3 Steps to Reframe Prospect’s Thinking

Capturing the attention of a prospect has become increasingly more difficult. We’ve all heard the numbers:

100 billion business emails were sent and received per day in 2013 – Radicati Group
86% of sales rep’s messages have no commercial value to buyers – CEB
67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally – SiriusDecisions

With the bombardment of ineffective messaging battling for your prospect’s attention, it’s no wonder why 6 out of 10 prospects end up in no decision. That number is likely to rise with a 31% increase in email and 44% increase in social media users expected over the next 4 years.

Many Sales Reps are trying to solve this through increased activity levels while simultaneously looking to improve their efficiency. Unfortunately, this will only result in adding to the noise, and lead reps to believe even more activity still is necessary.

Interestingly, as sales reps work tirelessly to get in touch with prospects to convince them to depart from their status quo, reps are equally guilty of their own status quo. Some are approaching prospects in the same ineffective way that they have done for years.

What so many fail to realize is without changing their approach and message, it is nearly impossible to generate enough activity through voice mails and emails to prospects, to make up for the poor response rates. Look at the recent statistics from The Blaire Group and Direct Marketing Association (DMA), respectively:

“Surprisingly, we’ve never seen a sales team that could achieve more than a 3% callback rate from voicemail messages. The average callback rate is less than 1%.” – Kraig Kleeman, The Blaire Group
Yory Wurmser of DMA reports, “Email’s average response rate is 0.12%”

There is a better way to approach prospects in order to reframe how they are thinking about solving their problems. But doing so requires a complete abandonment from generically contacting and emailing prospects en masse.

The C.E.B. Model for Better Reframes

After spending significant time in evaluating the Challenger choreography, not only in face-to-face sales conversations, but also in written form and in everyday interactions, I developed the following easy to remember acronym…C.E.B.

Challenge. The first step in your opening communication to a prospect is where you begin establishing credibility (Warmer Statement) by clearly articulating the ‘challenges’ your prospect is likely experiencing. The goal of this opening paragraph or statement is for the prospect to say, “Yes, I agree. You really understand my world.”
Example. The second step of your communication is to provide an example, demonstrating the traditional or conventional wisdom that everybody else uses to address these issues. This is where you lay the foundation to transition the prospect from Warmer to Reframe. At this stage, the goal is to have the prospect nodding, as if to say, “We’ve tried that approach too, and it doesn’t work.” Of course, they are expecting you to advise just like every other rep…but that is not what you will do as you are about to start the ‘bankruptcy’ proceedings.
Bankruptcy. The third step in your process is to demonstrate the insufficiency, or ‘bankruptcy,’ of traditional thinking and why it hasn’t worked. Your articulation and presentation of the problem with the conventional wisdom is paramount in preparing to offer your unique perspective that they hadn’t thought of before. This is the Reframe. The goal of this stage is to get them thinking, “I never though of it that way before.”

I can’t stress enough the importance of absolutely bankrupting the prospect’s investments (e.g., arguments) for remaining in their status quo. Sales Managers and Reps alike need to recognize that if the prospect has any ‘capital’ remaining in staying the same, they won’t budge until they have completely depleted their investment.

Repeatable Success Prospecting Tip

If a prospect’s “status quo fund” isn’t completely bankrupted by the end of their conversation with you, their fund will run out with a competitor…and they will earn their business. For the Challenger Sales rep, your job is to ‘defund the prospect’s argument’ for remaining the same.

