Challenger Tip: Practice what you preach when coaching

Sales Leaders were gathered around the conference table to debrief the progress of each respective team’s reps in The Challenger Sale.

There were some great successes shared, with one story of a Relationship Builder who was consistently ranked last, rising to #1 for the last 7 consecutive months. All because she changed her behaviors.

The discussion then centered around those reps that have yet to embrace the Challenger Sale. It was a few minutes into the debrief and diagnosis when we realized we had fallen into the very trap we were advocating against…

Battling the Status Quo
It wasn’t that the sales reps struggling with the Challenger implementation were blatantly resistant to change. They just weren’t sure it was necessary. Their performance was relatively strong, with nearly all achieving quota. Yet there were points in their daily discussions with prospects that were not effective. Their leaders knew it and they knew it.

Reps would approach their respective sales leader with the problem…or vice versa. The leaders would then point to the corresponding Challenger behavior that would address the problem, then coach to the behavior.

Seems reasonable, right? Wrong! We were circumventing the process in order to speed up coaching and performance. They had a known problem. We had the solution. The Challenger Sale!

A New Way
At the heart of the matter was that the reps with their very legitimate problems, were hearing the ‘solution’ from their leaders. In the Challenger choreography, this is the equivalent of going straight from Warmer to Our Solution. See my previous post on the consequences of doing so.

When we don’t adjust our prospect’s thinking (or in this case, our reps), and expose the problems with the status quo, we fail to ripen their appetite for a new way. For these reasons, the Reframe followed by Rational Drowning into Emotional Impact are critical, especially when teaching new behaviors.

Challenger Tip
When coaching, don’t assume you can jump to the solution because reps have sufficient information. What is not needed is more information. What is needed is a different way of thinking about their problems. Therefore, always follow the choreography. The choreography’s brilliance is that it uncovers and exposes faulty beliefs. Beliefs that lead to complacency in the Status Quo zone.

Take the time to do it right by setting a foundation for a reason for change. Then lead them as a Challenger would do. As a leader, you will benefit by reinforcing your Challenger behaviors (not theories). Your reps will benefit from seeing it in action and the effectiveness in bringing about change.

Challenger Sale: Is it okay to let prospects struggle?

He watched every day, waiting for the butterfly to emerge. One day it happened, a small hole appeared in the chrysalis and the butterfly started to struggle to come out.

At first the boy was excited, but soon he became concerned. The butterfly was struggling so hard to get out! It looked like it couldn’t break free! It looked desperate! It looked like it was making no progress!

The boy was so concerned that he decided to help. He ran to get scissors and snipped the chrysalis to make the hole bigger. With that, the butterfly quickly emerged!

As the butterfly came out the boy was surprised. It had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly expecting that, at any moment, the wings would dry out, enlarge and expand to support the swollen body. He knew that in time the body would shrink and the butterfly’s wings would expand.

But neither happened! The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

Don’t Lessen the Prospect’s Initial Struggle
I am not the author of this story, nor will it be a new story for most of you. But it appropriately sets the stage for this very important question. Is it okay to let a prospect struggle?

We hate to see anyone struggle, and for many, the temptation to bail prospects out after asking a difficult question is more than some can bear.

For The Challenger Sales rep, this is most common at the point of the Reframe. In fact, this is intentional as this triggers the Constructive tension that needs to occur in order for the Status Quo to be disrupted. But for the rep that is still learning the Challenger Sale, you may feel your Reframe was inappropriate because the prospect squirms to answer or respond.

Sure, after hearing our different point of view, we would love to hear them say, “I never thought of it that way before” as they look upon us with amazement for our brilliance and intellect. It rarely happens that way.

The veteran Challenger knows that the aforementioned phrase more often sounds like, “I am not so sure I agree with you,” or “Hmm. I need to get my mind around that.”

