The Challenger Sale

The Reactive Problem Solver
The Reactive Problem Solver is highly reliable and very detail-oriented.
While every rep in one way or another is focused on solving customer
problems, these individuals are naturally drawn to ensuring that all of the
promises that are inevitably made as part of a sale are actually kept once
that deal is done. They tend to focus very heavily on post-sales follow-up,
ensuring that service issues around implementation and execution are
addressed quickly and thoroughly.
One CEB member described the problem solver as “a customer service
rep in sales rep clothing.” As she put it, “They come into the office in the
morning with grand plans to generate new sales, but as soon as an existing
customer calls with a problem, they dive right in rather than passing it to the
people we actually pay to solve those problems. They find ways to make
that customer happy, but at the expense of finding ways to generate more
business.”
The Challenger
Challengers are the debaters on the team. They’ve got a deep understanding
of the customer’s business and use that understanding to push the
customer’s thinking and teach them something new about how their
company can compete more effectively. They’re not afraid to share their
views, even when they’re different and potentially controversial.
Challengers are assertive—they tend to “press” customers a little—both on
their thinking and around things like pricing. And as many sales leaders will
tell you, they don’t reserve their Challenger mentality for customers alone.
They tend to push their own managers and senior leaders within their own
organizations as well. Not in an annoying or aggressive manner, mind you
—then we’d simply have to call this profile “the Jerk”—but in a way that
forces people to think about complex issues from a different perspective.
As one member put it, “We have a handful of Challengers in our
company, and almost all of them seem to have a standing time slot on our
CSO’s calendar to discuss what they’re seeing and hearing in the market.

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The CSO loves it. They’re constantly bringing fresh insight to the table that
forces him to constantly check his strategy against reality.”