I recently “re-read” Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson’s book, “The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation” via an Audiobook during a long drive to and from meetings with customers and employees. I found the refresher even more appropriate for how we are all looking to transform our businesses and the value we provide to our customers. The authors have developed a compelling case that sales professionals who are most effective at putting new ideas in front of their customers have been and will continue to be the most successful. They build their case by describing five types of sales reps, the names of which are self-explanatory:

1. The Hard Worker
2. The Challenger
3. The Relationship Builder
4. The Lone Wolf
5. The Reactive Problem Solver

They cite much data from the recent economic downturn that demonstrates exactly how much more successful the “Challenger” sellers were in driving revenue for their companies and new solutions for their customers. And that word – solution – provides the key focus, as Challenger sellers are those who teach their customers about new ways of running their business and provide them with solutions to their business problems rather than mere products. Many will recall Lay, Hewlin, and Moore’s March 2009 article in the Harvard Business Review, “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers”, as proposing a similar approach to consultative selling.

How does this specifically apply to the technical sales profession and the manner in which technical sellers engage with their customers? This is particularly interesting to consider given that initially one might expect that the primary responsibility of many technical sales reps is to focus at the product level rather than on the larger solution. They are charged with having deep skills in a limited set of a supplier’s products, as they are the ones responsible for telling customers how the product works and how the customer can use it. The authors establish that a core behavior of the Challenger seller is that of a teacher. A Challenger seller provides insight and value that enables the customer to use the supplier’s offerings in new and innovative ways to run their business. With a solid foundation in the technical aspects of the products, the motivated technical sales professional should be able to raise their level of thinking and interaction with their customers to provide this sort of value. In a complex enterprise selling environment, this sort of behavior can become a true differentiator for a vendor.