These are signs of constructive tension as the prospect begins to struggle with their current circumstances and that which you have just shared that caused them to rethink everything. Allowing this early struggle to happen is a great sign as it ripens people to hear truth.

For example…
Last week a colleague and I met with the owner of a very successful organization. She is about to release a ground-breaking book, and asked for us to consult on her launch plans for a successful release. In evaluating the initial plans for release, I quickly saw that the current course would result in a book launched on an ill-prepared audience.

She immediately disagreed, sharing that the audience has been dying for an answer, and the research they had done would be the solution to their problems. As difficult as it was for her to hear, I shared honestly with her that she had the wrong perspective as her focus was too squarely placed on selling the book. She agreed that it was with a hint of, isn’t that why we are meeting.

I shared that I was more concerned in establishing her as an authority on the issues that she would address in the book. Without doing so, the book would be introduced to readers that didn’t know they should read it. She still pressed that this audience was ready for the answer.

I responded that while the target audience was indeed, ready for an answer, they were not ready for her solution. I proceeded to lay out some action items that would build a foundation and a platform for her to speak. This would be followed by a hungry audience clamoring for her solution by the time of release.

She listened intently, pressing back at points, but like most high-powered owners and Chief Creative Officers, they are doers. “Give me the action items and timeline necessary to sell my book!”

When debriefing with my colleague after the meeting, he asked me questions around her hesitancy with our proposed next steps. I explained that the hesitancy was that she is trying to sell a book, and we are trying to sell her as a credible authority to have written the book.

She sees herself as credible and an authority from her own perspective, but her perspective is still narrow. In order to broaden her view, I had prescribed steps that she committed to, which would expose the vulnerabilities in her thinking.

Simply explaining what will happen won’t work. She needs to experience that and struggle with that to ripen her for what she really needs to do. Reducing her struggle would result in a poor book launch and threaten her credibility as the authority in this area.

Don’t keep prospects in the Biosphere
As one final illustration of the benefit of the struggle, I would like to share a story stemming from the Biosphere 2 project erected in Oracle, Arizona in 1987. Following is an excerpt from Dr. James A. Danoff-Burg, Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University, on the unintended consequences to plant and tree life due to the absence of wind.

In summary…
What does it look like to shelter prospects? This may come in the form of answering [or changing] your question to the prospect because they appeared uncomfortable. A more subtle form of sheltering a prospect from the ‘struggle’ is to keep the conversation agreeable throughout your dialogue. Remember, the Biosphere was agreeable and as a result, also detrimental. The lesson of the trees from the Biosphere is that quick and fast growth, does not mean sustainable growth.

Question: Are you sheltering your prospects in the same manner the trees in the Biosphere were sheltered? If so, the consequences to them can be quite severe.

A Metaphor for The Challenger Sale

In my post, Challenger: Reframing the Reframe, I spoke of the common struggles many organizations are having with the Reframe that are implementing The Challenger Sale.

The aim of this post is to provide a picture of how the Reframe functions and the role it plays within the context of Commercial Teaching and Commercial Insight.

While I hate the negative connotations that can be associated with ‘sales’ and ‘lures,’ I saw some constructive applications that may help to make the point. So let’s all agree up front, that none of us are intending the imagery to be derogatory towards customers nor the way responsible Sales professionals behave.

The Role of the Reframe
The authors of The Challenger Sale make reference to the Reframe as being the “Headline” of the insight. The goal, of course, is to attract the customer’s attention and ‘set the hook’ with an unexpected viewpoint (insight), thus the imagery of the lure.

It is at this point where the differences between Insight and Reframe can be confused as many would define the lure as the Reframe. It may help to recognize that Reframe is a verb, not a noun, but let’s define this further in the metaphorical sense. Keep in mind that no metaphor is perfect, though I hope we can have some fun with this.

A Picture of the Challenger Sale
To help get a clearer picture of how the Challenger Choreography functions with respect to Commercial Teaching, Commercial Insight and The Reframe, following are definitions and descriptions cast within the context of a fishing metaphor.

