Does Challenger Have a Place in Transactional Selling?

This is a guest post by Kevin Starner , VP of Sales Enablement at Iron Mountain .

I know what many of you might be thinking: transactional sales requires a Hard Worker profile. We need people who are going to run through walls, make hundreds of dials every day, and continuously go that extra mile. On the surface, it does seem as though transactional sales proves the exception to the rule that Challenger always wins.

However, after participating in numerous panels, forums, and discussion boards around this topic, I find myself time and time again coming back to the same answer. If you don’t think Challenger can play a role in transactional sales, then you don’t know Challenger. After all, Challenger is a study of sales effectiveness, and who doesn’t want that?

At the crux of every sales opportunity, the goal is the same: make your customers feel confident that they’re making the right decision for their organization, and then help them act on it. When you’re in a selling situation where your competitors are so closely matched in solution and in price, there’s really only one thing you can do to differentiate yourself: show your buyers that you and your company think differently than the competition.

So how do you differentiate yourself in those moments? You may think it depends on the type of sale, but it doesn’t. The best salespeople bring new insight to the customer—ideas for saving money or avoiding risk that customers themselves have yet to realize.  We’ve heard from our customers that they want and expect us to provide more insight and thought leadership.  It’s almost becoming table stakes in order to have a meaningful buyer conversation.

While commercial insight is key for any Challenger, it’s important to put it in the proper context. To do so, try these 3 things:

Understand your buyer’s issues and educate them on looking at the problem the right way, even if it means looking at it differently than they ever have before.
Shape your solution and message to fit your buyer.
Manage the process to keep it moving and see it to close.

I will always be a sales professional at heart, but now that my position requires me to be a buyer as well, I look differently at those who try to sell to me. Any sales professional who can educate me on avoiding landmines, customize their solution to me and my needs, and guide me through my process will always win my business in a competitive bake off.

The principles of Challenger are Teach, Tailor, and Take Control. In all my years of selling to small business, mid-market, and enterprise customers, every single one of those principles rang true. It speaks to educating your customers. It speaks to shaping your message to make it about them. And it speaks to managing the process throughout. The framework provides room to stretch for more strategic processes, as well as to streamline for transactional opportunities and everywhere in between.

So, if you ask me, does Challenger have a place in a transactional sales environment? My answer: If you want to be relevant and differentiate yourself, then yes.

CEB Sales Members, to learn more, visit the Challenger Selling topic center. Also, register for our upcoming workshop on Challenger Sales Process and Opportunity Management.