Solution Design & Integration: Foundations
Design before you quote. The price arrives as the cost of decisions the buyer already made.
6 sections · Capstone · Practice account · AI Sales Coach on every page
Course description
A common way commercial security deals are lost: the site walk goes well, the buyer says "send me something," and a solid proposal arrives a few days later. Then it reaches people you never met. IT finds devices on its network it never reviewed. Purchasing lines it up against cheaper proposals it can't tell apart. The person who liked it can't explain why it costs more.
Nothing in the proposal was wrong. It was sent in the wrong order.
SD&I Foundations teaches one behavior: design before you quote. It separates three jobs that usually get done as one:
- designing what has to exist, and why
- quoting what those decisions cost
- configuring how it will be built
Then it puts them in order. The buyer confirms the requirements before anything is designed. The people who own each part check it before any firm price. And the design goes into the approval meetings you won't attend, ready to hold up there.
There's no exam. At the end you have a design package for one deal, checked item by item.
What you'll leave with
Six working documents, built on one deal from the first conversation to the handoff.
How you'll work
Use a live deal with no firm quote yet, rebuild a recent deal, or work the practice account: a fictional manufacturer with a yard-theft problem and an insurance deadline.
The AI Sales Coach plays every role, from the owner to the IT provider, using a case file you never see. You find the facts by asking the right person the right question.
Amanda reviews each assignment against an itemized checklist, re-checks your fixes, and runs a knowledge check at the end of every section.
Ridgeview Academy, a fictional private K–12 school on two campuses, shows each step on a realistic deal before you do it on yours.
Who it's for
Account executives at commercial security integrators, from newer reps to experienced ones moving into larger or committee-approved deals. Any deal size works: small deals use a one-buyer minimum version of each assignment.
It's the quick start for the full Solution Design & Integration track, and one of the four Foundations courses at the core of SST.
Not an engineering or code course. You won't select products or size systems, and the course never states what a code requires. You'll learn when to bring in engineering, IT, estimating and a qualified door hardware or fire professional, and what to ask each of them.
Five independent AI evaluations. None could name another program that teaches this.
We asked five AI models for a candid review of this course, including whether any other program teaches the same thing. None could name one. Below are excerpts from the summaries each wrote for publication, in their own words.
“SD&I Foundations teaches a sound, uncommon discipline for security integration sales: confirm requirements with the buyer, have the design checked by the people who own it, and present price as the cost of the buyer's decisions before any firm quote. I know of no other program aimed at security reps that combines these steps.”
“This Foundations course correctly targets a frequent failure mode in commercial security sales—the premature firm quote that reaches unengaged decision-makers—and supplies a practical, artifact-driven sequence (requirements confirmation, design validation by owners, price traced to decisions) that general B2B methodologies and most industry sales programs do not.”
“SST's SD&I Foundations: Design Before the Quote teaches commercial security salespeople to connect buyer requirements, solution design, stakeholder validation, pricing, and implementation handoff in a disciplined sales process.”
“SD&I Foundations offers a practical, security-specific approach to connecting confirmed requirements, design validation and proposal pricing.”
“SD&I Foundations: Design Before the Quote addresses a long-standing operational vulnerability in commercial security integration sales by forcing reps to validate technical, operational, and stakeholder requirements before issuing a firm proposal.”
Built for security integrators, not adapted from generic sales training.
Solution Design & Integration
Designs that survive committee review without you in the room.
14 sections · 3 checkpoints · AI Sales Coach on every page · Manager track availableSD&I Manager Track
Inspect the design before the committee does.
Section-by-section coaching · Inspection checkpoints · Roleplays