Lure = The Warmer: It appears attractive and familiar; Operates within and relates to the customers world
Hook = Commercial Insight: A part of the lure, tailored to the customer; Creates discomfort with status quo
Setting the hook = The Reframe: The customer is hooked unexpectedly, compelled to go a different direction
Line = Rational Drowning: The fishing line, or business case, ties the insight to the customer’s story
Reel = Emotional Impact: The reel is symbolic for drawing the customer into the center of their own story
Pole = Commercial Teaching: The fishermen uses a pole to skillfully deliver insight at the right place and time
Flex = Constructive Tension: Pole flex represents tension when drawing customers to the center of their story

The Metaphor in Action
So now that we have definitions set, here is how this looks in action.

You, the skillful Sales professional cast your lure into the specific area of the lake where your customers are known to swim. It is a place where not many other people fish, as they seem to prefer where the waters narrow. The locals call it The Funnel. You prefer being upstream, at the top of the funnel where your customers aren’t use to seeing what you fish with.

You cast your insight right on target so as not to intrude, but rather to meet them where they swim together to be social (Social Media). The others fishing the Funnel, create a splash every time their lure hits the water. They refer to this as their ‘prospecting call.’ It sends the fish into hiding every time. Those fishing are not dissuaded though, as they are known to spend inordinate amounts of time just looking for any customer that is attracted to their lure.

However, the customer you are looking for is specific and is currently entertaining your lure. Upon seeing your lure, it feels immediately familiar and agreeable to them (The Warmer), looking like it belongs in their world and was made just for them (Tailoring). In fact, it looks quite appealing.

The customer likes what they hear as you describe the waters in which they currently swim and they start to nibble at the lure. Normally, after a nibble they drift off, but rather than needing a nap, they are engrossed with what you just shared (Commercial Insight). After all, what you just shared was that the waters where they currently swim are having a direct impact on their growth.

Being somewhat disoriented by what you revealed, and fearing you are correct as you give a little tug to set the hook, they find they are hooked (Reframe) and going in a different direction than they thought they were originally going to go with you.

You let out a little bit of line as you continue to make the business case (Rational Drowning), but never so much as to let the flex in your pole (Constructive Tension) go back to slack (Status Quo). Too much line can allow them to go in unproductive directions, getting tangled in the roots and rocks of the lake bed (False Positives).

This could cause harm to them, which was never your intention and is why you don’t reel them in too fast either (Destructive tension). In fact, you care so much for them that you are willing to endure some initial discomfort, because you know their future is better with you than without.

As you skillfully reel them to the center of their own story, they come to realize that fighting to remain where they are at…their status quo…is now untenable. They know the consequences of remaining are detrimental. There just has to be a different way… or even a New Way out of this mess.

With confidence and care, you compassionately share that which you couldn’t wait to talk to them about earlier. Your Solution. But you knew, bringing this up any earlier would be too soon for them. It would have sent them racing to the center of the Funnel to find comfort with their peers. That is why you patiently led them in a way they could follow.

In Summary…
As a humorous way to demonstrate the rest of the metaphor relative to the customer’s Status Quo and Our Solution, I thought this would fit with the metaphor…

It has been said that the fish can only grow to the size of its fishbowl. There’s a better way. Wouldn’t you agree?

Sales: Beware of False Positives

What are False Positives?
As a term often used in the medical community, a False Positive is defined in the Medical Dictionary as, ‘A result that indicates that a given condition is present when it is not. An example of a false positive would be if a particular test designed to detect cancer returns a positive result but the person does not have cancer.’

In sales, when prospects self-diagnose and present a symptom as the issue, this is a false positive. As a general rule of thumb, the earlier they surface in the discussion, especially when unsolicited, the greater the likelihood you are dealing with the symptoms, not the root cause.

Beware of the Trap
As research from CEB and others have shown, customers are deep into the purchasing process before they choose to engage a sales person. For all intents and purposes, consider this as the customer’s process of self-diagnosis.

