This translates into a very practical approach: A rep begins by identifying customers who recognize a problem that the supplier can solve, and gives priority to those who are ready to act. Under the conventional solution-selling method that has prevailed since the 1980s, salespeople are trained to align a solution with an acknowledged customer need and demonstrate why it is better than the competition’s.
To accomplish this, organizations need to fundamentally rethink the training and support provided to their reps. This means that boosting the performance of average salespeople isn’t a matter of improving how they currently sell it involves altogether changing how they sell. These sales professionals don’t just sell more effectively-they sell differently.
#The challenger sale hbr how to#
These superior reps have abandoned much of the conventional wisdom taught in sales organizations. Although traditional reps are at a distinct disadvantage in this environment, a select group of high performers are flourishing. Customers in an array of industries, from IT to insurance to business process outsourcing, are often way ahead of the salespeople who are “helping” them.īut the news is not all bad. In this world the celebrated “solution sales rep” can be more of an annoyance than an asset. In fact, a recent Corporate Executive Board study of more than 1,400 B2B customers found that those customers completed, on average, nearly 60% of a typical purchasing decision-researching solutions, ranking options, setting requirements, benchmarking pricing, and so on-before even having a conversation with a supplier. But now, owing to increasingly sophisticated procurement teams and purchasing consultants armed with troves of data, companies can readily define solutions for themselves. This worked because customers didn’t know how to solve their own problems, even though they often had a good understanding of what their problems were. In recent decades sales reps have become adept at discovering customers’ needs and selling them “solutions”-generally, complex combinations of products and services. The hardest thing about B2B selling today is that customers don’t need you the way they used to.
And in this new world, that makes the difference between a pitch that goes nowhere and one that secures the customer’s business. High-performing reps are still selling solutions-but more broadly, they’re selling insights. They seek out a different set of stakeholders, preferring skeptical change agents over friendly informants, and they coach those change agents on how to buy rather than quizzing them about their company’s purchasing process. Instead of waiting for the customer to identify a problem the supplier can solve, they engage early on and offer provocative ideas about what the customer should do. These star reps look for different sorts of organizations, targeting ones with emerging rather than established demand. A select group of reps are flourishing in this environment-and lessons from the playbook they’ve devised can help other reps and organizations boost their performance. There’s some good news, though, according to the authors, all directors at Corporate Executive Board. But the world of B2B selling has changed: Companies today can readily define their own solutions and force suppliers into a price-driven bake-off. In recent decades sales reps have become adept at discovering customers’ needs and selling them “solutions.” This worked because customers didn’t know how to solve their own problems.