SalesMakover AB Jens@salesmakeover.se www.salesmakeover.se +46707998800 / +46 8 651 25 00

The end of the challenger sales era.

What I am going to suggest to you may come as a shock. If your first thought is

”this is not true for my business”, I strongly suggest you go and ask your kids or

some one younger that 15 years to tell you how they do their research using the

internet before they buy. Do you still think there is a strong relationship between

the # of sales calls and the sales result? Game, set and match, it is over. In this

article I will explain why most sales efforts creates less sales than doing nothing

and what to do about it.

Statistics never lie. Take a look at these figures:

93% of buyers begin their buying process using the internet for research.

Marketo.

74% of C-level executives say the Internet is invaluable for finding

information and 53% say they prefer to locate information themselves.

Forbes Insight, The Rise of the Digital C-Suite

72% Of B2B Buyers (2013) used social media to research a potental

solution purchase.

DemandGen

59% engaged with a peer who had addressed the challenge.

37% Posted questions on social networks for feedback.

80% of the buyers find you, not the other way around.

Our tradition

Sales people are measured on sales activities, trained in how to do cold calling

and rewared for revenue. That formula of success was based on the ”information

advantage of the seller”. The seller, like a person walking between villages in

the outback country of Australia, US or Scandinavia, spread the news about

problems and solutions, often told as stories, later shown as powerpoint

presentations. Since the ”information advantage” was true, the seller knew more

about their products and how they could serve customer problems and that

information was hard to find by the buyer else were, the seller had a specific

SalesMakover AB Jens@salesmakeover.se www.salesmakeover.se +46707998800 / +46 8 651 25 00

value to the customers. As the figures, statistics, shows, and your kids already

new 3 years ago, that advantage is now completly erased. It is all on the internt.

Try a google search on what you sell. Spend 15 minutes to read what is out on

the net, and than ask your self a question: What more can you tell a customer

about what you can do for hin/her than they could read,see and hear themselves?

Last summer an HBR article (Adamson,Dixion; The end of the Solution

Selling era, HBR 2012)(1), claimed the end of the Solution Selling era.

The authors assumed that most sellers are trying to, as the good doctor, get the

customer to share pain so they can come up with a solution and get the sale. And

they had massive research to show that it did not work. They could have saved

thousands of hours and dollars and called me. I have been in sales for more than

25 years. That approach have never worked well. I could have old them that

over the phone.

The authors recepie for success was ”challenge your customers” and with

massive surveys they could proove that sales people who are provocative sell

more than sales people who ask open questions. I also agree to that, because that

gives the customer a certain value. Based on the research done by Geoffrey

Moore (2) about 12-15% of a certain buyer community responds to this strategy

as these buyers are not risk averse, they are instead looking for sales people who

can put up a challenge, offer them innovations and lead the way to succesful

implementation. But the other 80% who are either platform buyers, defending a

proven solution or the ultra conservative buyer who rather go bankrupt than

change – how will they react to a challenging message? I think the authors of the

article should get first hand experience on that before ordering the recepie as the

formula of success.

You could argue if I am right or wrong. That will only take focus on the real

challenge: What if your sales people do not get to meet the customers? What if

your prospects do not want to spend 1 hour of their time with a sales person,

what the approach may be, challenging or not? Nearly every day I talk to sales

people who, despite a good cold calling script, never gets hold of the prospect.

And if they do – the customers turns them down, not interested. Do you think

the solution is a new script? Or longer lists of people to call? Or maybe

telemarketing to book the meetings your sales people cant do? Or a ”challenging

message”?

SalesMakover AB Jens@salesmakeover.se www.salesmakeover.se +46707998800 / +46 8 651 25 00

What if your sales people spend the majority of their time doing sales

activities that either annoys the customers, and creates tension with

”challenging messages” that makes most of the customers defend

themselves or leads to long hours at the office, waiting for ”hot leads” from

the market department that never comes?

Think again. It is now it gets really scary. The history is paved with examples of

paradigm changes. You and I are facing maybe the biggest change since the

computer became a tool for sellers.

It is the end of the challenger sales era, because you do not get the chance to

challenge your customers.

