The Challenger Sales Model

I am reading a very interesting book on Challenger Sales Model written by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. I am going to document some quick notes so that I can come back to the blog and refresh myself very often. I highly recommend reading this book for complete insights as my notes are merely key points that I want to remember. I do not claim any ownership of the model or research published in the book and my notes do not replace the reading :)

Lets look at the findings of the Challenger Sales model before diving deep.

Finding #1: The model classifies the sales execs in the following five types:

1. The Hard Worker
   • Always willing to go extra mile
   • Doesn't give up easily
   • Self-motivated
   • Interested in feedback and development
2. The Challenger
   • Always has a different view of the world
   • Understand the customer's business
   • Loves to debate
   • Pushes the customer
3. The Relationship Builder
   • Builds strong advocates in customer organization
   • Generous in giving time to help others
   • Gets along with everyone
4. The Lone Wolf
   • Follows own instincts
   • Self assured
   • Difficult to control
5. The Reactive Problem Solver
   • Reliably respond to internal and external stakeholders
   • Ensures that all problems are solved
   • Detailed oriented

Finding #2: One clear winner, one clear loser
When the numbers are compared challenger salesperson win by a landslide. The challenger sales person focus on building constructive tension in customer interaction to push the customer of his control zone. The challenger's do the following things very well:

• Teach
• Tailor
• Assert Control

If you teach without tailoring, you come off as irrelevant. If you tailor but don't teach, you risk sounding like every other supplier. If you take control but offer no value, you risk being simply annoying. Finding #3: Challengers are solution selling representatives not just down economy representative. If you do not have complex sale cycle or offering then you might be better of working with hardworker as they are perfectly able to follow the process and close the sale using methodical approach and product information. In order to be a solution seller, one has to understand the clients business needs very clearly and then tailor the solution in such a way that the bundle of solution and services help client solve the big problem.

Pillars of Challenger Sales Model:

1. Teaching for differentiation: Teaching is all about offering customers unique perspectives on their business and communicating those perspectives with passion and precision in a way that draws the customer into the conversation. These new perspective apply not to the product and solutions, but to how the customer can compete more effectively in their market. Its insight they can use to free up operating expenses, penetrate new markets and reduce risk
2. Tailoring for resonance: Tailoring relies on reps knowledge of specific business priorities of whomever he or she is talking to. The specific outcomes that particular person values most, the results they're on the hook to deliver for their company, and the various economic drivers most likely to affect those outcomes.In a time when consensus is more important than ever to get the deal done, it is no surprise that the rep who wins in this environment is the one who can effectively tailor the message to wide range of customer stakeholders in order to build that consensus
3. Take control of the sale: When the topic of price comes up, a powerful technique is for the sales professional to shift the discussion from price to value. The value of customer offering in order of importance. This sometimes enables the customer to see the offering in a different light; these new insights are very useful to both the sales professional and the customer as they think about the value.

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In my following posts I will have my cheat sheets for what could possibly help me become a challenger sales person.

Solution based selling

Why Solution based selling matters?

Solution based selling is largely driven by suppliers attempt to escape dramatically increasing commoditizing pressure on individual products and services become less differentiated over time.

Relationship difference in the approach:

1. Nature of Relationship
   • Product Sell: Supplier reacts to purchase order
   • Solution Sell: Supplier viewed as trusted adviser
2. Selling Skills
   • Product Sell: Strong Knowledge of product portfolio
   • Solution Sell: Boardroom level engagement with customer
3. Customer Experience
   • Product Sell: Quality product/service at good price
   • Solution Sell: Provision of strategic insight regarding customer's business

Side effects of Solution Based Selling:

1. Rise of consensus bases sale -> Its just like a car sales dealer has to convince a family before a luxury car is bought as opposed to a consumer report rating based car buy as its just another commodity. Understanding the team dynamics and interfaces between the department becomes very important.
2. Increased risk aversion -> In the world of complex solutions, supplier success is often measured by the performance of the customers business, not the suppliers product. The risk factors are considered in the value proposition.
3. Greater demand for customization -> Solutions are always bespoke to customers business model. The truth is everyone wants customization, no one wants to pay for it. The solution to this problem is to make processes a part of your solution and build innovative solution which are flexible to accommodate various process flows. In car market people say, "The design is free because it costs the same to make a bad design when compared to a good design"
4. Too many cooks in the house: There is a rise of third party consultants who act on behalf of the clients for vendor and services selection.

Why Mobile Analytics is different and exciting?

• Mobile/Tablets are replacing the way we interact on internet. Tablets are taking the experience of browsing at home from desk to a couch or dining table.
  
• Screen sizes and ways to intereact with smart phones and tables are very much different than traditional desktop.
  
