The Challenger Sale

Taking Control of the Sale
The final characteristic that sets Challenger reps apart is their ability to
assert and maintain control over the sale. Now, before we go any further,
it’s important to note that being assertive does not mean being aggressive

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or, worse still, annoying or abusive. This is all about the reps’ willingness
and ability to stand their ground when the customer pushes back.
A Challenger’s assertiveness takes two forms. First, Challengers are
able to assert control over the discussion of pricing and money more
generally. The Challenger rep doesn’t give in to the request for a 10 percent
discount, but brings the conversation back to the overall solution—pushing
for agreement on value, rather than price. Second, Challengers are also able
to challenge customers’ thinking and pressure the customer’s decision-
making cycle—both to reach a decision more quickly as well as to
overcome that “indecision inertia” that can cause deals to stall indefinitely.
In fact, if you think about it, if a key to a Challenger rep’s success is
teaching—or reframing how that customer sees their world—then the rep is
going to have to be willing to get a little scuffed up in the process. Just as
you can’t be an effective teacher if you’re not going to push your students,
you can’t be an effective Challenger if you’re not going to push your
customers. This approach is so important today with customer risk aversion
as high as it is. It’s funny, sales leaders often lament that core-performing
reps fall into their comfort zone when selling, but arguably the bigger
problem is that customers often fall into their comfort zone when it comes
to buying. And that’s what the Challenger rep does—she moves customers
out of their comfort zone by showing them their world in a different light.
The key, of course, is to do this with control, diplomacy, and empathy.
As one of our longtime members, the former CSO of one of the world’s
largest chemical manufacturers, explains, “In practice, asserting control can
take many forms. In essence, it means that the sales professional takes the
lead in the customer discussion with a specific end in mind.” While the
entire toolkit for taking control is both large and complex, there are many
simple tools that can be applied with power.
“Discussions over price—price increases or requests for price decreases
—are very high-value areas for the sales professional to take control of,” he
says. “When the topic of price comes up, a powerful technique is for the
sales professional to shift the discussion from price to value. The value of
the current offering is a great place to start this dialogue. During the course
of such a discussion, it is useful to get the customer to rank the elements of
the offering in order of importance. This sometimes enables the customer to

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see the offering in a different light; these new insights are very useful to
both the sales professional and the customer as they think about value.”
He told us the story of one of his sales reps, who was in a situation
where he had to let a longtime customer know about a price increase—one
that was not only substantial, but also out of sync with the economy. None
of the customer’s other suppliers were raising prices, but the raw material
for the supplier’s product had gone up so much that it dictated the need. At
the same time, years before, that same customer had requested that the
product be shipped in an expensive, nonstandard package. Over time, the
cost of this package had substantially reduced the profitability of the
business for the supplier. During the discussion of the price increase, the
sales professional asked the customer to rank the various features of the
supplier’s offering. The expensive custom packaging didn’t rank in the top
three. As a consequence, the supplier and the sales professional agreed to a
lower price increase and a shift to standard packaging. The change in
packaging improved profitability more than the price increase itself. “This
was a great outcome,” he said, “using a relatively simple device to assert
control in a price discussion to deliver a win for both parties.”