Finding The Challenger Customer
If you run a business, chances are the most important thing you do every day is sell. Sales come in many shapes and sizes, but it’s the…
Finding The Challenger Customer
If you run a business, chances are the most important thing you do every day is sell. Sales come in many shapes and sizes, but it’s the most identifiable skill of the successful entrepreneur. At Waywire Enterprise, I’ve had a sense that something fundamental has been changing in the world of Business to Business (B2B) sales. Sales cycles are getting longer, the number of decision-makers are increasing, and the complexity of the decisions more multi-faceted. Was it just us? Our space? Our approach to sales?
In a search for answers, I came across a new book — The Challenger Customer. Like a thirsty man in the desert, I hungrily drank down knowledge on every page. Happily I learned it wasn’t just us: the very nature of purchasing in the B2B space has changed dramatically.
The book explains it in crisp, fact-based terms, quickly laying out the premise: “Most marketing and sales teams go after low-hanging fruit: 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 the authors, four of whom work at CEB research, did interviews with thousands of B2B marketers, sellers, and buyers. What they found is that sellers who focus on potential customers who are skeptical and less interested in meeting are the ones who win the deal.
Did you get that? If not, go back and read it again. Your success or failure depends on who you challenge and win over.
As The Challenger Customer reveals, there has been a change in the way organizations and therefore purchasing decisions are being made. Today deals require consensus, buy-in among a wide range of players across the organization. And the magic number is 5.4
Today there are more than five decision-makers involved with the typical purchase, and over 50% of the purchasing decision has already made before a single supplier is called in. “In a survey of 3,000 buyers involved in b2b purchases, customers reported 5.4 different people formally involved a typical purchase decision. That’s 5.4 opportunities for someone to say ‘no’.”
This is the real true challenge, that 5.4 decision makers represent 5.4 different people and 5.4 perspectives and a variety of roles, teams, even geographies. It’s a minefield of objections and obstacles
That number multiplies complexity. Stakeholders inside the company often can’t even agree with others within the company about what the actual problem is, let alone how to solve it. As the authors explain, “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 authors encourage sales people in the new world of consensus decision making to distinguish the “Talkers” from the “Mobilizers” in the target organization.
The authors do more than guess about how things have changed. They make a clear and compelling point about what’s changed, and how to sell into the new environment.
The authors thesis is powerful and disturbing. They posit that buyer dysfunctionality — and the difficulty buyers have in making buying decisions results in paralysis. An internal ‘Challenger’ can most effectively help the customers reach decisions. But they have to be found and nurtured.
In the past, when sales slowed we all pushed to work harder. Call on more people to get more people to say ‘yes’ seems logical enough. But the book suggests that the more stakeholders you get, the more of a chance to get to a collective “no,” which is painful. That’s because the decision gets driven down to the lowest common denominator — either status quo or the simplest, cheapest choice.
The challenge, then, is not to get a serial collection of yesses, but a collective yes, in which each stakeholder converges around a common vision. And that requires an internal Mobilizer. The Mobilizer is the internal Challenger, the person who is willing to make waves to and drive the vision. The book explains how to identify three types of mobilizers, get them to agree on the need for change, and then train them to sell the need to their colleagues and stakeholders.
Two key takeaways from the book:
Challenge customers by showing them the status quo is not good enough. It’s cutting into profit, wasting effort, and increasing risk.
Find partners inside the buying organization to drive consensus around the problem. These “Mobilizers” can drive a solution and lead vendor selection.
Buy it. Read it. Embrace the changes that are reflected in the 5.4 reality. You can’t wish away IT, or the CMO, or Legal, or Procurement, or Editorial, or Publishing. But by seeking out the Challenge Customer — and making them your partner in consensus, you can bring the complex process to a successful conclusion.