For more articles on similar topics, feel free to follow me on Twitter Follow @IntendedResults

A Challenger Rep’s Rise to #1

As we closed our second full year in our Challenger implementation, we saw another year filled with breakout performances as reps started refining their Challenger Sale skill-sets. The following article highlights one of the year’s success stories. The story is about a new rep hired in to one of our larger divisions, who successfully transitioned from Relationship Builder to Challenger, delivering the top sales performance of his division for the year. Following is an excerpt from my interview with Phil Daily as we debriefed his performance for the year…

Interview with Phil Daily

Jeff: You came into the organization brand new last year, and not only learned Challenger selling, but learned a new industry, all while earning the position of top sales person of the year on your team. What was impressive about this is that the person who had typically been #1 for nearly 20 years had another great year as well. For those outside the organization, they may wonder if it was just a matter of a ‘hot’ territory, a fast growing industry, or some other circumstance not directly related to your performance. Honestly, did Challenger have anything to do with this, or were there other contributing factors like inheriting a favorable territory? Phil: Our industry is one that is slow to change and steeped in tradition. The customers care deeply about their purpose and “getting it right,” and I believe the more purpose one sees in their vocation, the more powerful Challenger can be. Coming into my territory last year, I used Challenger to confront the status quo and the “way it’s always been done.” As a result, I saw positive growth in regions of the country that are traditionally thought of as declining markets with declining growth. Jeff: What is your impression for why these markets had been in decline? Phil: When sales reps used traditional product-centric and relationship building approaches, it caused our solution to blend in like ‘white noise.’ Challenger brought a constructive tension, which was sorely needed for change. Jeff: Prior to beginning your Challenger journey, which of the five profiles best represented your own sales approach? Phil: A mixture between Relationship Builder and Challenger. Jeff: Interesting. Those two approaches are often diametrically opposed. How did these two profiles manifest themselves in your approach? Phil: Deep down I believe I had some Challenger qualities and behaviors. However, before understanding what a Challenger message looked like, I would back off as I felt uncomfortable with the constructive tension. As a result, I would default back to relationship building and try “friending” customers into the sale. Trusting the process of Challenger has really helped me in overcoming this barrier. Jeff: Often based on the name “Challenger” alone, people can have some reservations about the approach. Did you have any initial reservations when introduced to Challenger? Phil: Yes. Intentionally creating ‘Constructive Tension’ can sound scary. However, I was most anxious about how to execute. There is a lot of information to take on when learning Challenger, especially through the transitions. Jeff: Describe what you mean by transitions? Phil: Struggling through transitions relates back to my lack of familiarity with Challenger choreography. For example, I would be so focused on Reframe, when it came time to progress the conversation into Rational Drowning, I would struggle with a ‘transition’ statement that was conversational and natural. My supervisor helped me with transitional phrases such as “the interesting thing is” or “to solve this issue…” Over time, making this conversational became second nature. Jeff: What was the hardest part of the Challenger process for you? Phil: I was so focused on the Reframe itself, that I was having a hard time setting it up properly. I found myself having very long conversations before I could move forward.

It was difficult at first, because I was so used to looking for areas of agreement to build the relationship. However, setting up and delivering the Reframe is about turning the head of the customer, which can create moments where they don’t always know how to respond. Jeff: What would you advise others to do that struggle with that same area? Phil: Don’t be overly anxious to get to the Reframe before you get to the Warmer. Demonstrating credibility cannot be understated. When prospects think, “He gets me,” it builds the critical foundation of trust, but it’s not based on being nice. Rather, it’s based on providing valuable commercial insight with industry knowledge. Jeff: What do you know now, that you wish you knew when you first began your Challenger journey a year ago? Phil: Jumping to solution before the appropriate time is a very easy mistake to make. Fight the temptation to lead with product and trust the Challenger choreography. Jeff: I receive emails from sales reps all over the world that are contemplating Challenger, and one of the common concerns is their fear that customers won’t respond well to the approach. How have your customers/prospects responded to your Challenger conversations? Phil: My customers believe, and have told me, that they have gained valuable insight to their challenges. This insight prompts them to reach for solutions that are uniquely designed to confront these ‘new challenges.’ When teaching customers to think about their industry in a new way, the same old way of researching and buying product won’t do. But with the Challenger approach, customer’s often share with me that our “resources are specifically designed for their issues.” Jeff: What advice would you give to those sales reps considering the Challenger methodology? Phil: Learning Challenger concepts is not easy. However, the potential for greater performance and purpose is definitely a worthwhile endeavor!

