Just finished reading Jill Donahue’s brilliant summary of The Challenger Sale. (Summary here) Turns out that the best sales reps out there are challenging their customers to think differently. Here’s the full description of a “Challenger” sales rep:
- Offer the customer unique perspectives
- Have strong two-way communication skills
- Know the individual customer’s value drivers
- Can identify economic drivers of the customer’s business
- Are comfortable discussing money
- Can pressure the customer
So here’s my question for you – if you’re a business leader (not just a sales leader, but any leader), wouldn’t you want these same attributes in the people on your team? Look at the list again. Everything on here says “engaged” to me.
- “Offering unique perspectives” means thinking about the business and being curious.
- “Strong two-way communication” means listening as well as speaking; being collaborative.
- “Knowing value drivers” means having a clear sense of the team goal(s) and culture.
- “Identify economic drivers” means tying projects to company bottom line.
- “comfortable discussing money” means more honest and real conversations.
- “can pressure the customer” means a higher level of trust and conviction.
These sound like the indicators of an engaged, impassioned employee working towards a clearly defined goal. We’ve been saying for years that these things are important… now we’re seeing the financial impact of them. Very cool.
