The Challenger Sale

particularly in complex sales where reps are required to engage in
relationships with multiple stakeholders. If your customers don’t know who
you are, or worse, outright dislike you, you must fix that first. But at the
same time, if your strategy as a sales rep is largely one of being available to
take care of whatever your customer needs—of acquiescing to the
customer’s every demand—that can be a recipe for disaster in an
environment where your customers are more reluctant than ever to buy your
solutions for all the reasons we discussed in 
chapter 1
. In that environment,
as critical as a strong customer relationship may be, familiarity alone isn’t
enough to win the business. A service-oriented quarterly check-in call with
your customer can be a great way to 
find
business, but it’s not a very good
way to 
make
business. As a result, in a world where findable business has
all but vanished, Relationship Builders are doomed to fail.

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Source: CEB, CEB Sales Leadership Council, 2011.
Figure 2.3.
Challenger Versus Relationship Builder Profile
So is the Challenger profile really all that different from that of the
Relationship Builder? It absolutely is. When you look at the attributes that
define the Challenger and compare them with the ones that define the
Relationship Builder, as we’ve depicted in 
figure 2.3
, you’ll see why.
Challenger reps succeed for all of the reasons we just discussed—they
excel at teaching, tailoring, and taking control. Meanwhile, as the
Challenger is focused on pushing the customer out of their comfort zone,
the Relationship Builder is focused on being accepted into it. They focus on
building strong personal relationships across the customer organization,
being likable and generous with their time. The Relationship Builder adopts
a service mentality. While the Challenger is focused on customer value, the
Relationship Builder is more concerned with customer convenience.

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The Challenger rep wins by maintaining a certain amount of
constructive tension across the sale. The Relationship Builder, on the other
hand, strives to resolve or defuse tension, not create it. It’s the exact
opposite approach. Granted, the conversation with the Relationship Builder
is in most cases a very professional one, but it doesn’t really 
help
the
customer make progress against their goals. They’re likable, but they’re not
very effective. The Challenger, by contrast, knows that there is value for
both you and your customers in maintaining that tension a little bit longer in
a manner that pushes the customer to think differently about their own
business—about the ways in which you might be able to help them (to save
money or make money) and, ultimately, about the value you provide as a
supplier.
Here’s how a global head of sales in the hospitality industry put it when
he saw these results: “You know, this is really hard to look at. For the last
ten years, it’s been our stated strategy to hire effective Relationship
Builders. After all, we’re in the hospitality business. And for a while, that
worked fine. But ever since the economy crashed, my Relationship Builders
are completely lost. They can’t sell a thing. And as I look at this, I now
know why.”