Conclusion #1: Selling is collaboration with the customer

It is time to reveal how you can adopt to the changes I described. What is true in

todays selling world? Customers still needs to find solutions to improve their

business. Customers still need to buy things, services and products to fulfil their

needs. And customers pay for the value they see fit. The paradigm shift can be

described as the ”looking customer”. Todays customer are aware of their

problems and solutions to those problems. They exchange, through social media,

ideas how and with who how to solve their needs. And when they are ready to

move on in their buying cycle they will contact a sales organisation, not to be

”sold” but to get their needs fulfilled. And I thing most customer would prefer to

talk with a consultant, a solution architect, a craftsman or a software programer

if they had a choise. Because those people can do real things for them.

Still present in the mind of the customer are two things: Risk and value. The

customer will ask two questions before taking a buying desicion: ”is it worth

it?” and ”will it work?”. And if the customers anwers are: ”I dont now the

value” and ”not sure it will work”, 80% of the buyerers will take a ”no decision”

(Jens Edgren, SalesMakeover 2010)(3). In order to sell the sales organisation,

who can be anyone in the organisation, will have to coach the customer so

he/she can get the answers they need to make an informed buying decision. It is

not selling – it must be a collaborative apporach. I call this conslusion #1:

Selling is collaboration.

SalesMakover AB Jens@salesmakeover.se www.salesmakeover.se +46707998800 / +46 8 651 25 00

Conclusion #2: Selling is agility, you got 48h to respond to inquiries

Assume your customer have spent enough time doing research on the net,

talking to peers, interacting with credible sources and finally coming up with a

specific wish: something you could sell. And decide to call you up, book a

meeting with you. What do the customer want? See powerpoints describing your

organisation? Answer to open questions about heir strategy? Hear a ”challenging

message”? I dont think so, if you are in doubt, play the buyer role for a change

and have some of your sales people present your stuff to you.

The customer wants you to listen to them and fullfill their needs. Only if you

truly have what we call as a differentior (used to be called ”unique selling point-

usp”) and you can relate that to the any of the customers business issues, now or

later in their implementation process, you will be able to change their mind, we

call that ”vision reengineering”. If not – proceed to do a draft proposal and and

check if your customer likes is or not. If they do they will buy, if not, you can

call them every day and ”follow up” on the proposal until you change jobs. It

will not give you the sales.

Once the customer havet old you waht they want they want a fast reply. I say

within 48 hours you must be able to respond to complex inquaries. In order to do

so your organisation must be ready to step out of the organisational chart and

work as a crossfunctional team. Sales, R&D, techguys, consultants, finance,

legal, i dont know what resources you need this time, must collaborate and

create a solution that fullfills the customer need. That will give you the sale,

everything else equal. Everyone i your organisation are, in this way, a part of the

salesorganisation. This is the conclusion #2: The agile organisation.

Conclusion #3: Find the looking buyer while he/she still is looking, fish in

the sea where the fish swims

Since the customer spends more time looking on their own, and even avoid

contacts with sellers, we have an opportunity to serve our customers in this

phase. The customers are looking for valuable content, not market b-s. Most

companies have more content than they realise, but it is hard to find. Its is like

walking into a library and seaching for a book you dont know the name of. And

what if you don teven know there is a book to look for? I call this strategy to

fish where the fish are.

LinkedIN groups, tweets, bloggposts, updates – every where valuable content

can be served to the clients. You can push content in e-mailcampaigns and /or

make it available to seaching, content hungry customers.

SalesMakover AB Jens@salesmakeover.se www.salesmakeover.se +46707998800 / +46 8 651 25 00

If they like what they see they will, like the fish, take a bite. More hooks, larger

nets gives you a better catch. Why not trade a couple of sales calls a week for

tweets, linkedin bloggposts and updates? How about Inmails, where you both

offer a business suggestion and a link to a white paper that is easy to read while

the customer is walking to his or her next meeting, reading it in an Iphone? We

are serving, not selling.

I here by claim the end of the challenger sales era. Say hello to the

collaborative sales era where the agile, collaborative sales organisation will

thrive and survive.

Conclusion #1: Selling is collaboration with the customer

Conclusion #2: Selling is agility, you got 48h to respond to inquiries

Conclusion #3: Find the looking buyer while he/she still is looking,

fish in the sea where the fish swims

Your Jens ”SalesMakeover” Edgren

1) Adamsson, Dixon¸The end of the Solution Selling era, article, HBR;

Adamson,Dixion; http://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales/ar/1

2) Geoffey Moore; Inside the tornado; 1995, McGraveHill,

3) Jens Edgren; SalesMakeover, how to create a solutiondrive sales

organisation; 2010; Brainstation Publishing,