I recently attended a YPO EMBA event at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. It was a top-notch experience and the company was second to none. Daniel Pink talked about the new A-B-C’s of selling. If you can picture Alec Baldwin in Glenngary Glen Ross, you’ve got the old A-B-C’s in mind. Steve McClatchy shared his thoughts on how the right systems and processes free us to focus our time where senior executives should – in making evolutionary improvements in our businesses and lives to break the status quo. However, it was Matt Dixon of CEB that truly inspired this blog post.
Matt Dixon shared CEB’s research on customer service and sales that is chronicled in his book, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation. The implications were that customer service and sales professionals fall into 1 of 5 profiles and those that fall into the Relationship Builder profile are always outperformed by the other 4 profiles. Of course, you can safely assume from the book title that the top performing profile was the Challenger.
On the surface the results can be discouraging. Most of us were taught in business that to have the best customer service employees, hire relationship people. What are we to do? Do we get rid of all our relationship people – the Relationship Builders – in favor of Challengers? NO! That could prove catastrophic to our businesses. To further complicate matters, put a position description out or retain a recruiter to hire you a “Challenger” and see what happens. I’ll shorten your learning path here – no one markets themselves as Challengers. In fact, the best Challengers don’t event know they are Challengers.
What to do! What to do?
In my business and market development experiences, I have witnessed that the best Challengers are indeed also outstanding Relationship Builders. That is, they are Relationship Builders that have developed the Challenger capabilities and qualities. With information symmetry between buyer and seller in today’s markets, customers often know more about you and your business than your team’s do. Said another way, thanks to the information available on the internet, almost 60% of the buying cycle is complete before your team even knows there is (or was) an opportunity!
As I sat there recalling the Challenger Sales development we did while I was at CA Technologies, as well as considered what is currently propelling growth at 3Pillar Global, I had a moment of enlightenment. What has happened is that our markets have continued to evolve. The customer has evolved more rapidly than the supplier. Most of us moved our go-to-market machines over the years from transactional selling to solution selling. Solution selling today has become as commodity as transactional selling – teams now show up and throw up with the playbook training and programming they are provided on their business’ “solutions,” which is merely transactional selling with lipstick. Prospects and customers hear the same ‘ol solution pitches from everyone in your noisy sector. They grow bored quickly of yet another story from another vendor about how underneath the lipstick, your product and services are better than the next guy’s. And, of course your products and services are far superior, so the customer obviously needs what you provide and they are fools for not seeing it.
Solution selling is what Matt Dixon refers to as “Leading With” – leading with your end game being your predefined solution. Rather, Challenger selling is about “Leading To” – leading an insights based conversation with the customer that creates constructive tension. Traditional Relationship Builders tend to lead conversations that reduce customer tension. Reducing customer tension takes form by being generous with your time, being genuine and likable, being a customer advocate and getting along with everyone. We just defined a traditional Relationship Builder. A true Challenger will assert control, teach and tailor the conversation – they will drive an insights based conversation to create constructive tension. The customer or prospect doesn’t feel like they are dealing with a sales person, rather they feel like they are having an educational experience that drives them to think about their needs in a reframed way and in dimensions predetermined solution sellers simply can’t match.
Yes! You can indeed develop the Challenger in your Relationship Builders, but it has to be done deliberately. Conditioned Relationship Builders may struggle to get comfortable Challenging their customers and making the shift from reducing tension to driving successful constructive tension. The following are the abilities, skills and traits that Relationship Builders need to develop to become successful Challengers:
- Deep domain experience and unique perspectives. There is no substitute for a Challenger actually having been there and done it.
- Strong two way communications skills. A Challenger does not merely guide a discovery conversation, manage the agenda, nor serve as a concierge.
- Customizes the relationship. A Challenger recognizes that no two customers are identical. They identify the unique customer value drivers and can readily identify the customer’s economic drivers.
- Assertive. Challengers are very comfortable professionally pressuring the customer and have no fear discussing money and contract terms.
To short cut and speed the development of the Challenger in your Relationship Builders, you may want to team the high potential Relationship Builders with your existing Challengers. Another source for Challenger development is mentorship by the executives in your business. Many senior executives are natural Challengers who are very comfortable leading assertive insight based two way communications.
I’d love to hear from you. Do your Challengers outperform your Relationship Builders? Do you have Relationship Builders who are also Challengers? What experiences and insights have you gleaned as you’ve evolved your client facing organizations?