Your Number One competitor today is your own customer and their ability to learn on their own. "It's always been that way and it's never going to change." "But selling is all about relationships," you're probably saying. It was the one they least expected - The Challenger. It wasn't what everyone expected, which was The Relationship Builder.
The most surprising part of their research came when they analyzed the data to figure out which of these behavioral types is the most effective salesperson. That's a large enough group to draw some relevant conclusions. The authors came to these conclusions by studying 700 salespeople initially, and then expanding their sample size to 6,000 salespeople across 90 companies. Keep in mind that these aren't personality types - they're the behavioral patterns that characterize the way salespeople sell. The Reactive Problem Solver: You make sure the sale goes through without a hitch by handling any service issues fast and well.The Lone Wolf: You do things your way because you're confident in your abilities.The Relationship Builder: You build strong relationships with clients and work to keep those relationships tension-free.The Challenger: You challenge your customers using assertiveness and creative problem-solving.The Hard Worker: You put in serious hours on the job, making more calls and taking more meetings than anyone else.The book describes five behavioral "clusters" that salespeople fall into: It asks you to take a look at your sales methods and strategies and classify them in one of five behavioral "clusters." Then, for most of us, it explains why our particular behaviors aren't suited for making sales in today's marketplace. For a lot of us, it's telling us we're doing everything wrong - never a comfortable thought.īecause this book is a game-changer. The Challenger Sale is an easy book to read, but not necessarily an easy one to accept, let alone follow. Our July focus topic is creating financial independence, and we feel strongly that the sales techniques described in this book can help you achieve that independence by becoming a more successful salesperson. This month, we're reading The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson.