The Challenger Sale

Taking Control of the Customer Conversation

By: Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson

Narrated by: Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson

What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships - and you'd be wrong. The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them.

The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades.

Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one - the Challenger - delivers consistently high performance.

Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale.

The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force. The authors explain how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers' expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

©2011 Matthew Dixon (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“The history of sales has been one of steady progress interrupted by a few real breakthroughs that have changed the whole direction of the profession. These breakthroughs, marked by radical new thinking and dra­matic improvements in sales results, have been rare.... Which brings me to The Challenger Sale and the work of the Sales Executive Council.... On the face of it, their research has all the initial signs that it may be game-changing.... My advice is this: Read it, think about it, implement it. You, and your organization, will be glad you did.” (Professor Neil Rackham, author of SPIN Selling, from the foreword)

“The amazing thing is that the Challenger sales rep has been hiding in plain sight all these years. The Challenger Sale breaks the winning elements of this powerful approach into a set of teachable skills that can take even a top sales team to a new level of results delivery.” (Dan James, former chief sales officer, DuPont)

“This is a must-read book for every sales professional. The authors’ groundbreak­ing research explains how the rules for selling have changed - and what to do about it. If you don’t want to be left behind, don’t miss this innovative book that provides the new formula for selling success.” (Ken Revenaugh, vice president, sales operations, Oakwood Temporary Housing)

Turning the speed down by one click

The audio is fast and hyped up but by Turing the speed down by one click the Performance sounds like two “bros” getting intensely into to talking about sales, technical data and stats. Made it funny to listen to and easy to digest.

((o(^∇^)o))

Slow, but very informative.

The overall theme of the book was absolutely intriguing. The delivery takes too long, and the cliff notes for this book would be much shorter and more effective.

Great book!!

Fantastic content and great readers make this book easy to get through. Highly recommend for all lines of business involved in internal or external sales.

Insightful

Very insightful course for anyone are entering sales or looking to master it. This book has tips you can implement at work or at life in general.

Awesome insight

This book is very helpful to shift a salespersons mindset she become someone who has a better approach to sales

Fantastic Book

I have read the Challenger Sale many times. I do so for a refresher. Most recently listened to it while doing daily morning walks.

100% Would Recommend

For those in B2B solution based sales, and especially leadership, this book is a must.

Good Book, Just Needs More Examples

Good read but it needed more examples of people and companies actually adapting the model. I would have liked more examples of how to give a challenger presentation for instance.

Dimension

A new Dimension on the depth of the saling world. Concentrated mostly on the B2B aspects of sales, but nevertheless very thoughtful on how to handle yourself as a salesman in general.

Spot-on Effective Selling Analysis and Help

After 30+ years in retail and wholesale marketing, I can confidently say The CHALLENGER SALE concisely cuts to the core issues of success in complex, sophisticated selling situations. It is backed up with immense amounts of research that dispels the notion that "good salespeople are naturally that way by virtue of their personality". But even so, this book RAPIDLY translated otherwise illusive concepts into actionable self-awareness and impactful "course corrections". It impacted my approach better than any other marketing/sales training program I have experienced before it. There are other tools to help with business plan, time management and the like. This really zeroes in on selling psychology for both target customer and marketer/salesperson. Want to move yourself, (or your sales team) from the middle 60% of performers to the top 20% winners or even from the bottom 20% "lost" into the middle 60%? This is for you!

I wish I had picked this up a couple of years ago when I first learned of it and had embraced it when I was managing marketers and strategic relationships. I wish I had this arrow in my quiver 30 years ago when I began my career in the field. It's the right "hammer" for both leaders and troops in the field.