Brent Adamson is a former Harvard professor turned Wall Street Journal award-winning author and sales researcher. He co-authored "The Challenger Sale" and "The Challenger Customer" with my former guest Matt Dixon, and these days is challenging us to concentrate on making products easy to buy, not easy to sell.
Here are some of the highlights of our discussion:
1. The Challenger Sale shook up the world of sales, but The Challenger Customer was the inevitable follow upThey did further research after the first book and identified a new protagonist, the "Mobilizer", who can be your best advocate within the company (but not a champion!)
2. It takes 5.4 people within an organisation to make a purchase decision & the number's risingIt's getting more & more complicated selling into organisations, and the buying journey has become like spaghetti. Finding the "economic buyer" is no longer enough to land the sale.
3. There's a difference between emerging demand and established demandIf you're going after established demand and known solutions you're going to get dragged into a price-based bake-off. Challengers find unknown pains, challenge the status quo & break the frame
4. Some customers don't even know how to buy any solution, let alone your solutionBuyer journeys are complex & some customers can be surprised when things get held up. But you're not, you've seen it all before! Give them the info they need to help close the sale from their side.
5. It's not good enough to just be insightful anymore, The smartness arms race ended in a drawBeing really insightful is table stakes. You need to be able to help your customers frame their decision and give them confidence in the decisions they're making for their company.
.. And much more!
Check out Matt's episodeI interviewed Brent's co-author and co-conspirator Matt Dixon about his work and how customer indecision is a critical problem for B2B sales. Check out the episode here.
Buy "The Challenger Sale"Check it out on Amazon.
Buy "The Challenger Customer"
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact BrentYou can hit Brent up on LinkedIn.
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