The Challenger sales model lets you take control of sales conversations by drawing the prospect’s attention to a problem that affects them and offering the solution. As the original proponents of Challenger Sales put it, “Lead to your solution, not with your solution.”
Think about it: decision-makers come to a conversation believing they know a lot. And believe me, sometimes they do. Instead of bugging them with pain points, solutions, and your product’s features, which they already know a lot about, call their attention to something they didn’t see as a problem and let them know it is. This is how Challenger sales reps take control of the sale.
Challenger sales model has several benefits, including:
When Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson wrote Challenger Sales, they researched the attitudes of thousands of salespeople and categorized them into five distinct profiles:
While the “relationship builder” is the most prevalent, their findings show one profile exceeds the others in closing more sales: the challenger.
Let’s deconstruct this sales methodology into its six main blocks so you can bring it together.
Ready to start using this sales model? Let’s discuss how self-motivated reps can give their all with Challenger Selling throughout the entire sales process.
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You're about to engage a well-informed potential customer and demonstrate a superior understanding of their industry and problems. You'd better be right about what you say.
This is why you must invest time and effort into gaining deep insights into the customer's business, industry, challenges, and goals. You also need a wealth of knowledge, or better yet, be a specialist in their niche.
Not all customer pain points are obvious or explicitly expressed. But through in-depth research and customer understanding, you can identify latent pain points—those that the customer might not even be aware of. And that’ll be your ticket to leading the discussion.
So, go in-depth in your market research, study trends, and learn everything there is to learn about your industry, your product, and your prospects. Take time to think about the whole context of these pain points, including their emotional impact.
They may have looked at a million different options, but there’ll always be something crucial they’re overlooking that directly leads back to your product. Only thorough research can help you figure that out.
After gaining a deep understanding of your customer's business and industry, it's crucial to further refine your approach by considering the BANT sales methodology. This involves assessing the Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeframe of your prospects to qualify them effectively. For a detailed guide on how to apply the BANT framework in your sales process, read our comprehensive article here.
Being a challenger doesn't mean you want to make quick sales and walk away. This still requires some level of rapport building. It's the safest way to ensure your prospect doesn't feel pressured.
So, you'll need to engage in meaningful conversations with prospects. The key is to actively listen, paraphrase, and summarize the prospect's key points to demonstrate genuine interest and empathy. In other words, be admirable.
After empathizing with their concerns, you can begin to educate them.
Remember that the challenger sales method and relationship building aren’t mutually exclusive. These days, building trust is key to closing deals. Without a relationship, you can’t have customer loyalty, and any win is bound to be short-lived.
After listening to a prospect and building rapport, it's time to find a way to align your solutions with their problems.
Since we're assuming this prospect has done their research and become dangerously analytical, it'd be effective if you could quantify the value of your solutions through data and case studies.
Crafting a unique value proposition works differently in the Challenger Sales approach. They’ve already researched alternatives and know a thousand that are supposedly better than yours.
How do you tell them they're missing something and convince them to use your product?
This is where your industry knowledge and understanding of customers’ unique problems come in handy.
For example, if their discussions (or objections) hang mainly on the fact that there are better alternatives, you'll want to explain why those alternatives may not benefit them in the long term.
This could also be as simple as pointing to a new government regulation affecting the alternatives, then letting them see how your company has foreseen this problem and put measures in place to ensure your customers aren't affected.
With that, you'd have taken control of the conversation, and you could begin articulating the return on investment (ROI) and long-term value your offering delivers to further solidify its alignment with their objectives.
The next step is to strategically challenge customer assumptions and preferences, guide them through the decision-making process, and address objections to foster successful outcomes.
To challenge customer assumptions, provide contrasting insights, ask thought-provoking questions, and use real-life examples to encourage customers to rethink their beliefs. You can nudge them to consider alternative strategies or solutions by presenting fresh perspectives and data.
“Lead to your solution,” remember?
Guiding customers through the decision-making process boils down to understanding the dynamics of the decision-making team and identifying key stakeholders and their priorities. Know who the stakeholders are, and you’ll know how to address them.
And when customers raise concerns, listen actively to understand their issues fully. Rather than merely countering objections, reframe them as teachable moments, an opportunity to show how your solution addresses concerns.
You can provide data-backed solutions, concrete examples, case studies, and testimonials to alleviate customer apprehensions and build their confidence in the proposed offering.
By employing these tactics, you can foster meaningful discussions that challenge conventional thinking and lead customers to make informed decisions.
If you have successfully educated your prospect and torn down all their defenses, you’ve laid the groundwork for negotiating and closing the deal.
To close deals effectively, leverage the value created during the selling process by reinforcing the quantifiable ROI and cost savings with data-backed evidence and success stories from other clients.
Involve key stakeholders in the decision-making process to ensure understanding and support. For instance, you may want to offer free trial periods or pilot programs to let customers experience the value firsthand and make the offer irresistible.
During negotiations, the collaborative approach remains pivotal. Aim for win-win solutions that benefit both parties. Stay flexible and adaptive, and respond to the customer's changing needs and concerns.
You’ll have successful negotiations and secure deals by maintaining a collaborative and value-driven approach.
When sales organizations use the Challenger model, reps will go the extra mile to prove their solution works. But how can a sales leader build a healthy sales environment for Challenger reps? Here are five tips:
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There can be no Challenger Sales without a challenger sales team. So, you either hire one, build one, or do both.
To hire a team with Challenger Sales experience, here are the steps to follow:
To train your entire team on the Challenger Sales model:
This is how to implement challenger sales strategies:
You can make this possible by conducting joint training sessions for both the marketing and sales teams to introduce them to the core principles of the Challenger Sales approach.
When the marketing team understands Challenger Sales as much as the sales team does, both will be on the same page, and collaboration will be smoother. This will also help the marketing team tailor content to this strategy.
Another area where the marketing and sales teams must work together is content creation. To make that possible, form cross-functional teams that include representatives from both marketing and sales. These teams can collaborate on content creation, bringing together sales insights and marketing expertise.
Finally, provide access to shared resources, such as articles, videos, sales pitches, and case studies that illustrate the Challenger Sales approach. Encourage teams to discuss and analyze these materials together to reinforce the concepts.
That’s how you build cohesion into your system and achieve remarkable outcomes.
You also need to match your content to the Challenger Sales approach. This means you need to review your sales enablement needs.
To do that, take the following steps:
Lastly, use sales enablement tools to support the Challenger Sales approach.
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To adapt your current sales process to the new challenger sales model, take the following steps:
Despite all the helpful tips provided in this article, we thought the best way to wrap it up was to answer this important question: Should you adopt the challenger sales approach?
The simple answer is: it depends.
The truth is, the Challenger Sales model is very demanding and requires top performers and high-level training. If you feel you have all that and the resources to pull it off, then it might be the best for you.
Another important thing to consider is whether your current sales approach is helping your sales performance. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Just go through all the steps highlighted in this article and see if this is the best sales strategy for you.
Of course, for your sales process to reach its full potential, you need a high-performing CRM that enables self-motivated reps to close more deals. Check out our on-demand demo of Close to see how it can help you supercharge your sales process.