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In an upcoming article, I will be asking these same questions of our top sales rep from another large division that applied the Challenger approach to his acquisition efforts, and had breakout results.

Don’t Sabotage Your Challenger Sale Implementation

Sabotage Challenger Sale Implementation In January 2012, as I began my first Challenger Sale implementations across several of our SBUs, there were certainly things I would later change in subsequent implementations. One thing that remains the same to this day, however, is in identifying my true goal for Sales Reps and Sales Leaders.

After sufficiently making a compelling case for departing from the status quo, I make one point abundantly clear with sales leaders and teams:

Should Challenger be Mandatory?

It’s understandable why leadership would want to make mandatory something as important as Challenger, especially given the organizational importance of meeting revenue and margin objectives. But doing so, can often have the exact opposite effect of what is intended. Following are three reasons why I would recommend avoiding the ‘mandate’ for anyone looking to implement The Challenger Sale.

Mandates lessen value. Whenever you take someone’s choice away from them, which is what making something mandatory does, you risk creating a perception that whatever is coming, can’t be that great. After all, if it were, people would want to participate without the requirement.
Mandates shift ownership. By default, when an organization makes something mandatory, the onus for the outcome lies squarely with the organization. Is this where you want the ownership for outcomes to be for the rep, or would you rather have the rep own their own outcomes?
Mandates don’t equate to buy-in. Anyone with children will quickly recognize this reality with the following example…“Tell your sister your sorry…like you mean it!” Just as mandates don’t equate to buy in, neither does compliance equate to behavioral change.

Not all mandates are bad. They definitely have their place, but using them in your Challenger implementation will start things off on the wrong foot. Furthermore, it is unnecessary if you properly frame the need for change before trying to reframe.

Regarding my original point on ‘making people Challengers,’ be careful of the message you are sending when implementing Challenger. Sending a message such as, “We are going to turn everybody into Challengers” will cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety and resistance. It will wreak of being the “next new program” and to many reps, will suggest you are taking a blind and blanket approach to selling. Their defenses will be primed to make impassioned pleas for why their current approach is sufficient. This is what happens when you lead WITH the solution, not TO the solution.

Important to remember is what CEB’s research didn’t show.

The research did not show Challenger as being the only successful profile. Sometimes, proponents of the Challenger research and methodology, can appear more like zealots than advocates. What the research did show, however, is Challenger as having the highest success rate for complex selling environments.

Therefore, if you are contemplating a Challenger implementation of your own, honor your team members by not elevating the importance of a “program” over their value as an individual.

Challenger Sale: Three Types of Tension

Tension or Constructive Tension? Whether you realize it or not, every sales call produces tension. But only one type of tension contributes to successful outcomes. Which of the three types most closely represents your approach?

Following is a question I received today on Quora regarding Constructive Tension that I thought others might find of interest…

“I am interested in who has used the business insights approach in The Challenger Sale approach? What has been their experience in how it sits creating constructive tension?”

Following is my response to this question.

‘Constructive tension’ is exactly that…constructive, IF it has been created appropriately and the opportunity to do so has been earned. While there is much more to this question than I can respond to here, the following three keys are critical to creating the ‘constructive’ kind of tension:

Establish credibility – Without this, there is no need to proceed further.
Reframe thinking – Once you have established you are credible with insight about matters affecting their business and/or industry, you help them think differently about a problem that they previously misunderstood or didn’t anticipate.
Appropriately placed tension – When creating constructive tension, it is imperative that the tension is between the prospect and their status quo. When inappropriately done, the tension is between prospect and rep. This is not constructive, but rather destructive tension.

I commonly refer to three types of tension based upon CEB’s model of ‘constructive tension.’

