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hey everybody its Brian burns the host of the brutal truth about sales and selling podcast available on iTunes and stitcher radio pretty much any podcast catcher one of the questions I get all the time is about the Challenger sale book and isn't the Challenger the right approach the best approach the most scientifically proven approach ever to happen into sales and when I remember this book first came out everyone kind of pointed to it that hey Brian you're on the wrong track you're you don't get it there's science science has proven what is the best approach to selling and I go okay so I immediately bought the book and started reading it read it again read it again and I kept looking for what what is this this makes no sense to me this is a skill I get it I get the skill skills not new I've been doing a lot of it I've seen other people do a lot of it it works in certain situations fails in a lot of situations but then you start digging into the book and let's look at it from all the little pieces okay you're two authors okay go on LinkedIn and look at their backgrounds neither one has ever sold they're not salespeople they work for this reason oh no it's not a research company it's a training and consulting company but wait a second they don't train and consult all they do they do now train and consult on sales with people who have never sold hmm I don't know so this is like kind of like buying a cookbook from two people who have never cooked but they work for a cooking company a cooking consulting company a restaurant consulting company okay fine so is there research and suspect yeah I think it should be suspect a little bit this is kind of like the cigarette companies doing research on cigarettes to see if it causes cancer or not no no deep breathing is actually healthy for you so cigarettes are actually healthy so let's say taking control of the customer conversation that's good I'll there oh wait a second who's this guy Neil Rackham author of spin selling and he says the most important advance in selling for many years maybe since been selling and why would he do that oh wait a second he doesn't work for hot wait anymore he sold it I think ten years ago and hot wait the spin selling company has been sold to Miller Heiman the strategic selling people okay so now and they competed for years about you know it's a strategic or is it tactical in question based well let's just merge that's what fighting let's just merge okay so - you know diametrically opposed approaches now merge and say Oh together we're the best okay so let's take a look at this book now I found I don't want to poopoo it is that there is some good stuff but here's where I really disagree they break it down into five profiles now let's first talk about the research they didn't publish it okay so this is not scientific research it's not independent research it was done by people who are benefiting from the research the people who sell challenger sales training are the people telling you that the research proves that challenger sales is the most effective way but yet let's not publish the research you know just trust us trust us that this is true this is um this is really reliable okay so they break it down into five categories now these are somewhat useful until you start comparing them and let's go through it and a little bit of detail hard worker we all know these people and that this is reasonable usually we start off as hard workers and sales because we don't know how sales really works so we work really hard always goes the extra mile nothing wrong there like that doesn't give up easily Oh most sales people don't self-motivate it got to do that now let's think that the opposite with the opposite approach doesn't go the extra mile gives up real easily is externally motivated okay this is all goodness these are characteristics and they're all good you can't say that they're bad interested in feedback and development not interested in feedback in development that would never work now here they described a challenger this is the best salespeople in the world always has a different view of the world well that's always good to have maybe understands the customers business that's always good as opposed to not understanding the customers business but to what level let's face it unless you have one or two three customers how deeply can you really understand their business as a whole hmm how'd if you have 100 customers how about if you cover a third of the country help if you cover a whole industry say you cover it all of telecom or five accounts in telecom you can understand at a high level their business but you know this idea that you understand their business better than them I think that's a little bravado there okay understands customers business loves to debate debating is good unless the other person doesn't want to debate that's called an argument okay debating is good argumentum arguing is bad pushes the customer oh everybody loves a pushy customer pushy sales person don't they yeah you want to nudge and guide the sales the client you don't want to push them so that's I'm not sure how you get that out of a survey but again they didn't tell us how they did the research was it in field did they follow deals from start to finish did they interview managers or salespeople because I've never heard of the challenge or until I read this book I've heard of some characteristics people who can go in and bring new ideas as opposed to bringing old ideas or focusing exclusively on the product or just doing question 20 questions with the spin approach but then they they really poopoo this guy over here the relationship builder now they kind of position this person is the kind of the accountant build strong customer advocates is that wrong no builds weak customer advocates generous and giving time to help others well I've never met that many salespeople who do that they give their time for money for Commission but very rarely for for free gets along with everyone Wow very few salespeople get along with everybody to get along with people who give them orders so that they kind of poopoo this the relationship which is really they're going after their competition which is the solution selling group so they're trying to differentiate themselves again justifying with research that's unpublished and unscientific and pooh-poohing their competition so of course the competition's got to come up with their own research that says just the opposite and then they come down here at the lone wolf that this is really in most cases I've seen these people be the most successful salespeople follow their own instincts as opposed to what following someone else's instincts self-assured as opposed to what externally she's sure assured independent or oh no they're dependent on their manager that's usually a early stage salesperson now the lone wolf how do you know that they're not doing this hard-working also challenging and also building great relationships we don't know is there a lone wolves and they probably didn't fill out the survey I think this is a total guess I think they pulled this right out of there but problem solver oh here's really okay this is a combination problem solved when relationship builder is the solution seller apparently relies reliably responds as opposed to unreliably responds ensures that all problems are solved ensures what only certain problems are solved detail-oriented not sure how many salespeople are detail-oriented oh and now now they come up with exactly the results that they brought it down to of course these are all you know odd numbers here isn't that interesting you know Liars figure and figures lie so here all of a sudden their model of selling is the most effective and the least effective is their competitions go figure what was the likelihood of that happening and the mystery people are the second best mmm hard work or problem solver I don't know what is your experience in sales first of all I find these categories childish and overly simplified why don't we have a B and C like we did in school we all knew what an a player or a B player and a C player was and my approach has been really to think outside the box and to understand the whole sale not just the single sales call in the complex sale we got