Summary: “Imagine a world where all your reps- or at least many more of them – performed like stars. What would that be worth to you?” The Challenger Sale, page 15 Wouldn’t it be great if you could bottle what your best sales reps do and sprinkle it over all the rest? In the quest to do just that by understanding what top-performing sales reps do, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, authors of The Challenger Sale, performed an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps and discovered something that is shaking the ground as a breakthrough! They dethroned traditional beliefs and identified specifically who the stars are and what they do differently than the others. You may be surprised! Golden Egg One, two, three, four... Five! “The five profiles are statistically derived, but they accurately and completely describe the five most common profiles found in the real world.” The Challenger Sale, page 19 After a massive and sophisticated statistical analysis, Dixon and Adamson discovered that every sales rep falls into one of five distinct profiles. Think of reps you know. Do you know these types? 1) The Hard Worker Always willing to go the extra mile Doesn’t give up easily Self-motivated Interested in feedback and development 2) The Challenger Always has a different view of the world Understands the customer’s business Loves to debate Pushes the customer 3) The Relationship Builder Builds strong advocates in customer organization Generous in giving time to help others Gets along with everyone 4) The Lone Wolf Follows own instincts Self-assured Difficult to control 5) The Reactive Problem Solver Reliably responds to internal and external stakeholders Ensures that all problems are solved Detail-oriented Which category do you think houses the most successful reps? Well, maybe the title of the book gave it away but yes, the Challenger. Shock of all shock, it was not the relationship builder that we had put our bets on for so long. They were the loser category! GEM #1 One clear winner and one clear loser “In our study, only 7 percent of all star performers fell into the Relationship Builder profile, far fewer than any other. And this finding should be a real red flag for all sales leaders encouraging their reps to simply go out and ‘build deeper relationships’ with customers.” The Challenger Sale, page 24 Have you ever heard a senior Sales Director say “It all boils down to the relationship”? And people nod in agreement. After all, who are they to argue? But maybe after reading The Challenger Sale they would! Conventional wisdom has long held that in complex sales, relationships are the basis of all sales success. Over the last ten years however there has been a flip-flop. Customer relationship is the result and not the cause of successful selling. I hear reps say all the time “I have such a great relationship with him but he just won’t use my product!” That’s because customers today are likely to say “I have a great relationship with her but her competition delivers better value so I buy from them.” Reps traditionally have felt they are there to serve and support their customers. Their goal was to keep things friendly, and not rock the boat. The research presented here suggests that customers are looking to suppliers to challenge their thinking and bring new ideas to address their toughest problems in ways they would not have thought of on their own. GEM #2 What makes the rock stars rock? “When you ask people to compare their rock stars with their losers, you find that they can dissect the losers with surgical precision but find it hard, if not impossible, to put their finger on exactly what makes their rock stars rock.” The Challenger Sale, page xiii So let’s capture a clear picture of what this ideal Challenger rep does. The three pillars that make a Challenger is their ability to teach, tailor, and take control.
