Entrepreneurship has come out to be one of the most emergent business fields in recent times. This means that almost every tenth person is an entrepreneur in some way or the other.
Out of all the budding business enthusiasts, almost fifty per cent of them are related to the sales domain in some way.
This directly hints at the growing business competition in the sales market and the stagnant or reducing business opportunities. Does this mean that the businesses are encountering losses and have absolutely no opportunity of getting deals?
Well, not really!! Sales are all about your on-spot skills and thought acumen. It is all about strategies and methodologies to convert your new or cold leads into contractual deals. So the real question is what should be the magical strategy to impress the clients?
Certainly, in this modern and technological era, almost everyone feels that they are short of time, especially multi-dollar clients. Hence, instead of a sweet-talker that does not walk the talk, they look for someone who can deliver on his promise and knows how to tackle difficult situations.
Prospects nowadays are not looking for some relation and network building. That will inevitably happen if they like your work. The present busy businessmen/businesswomen are looking for someone who can educate them about the problems and faults in their business and without a doubt can suggest relevant measures to be followed to eliminate that problem.
Hence, challenger sales model to the rescue. The challenger sales model was proposed by Mathew Dixon and Brent Adamson. Let us further understand what this model is and how it helps in your business.
Challenger sales model:
The research conducted by Gartner shows that when a prospect contacts a sales rep, he is almost 57% through the purchase process. It shows that the clients are contacting the sales companies based on their own findings, research, and learning. They have a preconceived idea about the nature of the problem and know what solution would rectify this problem.
The point here is that customers are capable enough to learn about the problems and features you offer if they are contacting you. They do not need to understand what will be best for them in this situation. All they are interested in is knowing why they should buy.
This type of client base is the perfect one for the challenger sales model.
Let us begin by formally gathering the idea of this sales methodology. The challenger sales model is a sales strategy that focuses entirely on teaching, depicting, tailoring as well as taking control of a particular sales experience.
Now, it is important to understand what a challenger means in this context.
In this particular reference, a challenger is a salesperson who has a different viewpoint. He understands his prospect’s business needs and is aware of the market trend. Also, he is not shy to put forth his point and is fond of debating and pushing the client out of his comfort zone.
This challenger profile helps sales reps to build a sale by building constructive tension. It helps the salesperson to dispute his client’s thinking and forces them to consider a new perspective. Hence, a slight tension is created owing to the casual debate. This encourages customers to explore new opportunities that they wouldn’t have noticed or thought of before.
This in turn boosts sales and probably offers more closed deals than any other sales methodology.
Benefits of using a challenger sales model:
The current products and services have undoubtedly become better, more complex, and more inclusive owing to the customer needs, tech advancements, and market trends. Hence, the sales process following in the footsteps has invariably become more complex and clients seem to be always wanting more.
Thanks to google, clients are just a search(google search) away from literally knowing anything and everything they want. Hence, the clients have a pretty good idea about what they want even before they contact you.
So, if you want to close these knowledge-driven clients, you need to up your game and use an offensive approach rather than just repeating what they already know and trying to build relations that will have no backing if the client is not convinced.
Here, the challenger sales model comes to your rescue. Undoubtedly offers the customer a unique viewpoint and automatically gives you an edge over your competitors. Not only this, but this model also provides a solid and clear understanding of the prospect’s value drivers.
Moreover, it can help you identify your client’s business’s economic drivers and also creates an atmosphere of ease to discuss any pressure points without hesitation including the budget and growth.
How to include the challenge sales model as your sales methodology
1) Warm-up — The very first step of adopting the challenger sales model is to build a level of credibility and reliability with your prospects through your effective and smart communication skills. It is absolutely imperative that you understand the challenges your client are facing.
This requires thorough research on your part. It will give you insights into your customer’s business, pain points, problems, and needs.
There are a few ways you can start such as:
· Show your clients why they are contacting you.
· Steer the conversation and show your knowledge and expertise.
· Build curiosity in your clients.
· Be as interactive and easy to approach as possible.
2) Reframe the interaction — During the first step, your prospects might have indicated that they face problems in landing clients, or that they have high marketing costs. All you have to do is listen to them attentively and strategically figure out and convey to them how to convert their challenges into appropriate growth opportunities.
Try to dig as deep as you can and break down the problem for your client and ensure that you make them understand various new avenues they could try in their situation. Provide your prospects with a new and fresh perspective. This will not only show them your expertise but also build their trust in you and will make your business credible and reliable.
3) Call onto their emotions — Emotions are the major key factor in all aspects of everybody’s life. No work can be accomplished without emotions attached to it. Hence, your product or service might be a hundred percent business-appropriate, but your client might not be inclined towards it.
However, if you are able to use their emotions and feelings to show them how your product or service is beneficial to their business, they are more likely to be receptive to your suggestions.
This could be done in several numbers of ways such as:
· Customer success stories.
· A personal experience
· Research findings
4) Value Proposition — Now is the time to show your client and all the stakeholders in the final buy-in decision, exactly how your product or service can help their business growth and along with a better future with ample new business opportunities.
You can give a brief picture of the future possibilities to your prospect with respect to using your product or service. Highlight the essential features and their current market relevance along with predicted future probabilities(with relevant data).
Now, as an effective SALESPERSON! We can do two important things from here.
1. Not ignoring the opportunity and blaming the situation for revenue loss.
2. Take important notes and go back to revisit your sales strategy with the growth mindset.
To conclude, what you choose to think also provides some idea of your development as a consultative salesperson. It is something like Siva Devaki quotes “Sales is not about selling anymore, but about building trust and educating.”
**Dramantram (Pronounced as Dra-Mann-Tram) is a video production, communication design, digital marketing, and concept photography company that takes a human-centred, design-based approach to innovate, create and communicate. Our flexible approach works in tandem with creativity and innovation.