Getting Challenger Skills to Stick

Over the last few years, we’ve worked with countless members on their journey to become a Challenger sales organization. Through these interactions, we’ve learned that to develop a sustainable Challenger sales force companies need to first ensure reps understand, accept, and are comfortable with Challenger behaviors—and most importantly—appreciate just how different Challenger skills are from current practice.

Why? Because Challenger skills (i.e., the ability to teach for differentiation, tailor for resonance, and take control of the sale) are tacit in nature, and therefore require a different-in-kind approach to be taught effectively.

Often, companies approach Challenger skills as if it were any other change management initiative they’ve rolled out in the past; develop one or two robust training sessions and assume it will be enough to get the job done. But, not only can Challengers not be built in a day (it requires dedication, planning, and skill certification to ensure success), traditional training engagements often fail to account for the key principles of building tacit skills:

Ensure reps are open to change
Make tacit skills tangible
Engineer a safe environment for practice

We’ve found that the best organizations use an approach akin to a boot camp to develop tacit skills in their sales people. They systematically:

Break Down Rep Confidence—Lead reps to self-discover the weaknesses of their current approach to not only drive their willingness to change, but to also make the skill gaps to close explicit.
Build Reps Back to Assuredness—Use training, coaching, and opportunities for practice in a safe learning environment to build rep confidence in, and ensure adoption of, newly learned skills.

One of the most important aspects of developing tacit skills, especially when it comes to Challenger skills, is providing reps with a safe environment for practice. St. Jude Medical’s Realistic Role-Play Program is a world-class example of how companies can not only instill new skills, but also help reps realize they can successfully embody behavior they once perceived as too difficult without putting any commercial relationships at risk.

St. Jude Medical’s role-plays recreate real-life pressure for reps, increasing the likelihood they will not revert back to old behaviors under the pressure of an actual customer situation. To simulate a sales visit with a high degree of reality, St. Jude Medical engineered the role-plays to involve:

Someone the rep doesn’t know, forcing reps to take the role play more seriously
Someone the rep will  be intimidated by, better replicating the fear of an actual customer situation, placing reps outside of their comfort zone
Someone with the knowledge to respond as a customer would, increasing authenticity of role-play dialogue and question sets

SEC Members, to learn more about developing a Challenger Sales organization, check out the Challenger Rep Starter Kit and visit the Challenger Selling resource center. Also, to learn more about how St. Jude designed it’s Realistic Role-Play Program, view the full case or listen to the webinar we hosted with the program’s creators.