How to succeed in sales today: New report

A new report has found only 9 percent of Australian ICT salespeople are following industry best-practice when it comes to making new sales.

The report, commissioned by Carpe Diem Consulting, authored by Bruce Rasmussen, and based on work by the US-based Corporate Executive Board (CEB) has identified a new, hyper-successful type of salesperson: the challenger.

According to Rasmussen, the CEB did a large survey of salespeople, thinking it would be the so-called “relationship builder” type sales people who would be the most successful.

"The results actually turned the conventional wisdom on its head,” said Rasmussen. “It was these challengers who were the most successful.”

Challengers, the report noted, are salespeople who are willing to create new insights into the business of their sales prospect. Instead of creating a relationship – which is also important – they collate research, investigate their prospect, and find new insights and new ways for their prospect to do business.

Rasmussen said there are three aspects to the challenger. They teach the client something new, they tailor the solution to the client, and they take control of the sales process.

“If you think about the buyers' journey, clients are now getting 70 percent of the information they need themselves, whether it’s from the internet, or from social media,” observed Rasmussen. “The role of the challenger is to teach the client something new about their business by providing new insights.”

It’s about dragging the client back to the beginning of the sales journey with a new insight, and shattering their perception of the status-quo, he said.

The second aspect, tailoring the message, is about shaping communications according to the person being spoken to as part of the sales process. If it’s an HR person, then the message has to reflect their role, and the needs they have to do their job better.

“We need to stop sales people talking about themselves and their company and products,” he said. “They need to listen, and to provide insights and solutions based on those insights.”

Taking control of the sales process is the third aspect of the challenger model, said Rasmussen. “Sales is all about showing the client better ways of doing things,” he said.

“If a challenger sales person shows up, and there’s a relationship builder on the chase as well, the relationship builder won’t get a look in,” he said.

“There’s an old saying: if you want a relationship, get a dog. And that applies to sales too,” he added.

The challenger model also changes the relationship between marketing and sales. In the past, marketing would find the leads and throw them over the cubicle wall to sales. Now, said Rasmussen, marketing is a vital cog in the challenger sales model.

“Marketing’s job is to provide the insights and research to sales that allow sales to challenge the client’s status quo,” he said.