The problem comes when rep’s respond to issues raised as if it is the root cause, without recognizing it is a false positive. Doing so will derail your conversation rather quickly, and will likely result in introducing products or solutions prematurely, as if that is the cure. It is not, however. It is a trap, that both parties enter into unwittingly all too often.

Implications of Pursuing False Positives
The example above shows just how quickly conversations can go to product or solution. The prospect demonstrates what appears to be ‘pain’ and points specifically to something the rep’s product can solve. Why not proceed?

Two reasons:

The rep would likely be solving the wrong problem
The rest of the conversation will center around the product’s features and benefits, leading to price

In the example above, the prospect is framing the discussion to be about product. It is all too easy to answer the prospect’s questions, which will continue to keep the focus on product features, benefits and price.

Some reps will be excited by the interest shown and are just positive the prospect will choose them over their competitors. Chances are, the prospect will see all the differences pointed out as similar [enough] to the competitor’s products, therefore it is simply a matter of best price.

This, from my perspective, is a disastrous conversation which could have been prevented by identifying the false positive, and reframing the prospect’s original premise into a new way of thinking about the issues they are really struggling with.

How to Identify False Positives
It is said that when the FBI trains agents to identify counterfeit money, they begin with and focus primarily on what genuine bills look like. As a result, agents are quickly able to identify counterfeit money because they know the identifying characteristics of authentic bills. To train otherwise would require knowing the characteristics of every counterfeiter. Impossible!

Now consider the sales professional. Customers present endless combinations of characteristics of their issues, many of which are ‘counterfeit,’ or not the real issue. Sales professionals have been trained for years to dig for customer’s pain points, but if you don’t know what you are looking for, there are two resulting problems:

Anything resembling “pain” will lead reps to believe they have successfully uncovered the problem
Exploratory digging for pain, when you don’t know what you’re looking for, is cruel to prospects

Responding to false positives as true positives, shows itself in close rates. So how can you tell if what they are surfacing is the real deal – a True Positive? The answer is simple, but not easy.

In the example of detecting counterfeits, there is a standard (i.e., the genuine bill), by which counterfeit bills are held up to. Anything that doesn’t match the genuine bill stands in stark contrast.

When it comes to customers using your unique product offering or solution, what does genuine or authentic look like? Be careful not to focus on product or solution, but rather the customer relative to your product or solution.

Customers that use your product/solution should function differently…uniquely…optimally from those that don’t. Understanding in what ways, and what are the characteristics of ‘genuine’ or ‘authenticity’ in your organization will be critical.

This is the part that isn’t easy. It requires investment of time by you and your organization, cross-departmentally, to determine these answers.

The investment of time in this area is well worth the effort as it will change the trajectory of your next conversation.

Challenger Sale: Do you Reframe in 3-D?

Do you remember when the Magic Eye pictures were all the rage back in the 90’s?

For those unfamiliar with Magic Eye artwork, a 3-D image was embedded into a picture that otherwise appeared to be nothing more than colorful, repeating patterns.

However, to the trained eye, when looked at in a different way, the 2-dimensional image would suddenly, and magically, ‘pop’ into a stunning 3-dimensional reality right before your very eyes.

There were two camps with these Magic Eye pictures – Those that could see the images and those that couldn’t. For those in the latter camp, they found it difficult…frustrating. In fact, it reminds me of how prospects often feel when Reframed to see a radically different picture of their own circumstances. They can really struggle at this stage…which can be very good!

A Different Picture of the Reframe
When considering Magic Eye art and comparing to the Reframe, there are some great parallels that may bring clarity to your understanding of what the Reframe does and how it feels to your prospect when they finally see what you want them to see. But first, a lesson on how to see the picture in this Magic Eye image above.

