The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation

Dixon and Adamson distinguish between “training,” which largely consists of imparting abstract knowledge, and “coaching,” which aims to put knowledge into practice. In stressing that sales managers have a key role to play in coaching individual representatives on the Challenger model, the book affirms The Importance of Organizational Synergy; individuals who attempt to pattern their selling on this model without institutional backing are likely to fail, the authors suggest.

Commercial Teaching refers to a customer calling approach that integrates insight with supplier strengths. According to Dixon and Adamson, this approach distills the Challenger’s technique of challenging the customer’s assumptions with a powerful insight, prompting them to act on the insight, leading them to the supplier’s unique strengths, and scaling across similar customers. Insight alone may reframe the customer’s perspective on their business, but without leading the customer to the supplier’s strengths, the sales representative runs the risk of the customer giving their business to competitors.

In the business context, a “function” is a segment of an organization that fulfills broadly similar tasks. Sales, marketing, and purchasing are examples of functions that The Challenger Sale discusses in some detail, but Dixon and Adamson contend that their advice may prove relevant even to functions that are more peripheral to an organization’s buying and selling (e.g., the legal department).

The Hard Worker is a type of sales representative who expends as much effort as possible to reach their sales goals. Of the five representative profiles, they deliver the highest performance volume, executing activities more frequently than anyone else. Their natural motivation to do their job stems from the belief that good execution will yield good results. As a result, they also depend on feedback to continually improve their technique. Dixon and Adamson indicate that in less complex sales models, such as transactions, Hard Workers are more likely to succeed than any other sales representative profile.

The Lone Wolf is a type of sales representative who prefers to work on their own rather than in harmony with the collective sales team. They thrive on instinct over instruction, which usually leads to a frustrating relationship with sales managers. On the other hand, they consistently deliver solid results, which prevents them from being cut from the sales team entirely. Dixon and Adamson implore sales leaders to avoid substituting the Challenger Selling Model for an approach that favors Lone Wolves. While the latter are statistical high-performers, their inability to work with others makes their techniques difficult to scale and replicate sustainably across an organization. Hence, it is unrealistic to expect core performers to emulate the Lone Wolf in a way that improves their chances of success.

The Reactive Problem Solver is a type of sales representative who dedicates themselves to fulfilling guarantees made to the customer at the deal stage. Described as “a customer service rep in sales rep clothing” (21), they will quickly abandon plans of engaging new customers in favor of assisting existing clients who report problems with their product or service. In this sense, their approach centers around protecting their relationship with the customer, as well as asserting their reliability as representatives of the supplier company. Based on the SEC study, Dixon and Adamson report that Reactive Problem Solvers are the minority of the five representative groups.

The Relationship Builder is a type of sales representative who centers strong customer relationships in their approach. Like the Reactive Problem Solver, they do whatever is necessary to address customer concerns while also making connections across all parts of the customer organization. This naturally makes them popular with customers and sales leaders alike, and the SEC researchers expected to find that they outperformed other personality types. However, Dixon and Adamson report that Relationship Builders are actually the weakest performers in terms of upholding customer loyalty and benefiting their business in the long run. In prioritizing customer comfort, Relationship Builders fail to engage the customer in thinking about what the customer can do differently to better achieve their business goals. While customers typically like Relationship Builders, they may choose to drop the Relationship Builder’s solution in favor of one that better meets their business needs.