The Challenger Sale

It’s Based on an Impressive Sample
It’s common for sales research to be based on small samples of fifty to
eighty participants drawn from just three or four companies. Larger-scale
research is harder to do and significantly more expensive. My own research
had used samples of a thousand or more, not because we liked megastudies
but because—given the noisy data of real-life selling—we had no choice if
we wanted to draw statistically meaningful insights. The initial sample in
the Challenger research was 700, which has since grown to 6,000. That’s
impressive by any standard. What’s even more impressive is that ninety
companies participated in the research. With a sample this wide we can rule
out many of the factors that normally prevent research from generalizing its
results to cover selling as a whole. CEB findings are not about a particular

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organization or a specific industry. They apply across the whole spectrum of
selling, and that’s important.
It Didn’t Find What the Researchers Expected
I always mistrust research that finds exactly what it seeks. Researchers, like
everybody else, have a bundle of prejudices and preconceived ideas. If they
know what they are looking for, by gosh they will find it. I was really
pleased to hear that the researchers themselves were stunned to discover
that their results were almost the opposite of what they had expected. That’s
a very healthy sign and a frequent characteristic of significant research.
Look again at their five profiles:
The Hard Worker
The Challenger
The Relationship Builder
The Lone Wolf
The Reactive Problem Solver
Most sales executives, if they were forced to choose just one profile to
make up their sales force, would have chosen the Relationship Builder, and
that’s just what the research team was expecting to find. Think again. The
research showed that Relationship Builders were unlikely to be star
performers. In contrast, the Challengers, who are awkward to manage and
assertive both with customers and with their own managers, came out on
top. As you’ll see in the book, Challengers won out not by a small margin
but a massive one. And the margin was far greater in complex sales.