| Title | : | The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0698406184 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780698406186 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 264 |
| Publication | : | First published September 3, 2015 |
Picture your ideal friendly, eager to meet, ready to coach you through the sale and champion your products and services across the organization. It turns out that’s the last person you need.
Most marketing and sales teams go after low-hanging buyers who are eager and have clearly articulated needs. That’s simply human nature; it’s much easier to build a relationship with someone who always makes time for you, engages with your content, and listens attentively. But according to brand-new CEB research—based on data from thousands of B2B marketers, sellers, and buyers around the world—the highest-performing teams focus their time on potential customers who are far more skeptical, far less interested in meeting, and ultimately agnostic as to who wins the deal. How could this be?
The authors of The Challenger Customer reveal that high-performing B2B teams grasp something that their average-performing peers don’ Now that big, complex deals increasingly require consensus among a wide range of players across the organization, the limiting factor is rarely the salesperson’s inability to get an individual stakeholder to agree to a solution. More often it’s that the stakeholders inside the company can’t even agree with one another about what the problem is.
It turns out only a very specific type of customer stakeholder has the credibility, persuasive skill, and will to effectively challenge his or her colleagues to pursue anything more ambitious than the status quo. These customers get deals to the finish line far more often than friendlier stakeholders who seem so receptive at first. In other words, Challenger sellers do best when they target Challenger customers.
The Challenger Customer unveils research-based tools that will help you distinguish the "Talkers" from the "Mobilizers" in any organization. It also provides a blueprint for finding them, engaging them with disruptive insight, and equipping them to effectively challenge their own organization.
The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results Reviews
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"Predictable revenue" showed how salespeople should approach outbound sales. "The Challenger Customer" shows how salespeople should approach the client buying process.
Some buying processes involve a couple of different stakeholders. They have different backgrounds, KPIs, daily tasks, specializations and expectations. So for instance CMO and CTO works in different enviromments. As companies grow the number of stakeholders grows as well. What's more, they become more and more specialized. So differences between those stakeholders grow as well.
Why this is challenging for salespeople? The customer buying process boils down to 3 stages:
- problem definition,
- solution identification,
- supplier selection.
If customer buying process involve a couple of different stakeholders, it will be difficult for those stakeholders to make a decision. Not only the decision about the supplier. Decisions about problem definition and solution identification will be difficult as well. So the final decision usually will be the safest possible decision. Which often means the decision "let's stick with the status quo and change nothing".
This book shows what to do to overcome that obstacle. That book also shows the difference between "information" and "insight".
Highly recommended if you sell to big companies and/or you have to deal with a couple of stakeholders. If not: the book also will be useful, but not each part. Highly recommended also for marketers (especially content marketers).
The best book about sales which I've read since... The Challenger Sale (which is written by the same author). If you worry that it will be the repetition - it isn't. -
Disclaimer: I am in a sales-adjacent role, but not a salesperson. That said, I think a lot of the content and methodologies described in this book are fantastic; my one gripe is that I feel like this book could have been quite a bit shorter (while still providing the core content).
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Really enjoyed the first half of this book, but felt the second half was quite weak. However, still worth reading as it will change your perspective on your engagement with customers (and redefine who you consider your customer to be).
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Great book that should shape how both marketing and sales people view their customers and interact with them.
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A couple good ideas, but not quite a full book
Challenger Customer has a couple of interesting ideas. Consensus between large groups of customers is required for sales to large customers (5.4 people on average). Mobilizers, regardless of title, help drive consensus. Mobilizers are often challenging to sell to, but are more useful than talkers. It’s the job of the seller to coach mobilizers on how to drive consensus and facilitate the process through active discussion of core issues.
I generally found some of the sales ideas helpful and insightful. Many of the marketing ideas, feel less well formed. The suggestion of fewer, more insightful content pieces, revolving around customer insights, does not feel groundbreaking. -
Many good insights and takeaways. Though a lot of it is redundant with old tips and best practices relabeled, still, necessary for a successful implementation of the new ideas. I didn’t mind the reinforcement.
Some critical feedback is that it can be pedantic, overly complex, and yet still lacks the substantial details necessary for proper execution. Plus, many long winded explanations of poorly designed visuals.
There’s a lot of talk of strategy, but little logistics. The implementation chapter is severely lacking.
Still, you’ll get what you want out of it, and one can get a lot. -
Ferramentas poderosas para vendas B2B envolvendo grupo de stakeholders.
Ao invés de 'vender uma solução' o livro aborda a ideia de ensinar o cliente a comprar uma solução.
Ao invés de convencer as personas isoladamente, o livro mostra que a compra coletiva pode ser resultado da influência de alguns mobilizadores internos. Quando desafiados e bem equipados, podem reverberar a sua solução nas empresas.
Marketing e Comercial unidos para impactar e transformar resultados por toda a experiência de compra do consumidor B2B. -
B2B selling is topic of the book. Bases on the book, 5.4 is the new challenge at b2b selling. This number shows 5.4 different persons include in b2b selling and as a sales rep it is our responsibility to deal with them. This number also force us to be a facilitator instead of a negotiator. We as a facilitator must facilitate challenges between those 5.4 stakeholders and move them toward a unique goal. The book introduces a new perspective
for sale pipeline and how we must guide customers in that pipeline. -
The bad: nothing in particular.
The good: a very interesting segue to The Challenger Sale, this book touches on finding a champion within the company that promotes a Challenger mindset within the organization itself. Types of Mobilizers are broken down, as well as sales and content strategy to accelerate. Great read. -
Excellent follow up to The Challenger Sale. Great for sellers looking for who to target at large companies. Most large sales involve about 5 decision makers; this book helps you identify the best and worst archetypes when it comes to selling.
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Excellent insights. What is your prospective customers desired outcomes not yours? Who are the mobilizers?
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Meh
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Interesting, this book divided customers unto 7 types, and help us overcoming the most challenging type of customers. At least, this book can help you identify your customers.
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This is the best book in sales. I just wish they had a tl;dr
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Good followup to 'the Challenger Sale'. The Sale fist, before moving to Customer
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another work book
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** DNF ** this could’ve been one chapter, it was so beyond repetitive
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Packed with powerful insights and processes, but a little dense.
