The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation - Hardcover

Adamson, Matthew Dixon And Brent

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1591844355 ISBN 13: 9781591844358

Publisher: Portfolio Penguin, 2012

Synopsis

The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades.

Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that 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 bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale.

About this title

Review

The most important advance in selling for many years. (Neil Rackham, author of SPIN Selling)

The amazing thing is that the Challenger sales rep has been hiding in plain sight all these years. The Challenger Sale breaks the winning elements of this powerful approach into a set of teachable skills that can take even a top sales team to a new level of results delivery. (Dan James, former chief sales officer, DuPont)

From the Back Cover

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.

Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board have studied the performance of thousands of sales reps worldwide. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades.

The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship-building is the wrong 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 performance, only one - the Challenger - delivers consistently high performance.

Instead of bludgeoning customers with facts and features, Challengers approach customers with insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their message to the customer's specific needs. They are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale.

Any sales rep, once equipped with the right tools, can drive higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

www.executiveboard.com
www.thechallengersale.com

Jacket design by Inside Out Design Authors' photograph by Kelly Suh

About this edition

• Publisher: Portfolio Penguin
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1591844355
• ISBN 13: 9781591844358
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256