Constructive. Tension created between the prospect and the problem they are currently facing. What makes it constructive tension is when prospects find living with their problem no longer tenable.
Destructive. This kind of tension inappropriately causes tension between wrong parties…the prospect and the rep. This typically presents itself in its destructive form with a rep-centric agenda.
Unproductive. This type of tension occurs when a rep offers nothing of value to benefit the prospect warranting a meeting in the first place. As a result, the tension occurs in the form of the prospect ending the meeting as quickly as professionally possible.

In summary, constructive tension is great. It serves as the catalyst for change and if guided properly and appropriately ending in your solution, it will be tremendously valuable to the prospect.

Challenger Sale: The Truth About ‘Insight’

Insight Selling and Challenger Sale With the rise in popularity of The Challenger Sale, there is one particular attribute of CEB’s research that has captured the attention of reps, consultants and sales training companies alike…and that worries me!

The attribute I am referring to is insight.

To be clear, their research is not the concern, but rather the interpretation by the aforementioned.

Insight is a critical component to successful selling, but there are three particular areas that need to be properly understood in order to have repeatable success in sales.

3 Truths About ‘Insight’

Insight does not make you a Challenger. If it did, organizations could quickly and easily transform sales teams into Challengers by simply creating brilliant insights, and emailing them out to the sales teams. Insight in the hands of a Challenger is golden, but it is not the insight that makes them a Challenger. It’s what they do with the insight and how that truly causes them to outperform their peers.
Insight is not the key to increased sales. A couple of points regarding this assertion:
1. Not all insight is earth shattering. When determining what your message will address with a prospect, CEB categorizes the messaging addressing one of two types of insights — 1.) Misunderstood Cause, or 2.) Unrecognized Problems. With the misunderstood cause, prospects are familiar with the problem, but are content living with it or see it as the cost of doing business.
2. Insight is not the same as Commercial Insight. This is one of the most important points. A rep can deliver a powerful insight that either teaches the prospect the misunderstood cause or an unrecognized problem, and still lose the sale. It’s actually quite common, especially in Challenger implementations. The mistake is made when insight does not uniquely lead back TO the supplier exclusively. In other words, you are teaching the prospect of a problem that needs to be resolved, but they perceive that any supplier is capable of doing so.
Insight is not a Reframe. For starters, ‘Reframe’ is a verb, whereas the word ‘Insight’ is a noun, defined as...

When reps take their insight (noun) and intend it to be a verb, the responsibility of getting a prospect to see things differently rests squarely on the insight. Challengers properly understand the role of insight, but see themselves as responsible for teaching prospects to see things differently, but to do so, they first need to ‘unteach’ what the prospect believes they already know. This is the function of the reframe done through Commercial Teaching, which is not a thought-provoking sentence or question, but rather a process. Being able to reframe is a competency that needs to be developed.

Repeatable Success Tip

It’s no secret that Challengers do things differently, and the results, particularly in a more complex, B2B selling environment, stand in stark contrast to those of different profiles. As is typical of my articles, I care little about the incidental successes sales reps have, but care much more about creating repeatable successes. Following are three areas to focus on in order to do so.

Develop your reframe competency. Learn how to reframe anything. Practice this in your personal and professional interactions in order to make reframes a natural part of how you think and speak, rather than the ‘thing you do’ when selling. Tweet This
Don’t abdicate responsibility for insight development. CEB rightly calls out that the best organizations develop insights organizationally so that reps aren’t out making things up on the fly with prospects. That said, this does not mean wait for marketing to deliver. Reps have unique insights from a different perspective than the rest of the organization. Insight development isn’t the responsibility of a single department. It’s the responsibility of all. Tweet This
Make your insights count. Take the time to test your insights and teaching. In order to make sure that your insight and teaching leads uniquely and exclusively back to you as the supplier, CEB refers to this as the ‘logo test.’ The question is if you were to remove your company logo from your pitch deck, would the prospect point exclusively to your company as the solution? If your teaching and insights could apply to you AND your competition, more refinement is needed. Without this, you are providing free consulting. Tweet This

Challenger Sale Tip: Don’t Sell Solutions

Solution Selling vs.Challenger Sale In the day and age where the conventional wisdom of selling has migrated from product selling to solution selling, I would like to provide a different perspective on the topic, particularly for the aspiring Challengers.