• Websites can be upgraded when needed but there is no guarantee that the user will upgrade the app even after you push an update to the store.
  
• Monetizing the ads in websites was easy as the publisher chose where to place the ads. In mobile apps the ad placement have little or no control on where to place ads. Gaming the users in such a way that they think that there is enough incentive to watch an ad is the best way to make sure the ad was delivered right.
  
• With mobile apps now the publishers get complete access to the location profile of the user and thus making ads more valuable if done correctly.
  
• Functionally the apps have much more control on the device when compared to a browser running on the machine. When was the last time Apple checked that you programmed a website correctly for Safari? but they like to check each app and update for an app in the app store.
  

Also there is no business without a customer. So to establish the opportunity I would like to point you to a wonderful experiment that ft.com is doing at Grand Central Station: FT.com Mobile Story

Also check out this conversation. Really good example of how mobile analytics is different:Expedia Story of Mobile App Analytic

comScore Monetization Analytix (MAx)

One of the popular news site in India is, The Times of India. Their site is:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

They intent fully put cheesy content to the bottom so people scroll down and click on that content so they make extra cash on these page views (by selling display ads).

Example of the content (annoys the heck out of me when an old newspaper puts nonsense content like this. Where is the editorial integrity gone?)


Especially the life and style.

So another newspaper in India made a mockery out of their content using this Ad.
Link-Which newspaper do you read?

Kareena Kapoor is one of the top actresses, but the point here is no one knows answer to simple stuff. The beep is for calling out Times Of India’s name.

Most managing editors have guilt for such cheesy content but then to stay alive in digital business those page views are needed. This makes it very important to serve limited content and make more money out of the ads. This is where MAx offering from comScore can help.

Geek Hangout

I always hear about the various events that people participate in. I managed to get a good list of such events. I probably call it as the Geek Hangout.

Here is a list of some of these conferences where the fun happens:
Game Developers Conference
CeBIT
LAUNCH Festival
SXSW Interactive
London Web Summit
Signal
Ignition West
Structure Data
Microsoft Dev Connection
Combinator Demo Day
VentureBeat Mobile Summit
Where
Data 2.0 Summit
ad:tech
Ad Age Digital
DEMO
The Next Web
Future Insights Live
Wired Business Conference
BlackBerry World
D10
E3
Tech Policy Summit
Microsoft TechEd North America 2012
LeWeb London
Structure Data
Velocity
Microsoft TechEd Europe
Google I/O
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

Techmeme does a complete list
Techmeme events list

Linkedin Adverstising

As I am writing this blogpost I am on a train journey back to Washington DC. The Acela express provides free internet connectivity but at the same time probably optimizes the use of internet by blocking the ads.

One example of this was the double click/Dart iframe actually shows the call made to doubleclick but has no display ad being served.

What is interesting is the data about me that LinkedIn passes to Double click and which I think is pretty specific segment information as it is accurate and provided by me :)

lang=>Language
u=>Encoded user id?
func=>my job function first word in the title
func=>my job function
coid=>Company ID
csize=>Company Size
zip=>My Zip code
cntry=>Country
edu=>My grad school
edu=>My undergrad school
gy=>Graduating Year
gdr=>Gender
age=>Age
seg=278http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
seg=>Target Segment
grp=>Target Group

Just thought this is exciting. For a free service I do not mind LinkedIn using my data. Also for what it matters I will probably never click on a display ad and thus the ad spend is a waste for the advertiser as my propensity to act on the message provided by the ad is ZERO :)

Also if you would like to opt out here is a video:

Set comScore debugger

I got a comment from a user few days back. I want to mention that this works only for comScore's scorecardresearch.com tracked traffic.

To setup the Digital Aanaltix/comScore beacon Debugger
1) Open any browser and then go to any website.
2) Browse to any page on the internet and set a bookmark.



3) Edit the bookmark and change the URL. The following shows the steps in Mozilla.
Step 1: Find your bookmarks and right click to see the properties option.


Step 2: When you click on properties the following window opens and the location/URL needs to be updated.


Step 3: Copy the following javaScript

javascript:void(window.open("","daxDebug","width=600,height=600,location=0,menubar=0,status=1,toolbar=0,resizable=1,scrollbars=1").document.write("script%20language=\"JavaScript\"%20id=dbg%20src=\"http://webmetrictools.com/dax/debugger.js\">"));

Step 4: Replace the URL with the javaScript. The final screen looks like:


Okay now that I have it, how do i use it?
1) Go to the website where you want to see the comScore beacon values
2) Click on the bookmark list while on the website and then click the bookmark for debugger.


3) Here is what you should see.