The Challenger Sale

Step 3: Rational Drowning
Rational Drowning is where you lay out the business case for why the
Reframe in step 2 is worth your customer’s time and attention.
So now it’s time for the data, graphs, tables, and charts you need to
quantify for the customer the true, often hidden, cost of the problem or size
of the opportunity they’d completely overlooked. Rational Drowning is the
numbers-driven rationale for why your customer should think differently
about their business, but presented specifically in a way designed to make
them squirm a little bit—to feel like they’re drowning. Marketers often
refer to this as the “FUD factor”—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. If your
presentation is done well, the customer reaction in step 3 should be
something like, “Wow, I had no idea we were wasting that kind of money!”
or “I’d never thought of this as an opportunity before. We’ve got to get after
this or we’re going to really miss out!”
If you’re going to put an ROI calculator in front of your customer, this
is where it goes. But just remember the ROI that you’re calculating. In a
world-class teaching pitch a good ROI calculator calculates the ROI on
solving the challenge you’ve just taught your customer they have, not the
ROI on buying your solution. If your ROI calculator is explicitly about your
products and services—as it almost inevitably is—then you’re talking about
the wrong thing. Before you demonstrate how your solution can

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economically solve a key customer challenge, you’ve got to convince the
customer that that challenge is worth solving in the first place.
Putting steps 2 and 3 together, you’ve got to show them something new,
and then show them why it matters. This is what good teaching is all about.
Great
teaching, however, requires something else: emotional impact.