Can You Relate?

In exasperation, my wife walks through the door grumbling. I ask her what’s wrong, and she proceeds to describe another frustrating conversation with a friend. She describes the situation to me, and I offer the solution. Fixed, right? Wrong!

Many of you already know the end of this story and can relate, whether being on the delivering end or the receiving end of similar types of conversations.

I wrongly assumed that the reason she told me about her problem was because she couldn’t solve the problem on her own. As an incredibly bright and capable woman, she didn’t need me to solve her problem. She needed me to understand the source of her exasperation.

Instead, I came with a ‘solutions-based’ approach to her problems and created even more frustration for her. Characteristics of this scenario play themselves out every day in sales as well.

Selling Solutions is a Mistake!

The mistake is understandable. Organizations have problems and they need solutions. Suppliers manufacture/create/publish solutions. Therefore, match problems to solutions and voilà! Not quite, as this is more a recipe of how to look and sound like everybody else.

At the heart of this problem is the belief that since prospects buy solutions, we should sell solutions. As long as we continue to believe this and behave this way, we will keep the prospect’s focus squarely on a product…or solution…comparison (i.e., “whose product will adequately solve my issues at the best price?”).

By now, everybody is familiar with the CEB statistic that buyers (on average) are 57% of the way through their buying process before they engage a sales person. Sirius Decisions reports an even higher percentage at 70%. Don’t get distracted by the number, or the industry that the number applies to, as you will miss the point of the research. The point is that there are myriad ways in which buyers can AND DO, self-educate today.

The problem with consumers self-educating is that they often times don’t get it right. One of the primary reasons for that is that they look too narrowly at the problem. They are looking from the perspective of their own organization (n=1), whereas suppliers see things from the perspective of hundreds or thousands of prospects just like them, that deal with similar problems. Incredible insights can be derived from this perspective and from the immense pool of data.

Challenger Sale Reps Don’t Behave Like Other Reps

Unfortunately, the common sales reps inadvertently set all of these valuable insights aside as they are more focused on selling their solution. The typical choreography of the common rep…if you can call it, that…is to identify needs, ask some validating qualification or disqualification questions, then listen for key words in which your solution addresses,and BAM! Present your solution to their problem.

The Challenger Sale trained reps pay specific attention to the insights gathered from their prospect’s industry, and as a result, teach prospects something new about their business that they hadn’t considered before. Before they teach them something new, they will often have to unwind their current beliefs about their problems. CEB refers to this as “unteaching.” This is critical, because as aforementioned, prospects often get it wrong.

Repeatable Success Tip

Predictability. A key characteristic of Repeatable Success is predictable outcomes, stemming from the best repeatable behaviors that are intentionally applied.

For a predictably bad outcome, continue selling solutions. On the other hand, for consistently, and predictably better outcomes, concentrate on selling the prospect on solving the right problem, if you want them to buy your solution. Doing so requires “leading TO your solution, not WITH” through the use of ‘commercial insight.’

Challenger Tip: The Problem with “Good Fit”

Good fit, bad fashion A colleague of mine, is often counseling his sales team away from using the expression ‘good fit’ when working with prospects. His point merits repeating.

His counsel usually starts with, “Just because something ‘fits’ well, doesn’t mean it looks good or is something you should wear.”

One look at the picture to the left brings that point home, doesn’t it?

We as a society have become very accustomed to using the expression “good fit,” whether we are talking with prospects, or considering candidates for a position.

