October has been designated as the month to raise cyber security awareness, helping people avoid potential threats such as phishing scams and malware infections. For MSPs, National Cyber Security Awareness Month is the perfect time to educate your customers about these types of attacks and how they can help keep their business and its data safe.
That’s why we put together a new event-in-a-box to help MSP partners teach SMBs and their employees about cyber security at a sit-down lunch. Here are some tips on how to plan your own cyber security lunch and learn:
Six steps to a successful cyber security lunch and learn
Step 1: Choose a location — First, you need to decide where you want to host the lunch and learn. The best place to go is somewhere you can have a private room to give your presentation without any outside noises or distractions. You also want to consider a restaurant that will allow you to narrow down your food options so your guests can take one look at the menu and choose their meal quickly and easily.
Step 2: Invite customers and prospects — Once you book your venue, you can start inviting people to the event. Sending an email invite is always good, and you want to aim to do about four to six weeks before the event. You can also send out a paper invite through the mail in the same timeframe for a more personal touch. Another great way to get people to attend is by calling them directly. It’s best to do this after you send your email invites so you have something to refer to when contacting them.
Step 3: Send reminders — After you’ve done your first round of phone and email invites, it’s always good way to remind people to register one last time before the event. The easiest and most efficient way to do this is to send out an “only X seats available” email, which will grab the attention of anyone who hasn’t signed up yet.
Step 4: Confirm the details — Once you have your guest count, make sure to confirm it with your restaurant. You should also confirm details about what the set up will be like. The best seating option is crescent rounds facing your presentation. This type of seating really encourages conversation.
Step 5: Prepare your presentation — For the event, you want to have a presentation that covers common cyber security mistakes and risks. You can enlighten your customers on threats they didn’t know they had. Be share to practice the presentation several times before the event so you’re comfortable with the content and present it confidently.
Step 6: Print some take-home materials — You should also consider providing data sheets or other educational handouts such as hard copies of an e-book. It’s a great way for the attendees of your event to have something in hand to take back with them to their office and look over to keep cyber security top of mind after they leave. You can also include an e-book in an email as a thank you for attending the event.
Cyber security event-in-a-box
If you are an Intronis MSP partner, you can access our event-in-a-box materials in the Partner Toolkit to make hosting a successful lunch and learn even easier. The event-in-a-box includes the following, which are all fully rebrandable:
- Email invitation templates that can be adjusted with the details for your event
- A cyber security presentation (with speaker notes)
- Data sheets our or email security and firewall solutions
- A downloadable e-book about cyber security threats
- Pre-written tweets about relevant cyber security articles and advice that you can simply copy and paste to Twitter to promote your lunch and learn and educate your follower
Good luck with your first lunch and learn event. I think you’ll find it an effective way to both educate customers and prospects and generate more business for your MSP.
Photo by Kevin Curtis