For those that experienced the mysteries of the Magic Eye artwork for the first time, congratulations! It is truly amazing! For those that still can’t see it, practice. Most people fail to see the image because their natural tendency is to focus on the detail of the flat image itself. It will come once you start to learn the skill of looking through the picture.

Similarities between Magic Eye and the Reframe
What I love about this illustration of the Reframe is how analogous it is to conversations with prospects. From our perspective, having been trained for what to look for in our prospect’s circumstances, we see things more clearly…more deeply than they are able to see.

We may even be inclined to get frustrated ourselves because what is so clear and obvious to us, our prospects just can’t see in the same way. It is as if they are staring at the surface of the Magic Eye picture and all they can see are repeating patterns. But seeing the patterns alone will not move them off the status quo. It is deeper than that. See the similarities to a Reframe?

One Final Note about Reframes….
Being able to properly Reframe a customer is important, but it is not the goal. It is the entry point to getting deeper in conversations. If we don’t practice discipline in this area and recognize that fact, we can take a perfectly great insight and not move any further through the choreography.

Focusing on the insight alone is like staring at the surface of the Magic Eye picture. It is 2-D. Instead, look at the Reframe as looking through one stage to another…from how they have inaccurately seen their picture (Warmer) to the consequences of not changing their picture (Rational Drowning).

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Focusing on your insight puts you at the center of the story instead of the prospect
Instead, use the insight to focus on teaching prospects a new and different way to see their picture
Prospects will see the deeper picture at different times and in different ways; Be patient
Seeing the deeper picture for the first time requires discipline in looking at things differently
It is possible for a Reframe to be 2-D; This happens when you try to tell prospects what to see
Concentrate your Reframe instead on how to see for a 3-D experience they will never forget

Challenger: Reframing the Reframe

Whether you are in the process of becoming a Challenger organization, or just about to implement Challenger, you will quickly recognize that one of the most important aspects is the Reframe. Not surprisingly, it is the area your reps will likely find most difficult. The reasons are perhaps different from what you might think.

According to the authors of The Challenger Sale, the Reframe “is the central moment of the Commercial Teaching pitch, as the entire conversation pivots off of what you’re about to do next.”

I completely agree, and given the import of such a topic, I have decided to break this topic up into several posts. The aim of this particular post is to help identify one of the key reasons why people may get hung up on the Reframe.

Framing the Issue
As a member of CEB’s Sales Leadership Roundtable, and a contributor to The Challenger forums, I have the opportunity to sit among and interact with hundreds of organizations in various stages of contemplation or implementation of The Challenger Sale.

One of the most common things I hear is how difficult it is to teach reps to reframe, as getting customers to think about something an entirely different way is difficult. I also commonly hear beliefs that, “If my organization would just provide Sales with the Commercial Insight, then my reps would be able to Reframe successfully.” When I probe deeper, I often find that the interpretation is that Insight = Reframe.

Insight Alone Isn’t Enough
Unfortunately, this interpretation will put unfair expectations on your Marketing department or organization. Once they finally deliver the insight you have been seeking, reps will quickly find there is a lot more to the Reframe than simply delivering someone else’s prepared, commercial insight.

I don’t mean that organizations shouldn’t develop and provide Sales with commercial insights leading to [not with] their unique strengths. On the contrary, this is a critical step, but it won’t solve your Reframe issue. For those in the heart of your Challenger implementation, you have likely already experienced this.

Reframe: A Case of Mistaken Identity
What may be at the heart of the overemphasis on insight is a misidentification of how the Reframe actually functions. For instance, the section of The Challenger Sale that speaks of the Reframe states, “…the Reframe is simply about the insight itself.”

After reading that quote, if you were to single out one word as being most important, what would you choose?

For some, it might be ‘Reframe,’ but for most, they would say ‘insight’ is most important. I would argue that ‘about’ is the single most important word in that statement. The removal of that word alone not only changes the complexion of the statement, but leads to the misperception that, “…the Reframe is simply ~~about~~ the insight itself.”

