“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them” –Albert Einstein
Business to business (BTB) selling will never be the same….will you? If you answered yes but not sure why, read on because there’s still time to push the “reboot” button to improve your sales future-readiness. If you answered no, you’ve experience what historic high sales performers have learned; relationship selling is dead; Challenger sales win 9 out of 10 times because they’ve learned to drive growth through insight-led sales.
What is “challenger” sales and what does it mean to the exhibition industry?
A student of selling, I’ve read most of the foundational sales books which has helped to shape my career and mentorship of others. And with the underpinnings of my sales pilings in place for three decades, I ordered a new book called, “The Challenger Sale”, with somewhat of a jaundiced attitude: “what is really ground-breaking in sales.” Little did I know that this book would pull all the pilings from my foundation and cause me to reflect upon myself, recruiting, mentoring new reps and retooling sales organizations.
The Challenger Sale is one of the finest researched books I’ve read. I say this because we’ve all read “how to” books, interesting, but largely written from the author’s myopic experience and perspective; this book is based upon research of 6,000 sales reps from 100 Sales Executive Council members. The findings are telling: the majority of our sales reps are NOT geared to succeed in this tough selling environment. In fact, some competencies that traditionally differentiated star performer are yielding average results at best. How can this be? Evolution and revolution.
Evolution in that sales models are being disrupted all the time (not a bad thing) and represent a natural force in business. We’re all inter-connected and the ripples of change take time; from impact to taking root, so it’s about time that the discipline of sales evolves to the new realities of business. Revolution in that the traditional “relationship manager” sales rep (often the most coveted) is today finding it difficult to bring new thinking and value to the customer. And this is what the customer wants most: ideas to build a better business for the employer resulting in job security and income elasticity.
More specifically, The Challenger Sale profiles five distinct reps based upon its research: Lone Wolf (follows own instincts), Problem Solver (responds well to internal/external stakeholders), Hard-Worker (always willing to go the extra mile), Relationship Builder (strong customer-centricity) and Challenger (brings different perspective to the customer). And while all of us have percentages of these profiles in our DNA, high-performers are more apt to have a greater percentage of (3) key ingredients than core performers.
The Challenger Secret Sauce:
• Teaches customers unique insights about how to better compete in the global marketplace
• Tailors messaging to each unique decision-maker
• Asserts control to overcome customer risk aversion
The exciting part of this research is that the industry has an opportunity to become better business counselors and help advance exhibition and event marketing vis-a-vis traditional marketing media. We have the advantage of “face to face”…let’s use it by asking some of these tough questions when you’re meeting with your customers:
–What’s the outcome that your management wants from exhibiting at XYZ show and why?
–How will success be evaluated and against what metrics?
–If you didn’t exhibit at the show, what would be the worst thing that could happen?
–Why would you invest less than 2% of your exhibition budget on staff training and preparation when successful interaction accelerates the sales cycle?
The lesson of this blog is three-fold: 1) convince you to provide insight-led solutions that cause your customer to stand up and take notice , 2) develop a challenger mindset and practice it and 3) purchase the book as it will be the best money you can invest in your career. Wanna challenge me on this? Please do
See you in the trenches.
exhibitionpro 