Exclusive Preview of The Challenger Customer

Salespeople and sales organizations face a number of relatively new challenges now. I have written about them here since 2009.

One of those challenges is the difficulty we face in building a compelling case for change when the status quo is so deeply entrenched in the companies we pursue. Another challenge is the increasing number of stakeholders involved in a deal.

I’ve written about how receptive contacts are a trap. And I have also written about how you are looking for the CEO of the Problem, someone who is compelled to change things. But my evidence that these things are true comes from field work, not research.

My friends, Matt Dixon, Brent Adamson, Pat Spenner, and Nick Toman from CEB have now provided you with the research. Their research shows that you need a change agent, someone they call the Mobilizer. It also shows that you need to know how they build consensus within their company. Most of all, their new book addresses the need to help the stakeholders make trade-offs.

Even though all generalizations are lies, many of them are very useful. It’s useful to know that the conflicts that kill deals happen when buyers are 37% through their buying process. I know exactly when that happens because I have seen it first hand. You do great discovery, you start forming a solution to a real root cause problem, and then the knives come out and the defenders of the status quo give your deal the same treatment that a bunch of Roman Senators gave Julius Caesar.

And, of course, you need to teach.

I am excited about this book because I believe it is going to help salespeople and sales organizations understand the changing world of sales that we live in, and it provides a useful frame for thinking about what good salesmanship looks like now . . . and in the future.

Watch the video above, here exclusively until next week.

Here is link to The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Invisible Influencers Who Can Multiply Your Results on CEB’s website.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon.com.