The Problem with “Good Fit”

Addressing this simply from a sales perspective, when we talk with customers or prospects in the same manner, by default, we are opening up the possibilities…and subsequently the defining criteria, to include any product or solution that also ‘fits.’ Why would we do that to ourselves? Why broaden the selection of possible suppliers to any and all that might ‘fit?’

For those that know me, you know I am a fan of CEB and their Challenger principles. One particular aspect that they continue to drive home is the necessity of delivering Commercial Insight.

In short, they speak of the progression of what is communicated. On one end is General Information, or noise that gets tuned out, and on the other end is Commercial Insight.

By definition, Commercial Insight not only disrupts [or Reframes] the prospects view of their business by juxtaposing the cost of current behavior against the potential of an alternate action, but simultaneously leads the prospect exclusively back to the supplier.

A New Way

Reps believe they have done well to truly uncover pain and save their solution to the end of the discussion. Indeed, they are doing better than many of their peers according to the statistics, but this can all fall apart if they fail to uncover the problems they are uniquely able to solve, and exclusively able to do better than any other supplier.

The link to my post on “Where are you leading?” will aid in the steps you can take to resolve this. But let’s all agree to avoid aiming for “fit.”

Challenger Tip: Where are you leading?

Challenger Sale Principle: “Lead TO, not WITH your solution”

Pushing Product I have the honor of talking with sales reps from all over the world who have taken a keen interest in becoming Challengers. A common issue that reps often bring up is their inclination to bring product or solution into the discussion too early.

The typical problem is that reps ask questions about prospect’s business, circumstance, pain, etc. Their asking questions isn’t necessarily the problem. Their problems ensue when they ask aimless questions hoping to pick up on keywords that their product or solutions solve, then they jump right into solution.

Two prominent problems ensue:

Solution Fatigue – Prospects wear out from seemingly endless and aimless questioning
Unripened Prospects – Without getting to the root, the prospect isn’t ripened to hear about change

A New Way

In order to avoid the two aforementioned problems, establish in advance where you aim to lead the call or meeting. Your questions should intentionally aim toward uncovering the problems your solution uniquely solves. As you begin to uncover the pain points, don’t transition to solution yet as you are likely at surface pain…where the problems are still merely intellectual for prospects, not emotive.

Following are three questions CEB uses for message development that will help you determine questions to ask that lead TO your solution, not WITH your solution:

What are the typical prospect’s problems and how are they currently solving?
What do you know about their problems that they don’t?
Considering what you know, what should they be doing differently?

Understanding the answers to these questions is critical in determining where you are leading your next prospecting call.

Implementing the Challenger Sale, Visually

Making a Powerful Impact, Visually

In January 2012, I was giving a keynote address on becoming a ‘Challenger’ to a room full of highly competent sales reps, who were self-described as Relationship Builders in their selling approach. In fact, this approach was reinforced by the whole organization as it had been centered around relationship building for more than three decades.

To create an impetus for changing what had been endorsed as the preferred selling approach (a.k.a., status quo) for decades, I had to create a constructive tension in a visually compelling way.

This post is aimed at showing how I did so in a way that resonated with 5 different sales teams that didn’t know this was a problem.

Background: The Sales Team’s Profile
As aforementioned, the 5 various team types (i.e., B2B, B2C, B2I, 501(c)(3), and licensing/franchise sales), were comprised of highly competent professionals. Most of the team had tenure between 5-20 years and knew their customers, their issues and aspects about how the products, services and solutions would benefit customers more significantly than any competitive offering.

Due to a very unique, well-defined marketplace that is not very large, the relationships that had been formed over many years with customers were very strong. From the customer’s point of view, the reps were highly regarded. Furthermore, these reps were instrumental in taking market share from competitors year after year.

Why Change?
After a deep dive into the metrics, processes and behaviors, I saw an opportunity to go from good to great, especially after identifying that the intentional behaviors were not leading to predictable and repeatable results. As a side note, whenever I see leaders and/or teams that don’t have these 3 characteristics (intentionality, predictability and repeatability) in their performance, I see risk and ripe opportunities.

Additionally, having worked years ago with a 100 year-old company who mistakenly believed that relationships were key to their successful sales, I saw this as the Achilles heel, that not only would bite them, but already had some overlooked signs of performance drains.

Relationship Builders
When it comes to the Relationship Builder, statistically, this sales profile has the lowest probability of success for becoming high performers, particularly in a higher complexity sales environment. According to the Sales Executive Council’s research, only 4% of Relationship Builder’s are likely to be high performers in a complex sales environment, whereas the Challenger profile, at 54%, was very likely to succeed in a complex sales environment. (See Fig. 2.4 from the SEC below).

A Visual Case for Change
As with any change effort, it is never just one thing. There are many aspects to leading a successful change effort, much of which is not described in this post. That said, I wanted to share of one specific and practical way to illustrate your point in an experiential and visual way.

With the data shown above in Fig. 2.4, and my diagnosis of where these teams stood to make transformational improvements in their performance, I did the following. I made a life-size bar chart on the stage as the backdrop for my keynote address. I used stacks of the company’s products to make the representative bars for each respective sales type (i.e., One stack for the Relationship Builder, one for the Problem Solver, and so on for the Hard Worker, Lone Wolf and Challenger).

Each product represented 5% within the stacked bar . I took the organization’s most iconic product, which measured approximately 14 inches high in its package, and made the graph with the Relationship Builder profile at 4% on one end and the Challenger profile at 54% on the other end.

There were two aspects of the visual representation that made the effectiveness of each sales profile particularly hit home:

First, the Challenger bar stood over 10 feet high, towering over me as I made my points
Equally as stunning, was the Relationship Builder bar – The fact that I had to cut 20% of the product off the top to accurately represent 4%, since each product represented 5%, had a sobering effect

The stark contrast between the two ends of the life-sized bar chart not only was visually stunning, but resonated with each of the reps who recognized the gaps between what had been and what should be for them.

Life-size bar chart of Challenger statistics

The Results?
A year after The Challenger introduction and implementation, performance improved across all teams. Following are some stand out achievements from three different teams:

Team A had a 22% performance improvement from the year prior with all reps far exceeding quota, and within 1-2 points from one another
Team B sells registrations, of which post-sale cancellations are also expected. They used the Challenger approach to reduce cancellations, which led to the lowest cancellation rates they had ever seen
Team C had an individual from the team that went from being ranked dead last in performance, to consistently #1 or #2 for 6 months in a row by changing to Challenger behaviors

Reflections:
Many leaders wait until they see problems before they initiate a change effort. How about you?

Do you know what to look for?
If so, do you know what to do about it?
Are you challenging the status quo?
Does your team know which behaviors to be intentional about that lead to predictable, repeatable results?

An answer of “No” to any of the questions above can have dire consequences if not addressed. If that describes you, seek out a trusted resource, colleague or other business professional with a solid track record of improving performance in these areas.

If you would like to receive other insights on The Challenger Sale and how to get intentional, predictable, repeatable results from your team, follow my blog.

Repeatable Success

Creating Intentional, Predictable, Repeatable Successes

Challenger Tips

3 Steps to Reframe Prospect’s Thinking

The C.E.B. Model for Better Reframes

Repeatable Success Prospecting Tip

A Challenger Rep’s Rise to #1

Interview with Phil Daily

Don’t Sabotage Your Challenger Sale Implementation

Should Challenger be Mandatory?

Challenger Sale: Three Types of Tension

Challenger Sale: The Truth About ‘Insight’

3 Truths About ‘Insight’

Repeatable Success Tip

Challenger Sale Tip: Don’t Sell Solutions

Can You Relate?

Selling Solutions is a Mistake!