to deal with multiple sales calls multiple people long sales cycle this doesn't fit complex sale at all this fits a simple sale how people look different so let's look at okay now they directly go against the competition the relationship builder because I think everyone thought relationship builder is what people are great at the great sales people relationship people well let's face it okay try and sell something without some kind of relationship try and be in a debater coming in telling everybody they're wrong telling them that they've got to do it their way and see how well that works for you yeah they're gonna change let's see how this works offers unique perspective that's good two-way communication Oh one-way communication so teaches you don't want to teach I'll tell you right now you want to persuade you want to teach go make 30k a year and get your summers off we're not teachers we're persuaders tailors well this is obvious you don't want to go in and give the standard slide deck each time I don't think that's a very unique at all those customers value drivers well yeah you like to know that you'll know it from a company standpoint but well you know it from an individual standpoint won't that be more based off of the relationship you have with them because they're not going to tell you unless there is some kind of relationships I'm kind of give-and-take comfortable discussing money well that's at the end of the sales cycle you should not be discussing money in the middle or the beginning of the sales cycle it should be very opaque and dependent on how well things go asserts control you really want to be controlling over somebody try and control your customers sometimes let me know how that works you want to guide people you want to help people you want to point them in the right direction you want to understand that you know how to sell but they do not know how to buy can pressure the customer well you go ahead and try and pressure the customer you want to incentivize the customer to go in your direction okay and they poopoo the relationship builder and reduces customer tension well you you kind of want yeah tension is important if they're even keeled if they don't see a reason to move if you're talking with them and they're comfortable you want to build some constructive tension but if they want to move if they see value in your product category maybe not your product but in your category you want to make it as smooth as possible to get it done so here we go talking about exactly high complexity o as the sale becomes more complex you need the Challenger challenging people and the first sales call can be very powerful it can build interest but let's talk about how do you compete against the challengers out there because a lot of people have read the book it's probably the most popular sales book on the complex sale right now so it's no longer a competitive differentiator everyone's doing it so how do you compete against them and everyone's going in and talk redefining what it what makes sense to change so all you have to do is equal on that first sales call you don't have to beat them on that first call sales call I'm going to show you how to beat them because they're gonna go in and have this wonderful great meeting and I think they're gonna have a deal but they don't they have interests they don't have a deal so let's not be the survey monkeys and sit and think oh this is exactly the right approach and I don't have to do anything else the these people are selling sales training they're not convincing people about what really works how would they know how would two people who have never sold be able to come up with a Eureka solution to something that you and I have been doing for five ten twenty years they may have a good idea about what happens in what works in a first sales call about how to engage people how to bring something new to the meeting how to get people to think differently that is all good and it works in cases where people are comfortable where they don't see a reason for change where they're happy with the status quo where there is no decision this opens their mind up and this is a good skill this is what I like about the book this is what I like about the idea gets people thinking differently this is powerful and when you compete against this all you have to do is redefine the rules about why you would change why it's in your best interest and you can do the same thing as they do but focusing on your strengths but what happens after this first sales call this is what the book doesn't cover everyone runs out of that meeting they may be happy they may be content and then they go to the next meeting and guess what they forget about everything you said in that meeting so if you're competing against the challenger all you have to do is get the next meeting set understand that that first meeting in this and the complex sale is not enough to get a decision it's enough to build interest what you have to do is guide them through the decision-making process which involves vetting the product integrating the product into their world doing a proof of concept getting social proof with references and customer visits and understanding that the product will deliver or the service will deliver on the expectation that you have set you have to understand that there's two parts of this sale there's the technical the user part of the sale the functionality of what you're selling and the second part is the economic part of it does it make sense Ekans comically and can it be justified economically and can the money be moved around that organization and allocated from their bank account to your company's bank account this is what the challenge of sale doesn't approach and this is what really matters in the sales that first sales call it's great it's a start it's the first date but it is not the relationship you've got to put all the pieces together of the sale this is how you crush the Challenger this is what I call Mavericks people who understand the whole game the people who don't focus on the one-trick pony the one silver bullet that's gonna get people fired up and interested I'm talking about the wholesale winning the whole game not just having one skill because you have to put together all the pieces for your client or you can hope that they can do it themselves and guess what they don't because it's so much easier not to change than it is to change no company puts employees through a training program on how to change the company and how to buy products and how to disrupt how they do business it up to us as salespeople to guide them through that process and guess what eventually you meet this guy the person who holds the purse strings the person who's like what why are we doing this why are we doing it now why are we doing it with you if you don't have all of that prepared this guy or girl will upset you will say why am I wasting my time and my money with you and no amount of challenging at this point is going to change it you have to put all the pieces together and guide your client through that process this is how you beat the Challenger the Challenger will get a great first meeting and they will walk out thinking they've got a deal they will send a proposal in and they will follow up incessantly and they will lose the deal they will lose the deal to a better sales person someone who understands the whole game and that's what it's all about if you want to learn more about this check out the other videos listen to my podcast the brutal was about sales and selling I've sold for 25 years I wrote a book too and I've done research but I did it in the field on deals from start to finish I didn't send out a goddamn survey and then send you know create a bunch of bullshit research and graphs trying to convince a bunch of brain-dead middle managers about what really works I've seen what really works and I need a profit from it or I've become poor against it because I hate losing in sales because you either win or you lose this is how to beat the Challenger so learn all you can about the whole game take from the Challenger that a great skill of how to upset people how to bring in insight insight what the is that that's a brand new idea that's all it is that's it being able to present it in a unique powerful way check out the podcast