This understanding undermines the key points the authors make on customer loyalty when they say that, “the best reps win that battle…by teaching them a new way of thinking altogether.” Regarding customer loyalty, for a rep to teach customers a new way to think altogether, delivering the marketing team’s brilliant insight [one time] won’t achieve the rep’s longer term goal of teaching them a new way to think.

Think of it this way. Once the rep delivers the insight prepared by Marketing, the customer says, “Wow, I never thought of it like that before.” Two months later, the rep is invited back. What is the Reframe then? Reps can’t keep running back to marketing to develop new insights before every meeting as the reps need to stand on their own, which does not mean make up everything on their own.

Therefore, reps will need to develop competencies in a number of areas leading to and following from the Reframe. Here are a few of those areas. They need to be able to:

Clearly demonstrate they know the customer’s world (The Warmer)
Have the ability to distinguish between symptoms and root causes to avoid traps (False Positives)
Be agile in their comprehension to connect a variety of symptoms back to its root cause (False Positives)
Have the knowledge of how to wield Commercial Insight to teach customers to think differently (Reframe)
Understand how to continue to build the business case from the Reframe (Rational Drowning)

In summary, while Commercial Teaching, Commercial Insight and The Reframe are highly interrelated, they remain separate and distinct from one another. My next post will aim squarely at bullet points 2 and 3 above regarding False Positives as I see this as one of the biggest threats to derailing your whole choreography between the Warmer and the Reframe.

Challenger: Use a Warmer to Build Credibility

In my previous post, Are your questions killing the sale?, I framed the ineffectiveness of reps using exploratory questioning with prospects to get deeper into their business issues.

The consequence of this approach is that the prospect gives little more than short answers to your questions, with no meaningful information shared. This is because your initial questions suggest you know less about the type of problems they face than they do.

If you are a rep that struggles to get deep in conversations about real issues with prospects, or a Sales Leader struggling to improve your team’s close rates, this post is for you.

Brief Recap of the Problem
Your opening statements and questions will immediately convey one of three things to the prospect about your ability to address the problems they are facing, or will face in the future. Your question will either show:

You know more than the prospect about these areas
You know equal to the prospect, or
You know less than the prospect

For example, if a rep asked the following question of a prospect, what would it suggest about their knowledge of the customer, their industry, and/or the issues they are likely to face?

“What are some of the challenges your business has been experiencing?”

If you chose #3, you are correct as the question suggests the rep knows less about the prospect, their industry, and problems they will face than the prospect does.

Important to note is that questions or statements that infer you know equal to or less than the prospect creates no value in their mind. They have no need for you unless you can successfully demonstrate you have traveled this path before and have successfully navigated businesses like theirs to better outcomes. The trick is not to make it all about you.

Aim Higher in Your Opening
The goal of the Warmer in The Challenger Choreography is to build credibility by quickly demonstrating you understand business issues like those that they face. This is a critical first step, especially since the next step is to Reframe the way they have been thinking about their issues.

A proper Warmer statement contains 3 elements:

Relate – This gives the prospect the sense that the businesses and issues you work with, will relate to them as well. They aren’t alone. (e.g., “I work with businesses similar to yours from all over the country”)
Demonstrate – Saying you work with others like them isn’t enough. You must demonstrate understanding by identifying the issues they are likely facing. (e.g., “Three of the most troubling issues we see them face are [x, y & z].”
Validate – This is not a monologue. Therefore, take a minute to validate you are on track with what they are facing by asking a question. (e.g., “Are you experiencing these [business issues] too, or are there others you would add?”)

If you truly know and understand what businesses like theirs are experiencing, the underlying message to the prospect is, “I understand you and companies just like you.” This builds their confidence and your credibility, which will lead you into deeper discussions with prospects more quickly.

Warnings on Assumptions and Arrogance…
It is common for reps and leaders to ask, “Isn’t it arrogant to assume we know more than they do without talking to them and asking them questions first?” My answer? If these concepts are misunderstood and misapplied, then “Yes.”

