Beyond the Challenger Sale

Just when we thought "solution selling" and "relationship selling" were "dead" new research by the RAIN Group collected in the book Insight Selling: Surprising Research on What sales Winners Do Differently has proved differently: Since 2012 and the publishing of the Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation  and the subsequent article in the Harvard Business Review proclaiming the death of Solution Selling many companies have re-thought their sales development.  For years they practiced solution selling, consultative sales and relationship building and now all of a sudden these techniques and practices were in question?  Many companies, it turns out, rightfully so, did not throw the baby out with the bath water and abandon these practices.  What we did learn from the Challenger is that delivering "Insight" is key for the salesperson and relationships, not based upon value,  no longer worked. We also learned  customer needs identification based upon a dialogue of multiple questions was not working.  Customers were experiencing  "questioning fatigue."   The Challenger also taught us that the client relies upon the salesperson  teach (a special type of teaching the Challenger calls commercial teaching).

Now in 2014 we have learned more, the effective salesperson of the future has continued to evolve. Work by Linda Richardson (Changing The Sales Conversation: Connect, Collaborate,  Close) and Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr (Insight Selling: Surprising  Research on What Sales Winners Do Differently) have shown us how to "create" insight, reassured us of the value of relationships and given some techniques to conduct a needs dialogue without putting the client in "question fatigue" and suggestions for "teaching" or "convincing" the clients.

Both of these books are very practical and provide resources to help you engage in this new type of selling and you should read them!  However, below I have included a link to  Anthony Iannarino's  "In the Arena Podcast"  in Episode 40 he interviews Linda Richardson about her book, Changing The Sales Conversation and in Episode 35 he interviews Mike Schultz in regards to his book Insight Selling.  Both of these are about 30 minutes long and provide a great window into the books.

http://thesalesblog.com/blog/category/in_the_arena_podcast/