The Challenger Sale

Step 4: Emotional Impact
Emotional Impact is all about making absolutely sure that the customer sees
themselves in the story you’re telling. There’s nothing more frustrating than
laying out a compelling argument and hearing your customer say, “Yeah, I
see what you’re saying, and I’m sure it makes a lot of sense for a lot of your
customers. But I’m struggling to see how this applies to us. We’re
different.” Ugh. This is the sales version of that awkward moment when
your date looks at you and says, “It’s not you. It’s me.” Clearly, what
they’re trying to say is, “I have absolutely zero interest in anything you
have to offer.”
So what do you do now? How do you counter the “we’re different”
defense? For the core-performing rep, the response is predictable. If one
chart wasn’t enough, try two. If the PowerPoint deck didn’t get you there,
send the white paper. It’s more of the same. But simply repeating the
business case in greater detail will never get you past the “we’re different”
response. That’s because you’re solving for the wrong problem. The
problem isn’t that you’ve failed to make a logical presentation, the problem
is you’ve failed to make an emotional connection. It’s not that they don’t
believe your story, it’s just that they don’t see it as 
their
story. You need to
get them to internalize what you’re telling them.
So how do you do that? Now you’ve got to make it personal. And this is
where a Challenger rep’s storytelling ability really comes into play. As the
name implies, Emotional Impact isn’t about the numbers; it’s about the
narrative. You’ve got to paint a picture of how other companies just like the
customer’s went down a similarly painful path by engaging in behavior that
the customer will immediately recognize as typical of their own company.
The story, therefore, starts out with something like, “I understand you’re
a little bit different, but let me give you a sense of how we’ve seen this play

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out at similar companies . . .” And for this to work, whatever you say next
has to 
feel
immediately familiar (which is another reason why a deep
understanding of the customer must be acquired 
prior
to the sales call, not
just during it). The reactions you’re looking for are a rueful shake of the
head, a wry smile, a thoughtful faraway look. Why? Because you’re
looking for the customer to replay the same scenario in their head as it
actually
happened
to
them
in
their
own
company
just last week. Ideally, the
customer’s response to your story is something like, “Wow, it’s like you
work here or something. Yeah, we do that 
all
the time. It just kills us.” And
that is how you slay the dragon of “we’re just different”: by creating an
emotional connection between the pain in the story you’re telling and the
pain your customer feels every day inside their own organization. If your
customer still thinks they’re different after step 4, you either have the wrong
customer or the wrong story.
But if you are successful, now you’ve got your customer bought in to
the Reframe. They see the challenge or opportunity as their own, and now
they’re looking for a solution.