The Challenger Sale

The secret to sales success - don't just build relationships with customers. Challenge them.

What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships—and you'd be wrong. The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them.

The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at CEB explores this revolutionary concept. Their extensive study on the performance of thousands of sales reps worldwide has uncovered insights that could shake conventional sales wisdom to its core.

The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach. Every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one—the Challenger—delivers consistently high performance.

Instead of overwhelming customers with facts and features, Challengers engage them with insights on how they can save or earn money. They customise their message to address the customer's exact needs and are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale.

The techniques that make Challengers successful are teachable to the average sales rep. Once you know how to identify Challengers, you can emulate their approach and integrate it across your sales force. The authors illustrate how virtually any average rep, when equipped with the right tools, can enhance customer loyalty leading to substantial growth.