{"id":166,"date":"2017-10-31T23:58:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T23:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2017-11-02T00:42:22","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T00:42:22","slug":"the-challenger-sale-book-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/31\/the-challenger-sale-book-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Challenger Sale (Book Summary)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"nolwrap\"><p>Salespeople fall into 5 distinct profiles: (a) Hard Worker (b) Challenger (c) Relationship Builder (d) Lone Wolf (e) Reactive Problem Solver. Of these, Challengers perform the best in complex sales &amp; Relationship builders perform the worst.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Teach\n<ul>\n<li>Teaching requires intensive pre-call planning to understand the company\u2019s strategic objectives and competitive landscape as well as the individual\u2019s role<\/li>\n<li>Use a deep understanding of a customer\u2019s personal and business value drivers to bring unique, ongoing, strategic insight that reframes the customer\u2019s thinking about how they can compete more effectively (ex: increase revenue, lower cost, or lower risk)<\/li>\n<li>Commercial teaching: (i) Warmer \u2013 demonstrate empathy and two-way conversation while laying out your customer\u2019s key challenges, potentially strengthened with benchmarking data (ii) Reframe \u2013 share a major unrecognized problem or opportunity (iii) Rational Drowning \u2013 intensify degree and urgency (iv) Emotional Impact \u2013 make the intensity personal (v) New Way \u2013 framework for addressing problem tied to your value proposition (vi) Solution \/ Implementation Map \u2013 outline solutions linked to teaching points<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tailor\n<ul>\n<li>Garner consensus, esp. via customer advocates, for a purchase decision across the prospect company\u2019s team<\/li>\n<li>Tailor by working you way down from industry to company to role to individual<\/li>\n<li>Develop value plans with the customer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Take control\n<ul>\n<li>Be assertive (neither aggressive nor passive) in securing you desired next step<\/li>\n<li>Openly pursue goals to overcome customer risk aversion<\/li>\n<li>Be comfortable taking about money<\/li>\n<li>Preempt objections<\/li>\n<li>Press for expanded access to key stakeholders in exchange for continuing the dialogue; otherwise, cut bait<\/li>\n<li>Understand the customer\u2019s decision making process (and, when needed, teach them how to buy)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Sales management (incl. coaching)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Success in implementing any change initiative, including Challenger, requires having front line sales managers to be on board<\/li>\n<li>When hiring sales managers, use \u201clive fire\u201d role-play \/ simulation to assess (i) integrity (ii) reliability (iii) listening (iv) selling skills (v) coaching (vi) resource allocation (vii) innovative deal problem solving.<\/li>\n<li>Coaching means asking and guiding (rather than telling and doing) with a focus on behaviors rather than outcomes<\/li>\n<li>Give managers something to coach to \u2013 ex: a sales process aligned coaching guide<\/li>\n<li>Shift focus of coaching from low and star performers to core performers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Other:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Investments in brand building, product development, and customer service are the first, not the last, step in building customer loyalty<\/li>\n<li>Reps should have tools to create action plans<\/li>\n<li>Pair experiential training with behavioral certification programs to reinforce learning over time<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf you truly want to build a \u201ccustomer-centric\u201d organization, then you\u2019re actually going to have to build an insight-centric organization\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Salespeople fall into 5 distinct profiles: (a) Hard Worker (b) Challenger (c) Relationship Builder (d) Lone Wolf (e) Reactive Problem Solver. Of these, Challengers perform the best in complex sales &amp; Relationship builders perform the worst. &nbsp; Teach Teaching requires intensive pre-call planning to understand the company\u2019s strategic objectives and competitive landscape as well as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Challenger Sale (Book Summary)","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sellingsherpa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/challenger-sale.jpg?fit=2434%2C716&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9j2qV-2G","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}