analyzes over two billion websites and files, performs 30 million file emulations and gets updates on close to two million malicious indicators every day.  

We stand by our product and will win your business on the strength of our product—no used car salesperson tactics here. 

So here is what we’re offering. If you’re in a position where this tactic is being used on you, let us know. Give us an opportunity to have a conversation with you about your email security. And no matter what decision you’ll make, we’ll donate $1,000 in your company’s name to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. 

We believe that everyone deserves the best security. And while others are concerned with twisting your arm into a sale, we’re going to focus on continuing to make our product the best it can be, to keep your organization safe from cyber threats.