The Challenger Sale has really had an impressive impact on
the high technology salesforce. More than 50% of my clients have either
formally or informally adopted it as an overlay on top of their current sales
process. Yet looking back at implementation over the past two years I’ve
noticed one persistent problem in both the sales and pre-sales utilization of
the “Challenge” – and that is what I now label as “Calling The Baby Ugly”
The Ugly Baby
You would
never, ever, tell parents that their baby is ugly. You always look for
something positive to say and provide some form of complement. Yet sales and
presales alike, emboldened by the Challenger Sale, quickly launch into a
description of why a customer’s processes/personnel/strategy/implementation is
wrong (i.e. ugly) and then offer to fix this ugliness. Customers have invested
their time, money and resources into their current situation and take pride in
their work – so a full-frontal attack on the status quo rarely works.
Customer Reaction – The
Three “D’s”
Sales takes the
Challenger Sale and tries to disrupt the customer and their thought process,
which can be a very unpleasant experience. You more directly you challenge, the
more you need to be 100% accurate and on-point. Customers can react negatively
in one of three ways:
1.
Defend –
they defend the status quo and why things run the way they do. This is an
almost guaranteed way to ensure that “Do Nothing Inc.” gets the deal. Nothing
will happen and the harder you try to push your Challenge the stronger the defense
will become.
2.
Deny – they
will deny that there is a problem. Remember the rule that “it is not a problem until the customer says it is a problem”.
Denial and defending tend to go hand in hand.
3.
Destroy –
they will destroy your ideas and also destroy your client relationship. There
is no upside to following this path.
In all of these
cases you need to make a decision how to react when you start to get some
pushback or objections – in almost all cases you need to proceed with caution.
Asking Better Questions –
The Three Customer “C’s”
Companies
invest a lot of time and money teaching their salesforce how to ask better
questions – the problem is that the customers don’t play along.
1.
Customers rarely
follow a script and allow you to follow a pre-determined line of questioning,
no matter how well you prepare.
2.
Customers
don’t always know what they want. So sometimes that voyage of self-discovery
just gets them lost, dazed and confused.
3.
Customers don’t
always tell you everything you need to know and you cannot get the whole story.
Sometimes that is accidental and sometimes deliberate.
So What Should A Sales
Engineer Do?
In Part 1 of this series I explained how customers believe that
the SE offers more value than anyone else from the vendor organization and
detailed some ways to capitalize on that. The key is to approach the customer
with some humility and deference. (Sometimes you have to approach the challenge
head-on and directly – possibly with the classic Wall Street Managing Director
or the Executive who says you have two minutes – but let’s say for now that is
a corner case and not the norm). How do you take this approach?
Step
1 – Will The Customer Listen To Me?
Many
SE’s use that Trusted Advisor term, which in this case means will the customer
listen to, and accept, my advice? We’ve all been in the position when we have
given someone really good advice and they have ignored us. If you have that T/A
relationship with the customer, life is easier. If you don’t, you are explicitly
going to have to ask permission. As an extreme, contrast the Global Account SE
who lives and breathes one large client, compared to the inside SE who may deal
with 8 clients a day!
Step
2 – Asking Permission
Customers
accept negative news much better when presented in a positive manner. That
means keeping the results and outcomes in mind, rather than focusing entirely
on the current problems. My preferred approach is to preface the Challenge with
a softening or even self-deprecating statement. Set-up examples might be:
|
“Can I share
something with you about how Customer “X” dealt with a similar situation? I’m
sure it’s not an exact match as I still have a lot to learn about your
company, but I think you’ll find it worthwhile”
|
|
“Can I ask you
something off the record?”
|
|
“I understand the
company has a lot of time and effort vested in this current process and its
serving you well. Would you be interested in learning about some ideas..”
|
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“How about we take a
break, go grab some tea/coffee, as I’d like to run a few ideas by you about
alternative ways to..”
|
Step
3 – Make The Challenge
The
challenge needs to be made from a twin basis of success and facts. That means
speaking about how other customers have overcome similar obstacles and the
results they achieved rather than diving down into the details of all the
current issues. You also need to be clued into the non-verbal signals from the
customer. Often the best approach is to get them out of a “sales environment”
by moving to the cafeteria, or at least closing down the laptop.
The
more people you have in the room, especially once you get past five, the lower
the probability of Challenge success. That may sound counter-intuitive as you’d
think your spark would have a greater chance of catching fire, yet mass
psychology takes over and audiences conform to the norm. So the Challenge works
better in small groups and one-to-one. Note that Rep + SE versus a single
non-executive customer also isn’t a good situation as that also leads to
defense.
Step
4 – Support The Challenge
Once
the customer opens up to the Challenge, provide specific examples (evidence and
impact) and back that up with numbers (usually time, money or headcount).
Remember you are trying to spark curiosity and get a “tell me more” response
and not trying to close the deal or stun the client with your intelligence!
Summary
The
introduction of the Challenger Sale presents a great opportunity for the SE
team to reassert themselves back into the customer relationship and break away
from being a technical resource. There is a crisis in sales right now as reps
struggle to cope with the better educated buyer, to ask more insightful
questions and to truly provide value , so ….
“Never let a
good crisis go to waste..”
-
Rahm
Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago
