Many leading software companies offer prospective customers an opportunity to utilize the core features of their offering, in advance and without charge.

These offerings can go by a number of different names—free trial, try-before-you-buy, Software X “Lite,” etc.—and the experience of using them can be equally varied. Trial features can be severely limited, and there is often no technical support or training for free users. This can be useful if you’re sampling many solutions, but it can also be frustrating if you’re genuinely interested in the real-world uses of the software.

Whistic’s free offering, Whistic Basic Profile, is designed with this frustration in mind. It affords users a chance to experiment with the potential of our full platform, but it’s also meant to provide real value on its own. To get you set up for success, here’s what we recommend to maximize your experience with Whistic Basic Profile.

First Things First: What is Whistic and How Does it Work?

Whistic is a dual-sided, AI-driven third-party risk management platform built on a growing network of thousands of software buyers and sellers. Whistic Profile and Whistic Assess allow vendors and their customers to more quickly centralize, share, and assess security documentation to build trust and transparency, reduce risk, and move through the procurement and sales processes faster.

Whistic users create unique Whistic Profiles, which include all documentation required for a thorough vendor security assessment. Vendors can then share their Profile directly with customers or share them publicly through the Whistic Trust Catalog and other online marketplaces like G2 or TrustRadius. This dramatically reduces the time and back-and-forth of assessments.

By centralizing all security info in this way, buyers and sellers can proactively evaluate risk without the need for tedious, manual security questionnaires, so they can:

Reduce time spent tracking down vendor contacts
Reduce inbound requests for security review by up to 95% by sharing profiles proactively and early in the sales/procurement cycle
Reduce time spent waiting for vendor responses to security questionnaires
Onboard vendors and complete recurring reviews faster
Free up InfoSec and Sales to focus on business-critical tasks instead of repetitive ones

What is the Free Whistic Basic Profile?

The Whistic Basic Profile allows third parties to create a single, centralized trust center (we call them “security profiles”) that includes all security documentation and certifications your customers would need to perform a security assessment. While viewing the details of your documentation is limited per month with Whistic Basic Profile, a full list of documentation can be viewed by all your customers and prospects—providing up-front info for purchasing decisions and facilitating a smoother sales process.

Basic Profile includes:

The ability to share the full details of your trust center with your customers 3 times per month
Access to Whistic’s extensive library of 40+ standard questionnaires and frameworks
The ability to publish your Basic Profile to the Whistic Trust Catalog and partners like G2, so prospects can view the essentials of your security posture during the buying/selection process
Initial consultation and support with Whistic’s Vendor Engagement Team

The best part? You maintain full control of who views the details of your Basic Profile; that means you can be more thorough and transparent about what you share without increasing risk. And rather than collect all that information for every new customer or questionnaire request, you only have to do it once. Simply share the link to your Whistic Basic Profile.

7 Ways to Maximize Whistic Basic Profile

One of the key elements that differentiates Whistic Basic Profile from other free offerings is our dedicated Vendor Engagement Team. This team of real-life, flesh-and-blood experts is available for a free consultation to help you squeeze every drop of value.

We asked them what they recommend to new Whistic Basic Profile users to ensure a smooth, impactful experience. Here’s a list of best practices they shared.

1. Don’t overlook the basics

We get it: you’re really excited to get started and share your Basic Profile to close a few deals. But be sure to get all your ducks in a row first. Be sure that your Basic Profile name matches your company name, or the name of the product you’re focusing on. Include a great company description as part of your profile (you can easily copy-and-paste this info from your website’s security page or LinkedIn, so you don’t have to recreate the wheel).

2. Utilize important settings

It’s easy to control both the accuracy and the accessibility of your Basic Profile with some simple settings:

Ensure your customers are viewing the most up-to-date version of your Profile. Under the “Profile Updates” tab, select “Subscription” to keep the profile you share updated and accurate.
Use the “Require Admin Approval” toggle to control who has access to your Profile. This can InfoSec the piece of mind to empower other members of your team without sacrificing visibility and oversight.

3. Add badges for audits and certifications

The Whistic platform allows you to display unique badges for every standard security certification you have. This makes it simple for your customers to get a view of your security posture at a glance. You can even add badges for certs that are in progress by toggling that option within your Basic Profile (AND you can include the date you expect to have the certification completed).

4. Use the upload feature in the questionnaire library

Have you already completed a standardized questionnaire like CAIQ, VSA, HECVAT, or any of the other 40-plus options available in the Whistic library? You can simply upload it to your Basic Profile. You don’t even have to take extra time formatting it to play nicely with Whistic; just let our Vendor Engagement Team know, and they’ll format it for you. That just leaves a single “upload” click for you.

5. Share other common documentation

Standard questionnaires can cover a ton of ground when it comes to security assessments, but often, our customers report specific, recurring requests that land outside the standards. With Basic Profile, you can include these commonly asked-for items automatically. This can include things like Pen test results, policy documentation, or sub-processor lists.

6. Add your Whistic Basic Profile to your website

Basic Profiles are often more robust than the basic security pages most companies include on their website. Why not tap into the power of your Profile in multiple places? You can easily access a public link for your Basic Profile and add it to your website. And the control settings we mentioned earlier still allow you to control access.

7. Share your Whistic Basic Profile where your buyers are shopping

Whistic has a growing list of partnerships with online marketplaces like G2, Quolum, and TrustRadius. These allow you to share your Basic Profile and security posture proactively in the places your customers are actively making buying decisions and comparing your product to competitors.

Our recent survey of security professionals found that 96% were more likely to buy from a company who was transparent about security posture in this way. Since partnering with G2, they have found that companies sharing their Whistic Profile or Basic Profile experience conversion rates that are between two and six times higher than they were without sharing. This is a huge advantage of Basic Profile that many other “free trials” simply can’t match.

Why Our Customers Upgrade

Obviously, we hope you have an incredible experience with Basic Profile and decide to become a customer. But Basic Profile can still provide great value, and if it’s all the tool your business needs right now, we hope you get the most out of it.

If you’re thinking about the long-term outlook of your customer trust processes, here are a few reasons Basic Profile users have upgraded that are worth thinking about:

Need to create multiple Profiles—Your business might have multiple product lines or customer segments that lead to different flavors of security assessment. It might be useful to cater your Profile to meet those needs.
Better collaboration among business stakeholders—Your Basic Profile can be managed by your InfoSec or Risk lead, but there may be other business units who could benefit from increased visibility into your overall TPRM process. This could include Sales, senior leadership, or your own Procurement team.
Access to AI capabilities to increase automation—If your business receives large volumes of inbound questionnaire requests, proactive sharing of security posture is only the first step toward ligthening the load. The full Whistic Platform centralizes your security documentation with our AI-powered Knowledge Base and automates responses to even customized questionnaires with AI-driven Smart Response. It can even help automate assessments of your own vendors.

Ready to Get Started? Let Us Help!

The best and easiest way to get the most out of your Whistic Basic Profile experience is to let our team of experts help you. It only takes one 20-minute consultation to get your Profile set up and give you a deeper guided tour of some of the features we’ve highlighted here.

Basic Profile gives you a risk-free way to take some of the burden off your TPRM process. You won’t believe it’s free. You’ve got nothing to lose, so reach out and schedule your free consultation and get started today!