The only real assumption made here is that if you have worked with many other customers, affected by similar issues, you have a reasonable belief that this has, or will, affect them too. If so, you have a broader perspective and expertise from which to help. That isn’t arrogant, nor assumptive.

Upcoming Posts…
Next, I will be addressing what I have labeled the ‘PreFrame,’ followed by the Teaching Point. Both of these precede the Warmer, but the Teaching Point should precede any interaction with a prospect or customer.

Are your questions killing the sale?

Prospecting can be tough and so can getting calls returned. When a sales person finally gets that prospect’s call, many fail to quickly establish credibility and ultimately lose the sale, without ever realizing their fatal flaw.

Whenever I begin working with sales teams and leaders struggling in areas like prospecting and quickly establishing credibility, I typically look at their first phone conversation with prospects, and where the reps begin.

If you are a sales rep, consider your typical opening statement and question to a prospect and consider what level of expertise your question says about you. For the Sales Manager, consider how you are advising your reps to begin conversations with prospects.

Are your questions killing your opportunities?
Whether you realize it or not, your opening question suggests a lot about your ability to be a credible solution for the prospect. Consider it this way – When it comes to demonstrating your knowledge about customers [similar to the prospect], their industry, and the biggest issues they face, does your opening question suggest you know…

1. More about these areas than the prospect?
2. Equal to the prospect?
3. Less than the prospect?

Considering the picture above, if what the prospect knows about their own circumstances and how to solve them is the upper hand, the questions asked by so many reps comes in at a much lower level. In other words, the rep’s beginning questions are probing and exploratory, suggesting “I don’t know you, so let me ask you a number of questions that will allow me to better understand you. Once I know enough, I can help you.” If you are unsure if your questions fit the criteria, the questions typically start with, “Tell me about…” or the Five W’s.

The Challenger Sale [appropriately] refers to this as Solutions Fatigue.

Keep in mind that while the rep has already implied that they don’t know the prospect, the prospect doesn’t know the rep either. Since the opening question suggested that they know less than the prospect on business issues similar to theirs and their industry, the prospect has one goal in mind… be brief and share as little as possible to get off the phone as quickly as possible.

After all, for the rep to be able to help, the prospect would first need to bring the rep up to speed, train on where their problems occur and why, then expect the rep’s learning to surpass their own, so that the rep can lead them to better outcomes with the supplier’s solutions.

Talk about a tough sell. There is a better way.

In my next post, so as not to leave you hanging with the problem and no proposed solution, I will address what The Challenger Sale refers to as the Warmer. This is where the aim is to build credibility quickly without being a supplier-centric monologue about yourself or your company.

As a preview of the next post, the aim will be to give a practical example of leading to questions at a higher level – one which suggests you know more about customers just like them, and their industry and typical problems they are encountering…or about to encounter.

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.

Marketing Benchmarks: Has marketing missed the mark?

What makes a great Marketer?

The best marketers are thought-leaders. Not only are they acutely aware of the drivers of their results, but they have a deep understanding of consumer behaviors and point the organization forward to be prepared for trends and shifts in their behavior.

They love [useful] metrics, as this guides their efforts to show better returns over time, not the same or worse.

Great marketers are aware of these consumer behavior shifts before they are even perceptible to most in the organization.

As a result, you see this most quickly reflected in the marketing in ways that connects deeply with consumers and resonates more so than the common marketing in the marketplace.

Good marketing takes work, but what does it take to be best-in-class? Furthermore, how do you compare against your industry?

Find out with HubSpot’s latest study, Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000 Businesses.

Download the Marketing Benchmarks Report

This brand new report dives into how you can increase your traffic and leads by improving a variety of marketing assets, including:

Get a clear idea of how much more you need to do to see the results your organization needs. Download the report to see if your marketing is hitting the mark.