The Challenger Sale

FINDING #3: CHALLENGERS ARE THE SOLUTION
SELLING REP, NOT JUST THE DOWN ECONOMY REP
The dramatic difference between Challengers and all other reps brings us to
our third and arguably most dramatic finding. Almost inevitably at this
point in our story, a question naturally comes up about the “staying power”
of the Challenger profile. After all, we first derived these findings at a very
specific and uniquely bad moment of economic performance. So is it
possible that the superior performance of Challengers is simply a temporary
phenomenon—a product of the Great Recession and the brutal sales
environment it engendered? If that’s the case, are we likely to come back in
two or three years and find that some other profile—perhaps one as yet
unidentified—is more likely to win? Based on what we’re seeing in the
data, we don’t believe that’s the case. To show you why, let’s shift our

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perspective to the longer view for a moment and look at the Challenger
findings in the context of the broader shift toward solution selling.
Source: CEB, CEB Sales Leadership Council, 2011.
Figure 2.4. 
High Performance by Sales Rep Profile in Low- and High-Complexity Sales
Environments
If we look at the data through a different lens—the lens of sales
complexity—we find something even more dramatic. After our initial
analysis, we went back to the data and divided up the high performers
according to the complexity of the deals they were selling (see 
figure 2.4
),
comparing star performers who sell relatively simple, stand-alone products
across a shorter sales cycle versus those who sell more complex bundles of
products and solutions across a relatively longer sales cycle.
In complex sales, Challengers absolutely dominate, with 
more than 50
percent
of all star performers falling into this category. The only group that
can even come close are the Lone Wolves—who, most sales leaders will
agree, are hard to find and even harder to control. At the same time,

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Relationship Builders nearly fall off the map entirely—the likelihood that
they achieve star status when you’re selling complex solutions falls to
nearly zero
.
This explains why so many organizations struggle with the migration to
solutions. The world of solution selling is almost definitionally about a
disruptive sale. It’s not that you’re asking customers to buy your product
and put it up on the shelf with all of the other products they’ve bought.
Rather, you’re asking customers to change their behavior—to stop acting in
one way and starting acting in another. To make that happen, however, you
have to get customers to think differently about how they operate. You need
to show them a new way to think about their business. From that
perspective, it’s really no surprise that in this more complex world only one
profile wins—and it wins by a country mile.
If you’re not building or hiring Challenger reps, chances are you’re
going to come up well short as your deals become more complex.
Challengers aren’t just the down economy rep of today; they’re the
solution-selling rep of tomorrow. If you’re looking to grow through
solutions, you’re going to need Challenger reps to do it.
If you stop and think about your best salespeople—the ones bringing in
the biggest deals from the most complex customers, you can see them in
this picture. Chances are they’re your best Challengers.
That said, implicit in this finding is a lesson for how you might think
about the less complex, more transactional parts of your business, as well.
In these areas (many of them in the inside or telesales parts of your
company), it probably doesn’t make sense to overinvest in building
Challengers, as the data suggest that Hard Workers are more likely to win
the day there. If sales success is more a matter of call volume than call
quality, Hard Workers are primed to succeed. Challengers are critical in the
complex world of solution selling, but they’re not requisite for every part of
the business.
The overall conclusion from our research is this: If you’re on the
journey to more of a value-based or solutions-oriented sales approach, then
your ability to 
challenge
customers is absolutely vital for your success
going forward. It’s therefore imperative to understand just what exactly
makes someone a Challenger. After all, it’s one thing to tell reps, “Be a

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Challenger!” It’s another thing altogether to tell them exactly what you
want them to 
do
.

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