The Challenger Sale

THE POWER OF INSIGHT

---

Of the fifty or so attributes we tested in our loyalty survey, seventeen of
them fell into the sales experience category, each reflecting at least a
marginally positive impact on customer loyalty. They included things like,
“Demonstrates a high level of professionalism,” “Adjusts to our unique
needs and specifications,” “Portrays a realistic picture of costs,” and
“Matches communications to my preferences.” However, when we ranked
the list according to impact, we found seven in particular that rose way
above the others in terms of importance:
Rep offers unique and valuable perspectives on the market.
Rep helps me navigate alternatives.
Rep provides ongoing advice or consultation.
Rep helps me avoid potential land mines.
Rep educates me on new issues and outcomes.
Supplier is easy to buy from.
Supplier has widespread support across my organization.
Now, if we start at the bottom of that list and work up, the first thing we
find is statistical corroboration for what we all know to be true—and
something we’ll discuss in more depth in 
chapter 6
. The need for consensus
across customer stakeholders has gone way up. Senior decision makers
inside the customer are no longer willing to go out on a limb for any
supplier or any solution, unless that deal has the support of his or her team.
It’s a logical, if frustrating, outcome of the larger, more expensive, more
disruptive solutions suppliers are seeking to sell. When the stakes are
higher, you can’t just claw your way to the corner office to get the deal
done. You’ve got to build a network of advocacy along the way or risk
losing the deal altogether due to weak support across the organization.
Likewise, customers place a great deal of importance on a smooth,
uncomplicated purchase. No one wants to work with a supplier that makes
any purchase more complicated than it has to be—especially a solutions
purchase. Nothing slows down a deal faster than reps who have to
constantly “check with their manager,” or “run it through Legal,” or “see if
Finance will be willing to do that.” Don’t make your customers work so
hard to spend their money!

---

There’s something else about this list that really jumps out. Take another
look at the top five attributes listed there—the key characteristics defining a
world-class sales experience:
Rep offers unique and valuable perspectives on the market.
Rep helps me navigate alternatives.
Rep provides ongoing advice or consultation.
Rep helps me avoid potential land mines.
Rep educates me on new issues and outcomes.
Each of these attributes speaks directly to an urgent need of the
customer not to 
buy
something, but to 
learn
something. They’re looking to
suppliers to help them identify new opportunities to cut costs, increase
revenue, penetrate new markets, and mitigate risk in ways they themselves
have not yet recognized. Essentially this is the customer—or 5,000 of them
at least, all over the world—saying rather emphatically, “Stop wasting my
time. Challenge me. Teach me something new.”
It’s a powerful conclusion that runs contrary to years of thought and
training in B2B sales. Sure, a supplier has to have great products, brand,
and service. But from the customer’s perspective, most already do. After
all, if that weren’t the case, they probably wouldn’t be speaking with that
supplier in the first place. Instead, what sets the best suppliers apart is not
the quality of their products, but the 
value of their insight
—new ideas to
help customers either make money or save money in ways they didn’t even
know were possible.
In this sense, customer loyalty is much less about what you sell and
much more about how you sell. The best companies don’t win through the
quality of the products they sell, but through the quality of the insight they
deliver as part of the sale itself. The battle for customer loyalty is won or
lost long before a thing ever gets sold. And the best reps win that battle not
by “discovering” what customers already know they need, but by teaching
them a new way of thinking altogether.
Customers are very clear on this point. They place much greater value
on reps’ teaching skills than on their discovery skills. To go back to the data
for a moment, much farther down the list within the sales experience is,

---

“The rep excels in diagnosing our specific needs.” The ability to diagnose
needs scores much lower because, frankly, it’s just not as valuable to the
customer. Sure, it’s great if a rep knows my needs as well as I do and can
ask great questions to uncover those needs as quickly as possible. But what
I really need is a rep who knows my needs 
better
than I do—one who can
challenge me to think differently about my business altogether. And to do
that, great questions aren’t enough. You’ve got to have great 
insights
.
And by the way, for those selling a commodity, this is all the more
applicable. There’s no question that winning customer loyalty when you
can’t differentiate yourself on product, brand, or price is difficult at best.
But these findings provide the best possible path for doing just that. As a
head of sales at a global chemical company put it to us, “Sure, you and I
may both sell five-gallon buckets of unbranded axle grease at the same
price. But if I can sell my five-gallon bucket of unbranded axle grease
better than you can sell your five-gallon bucket of unbranded axle grease—
well, then I’m going to win. And the way I do that is by helping the
customer think differently about their business.” And he’s right. After all, if
he’s not, then there’s really nothing left other than price itself as the basis
for differentiation. And in that case, why have a sales force at all? Put that
unbranded axle grease online and sell it through your Web site. It’s a lot
cheaper that way.
So where does that leave us? In this world—where quality insight
trumps all else—it’s no wonder, then, that Challengers win. Insight is all
about teaching customers new ways of thinking, pushing them to rethink
their current perspectives and approaches. And that’s exactly what
Challengers do. They teach customers new perspectives, specifically
tailored to their most pressing business needs, in a compelling and assertive
enough manner to ensure that the message not only resonates, but actually
drives action. After all, if you don’t change the way a customer thinks—
and, ultimately, 
acts
—then you haven’t really taught them anything to begin
with. At least nothing worth doing anything about. And where’s the value in
that?