Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Why your salespeople are pushovers
Why your salespeople are pushovers
Now, of course, in all of these situations Challengers push back respectfully, professionally, empathetically and in
a manner consistent with local culture (the way you challenge in Japan is different than the way you challenge in
the U.S., for example). But, make no mistake, Challengers do push back.
When we present this research to sales leaders, we hear a common refrain: "If we tell our reps to sell like
Challengers and be more assertive, they'll go too far. They'll take it as a license to become aggressive." But more
often than not, this concern is unwarranted. In reality, most reps are far more likely to be passive than aggressive
with customers. Guided by years of training and a deeply seated but mistaken belief that they should always do
what the customer wants, reps seek to resolve tension with customers quickly, rather than prolong it. But
maintaining a certain amount of constructive tension is exactly what Challengers do.
Why do most reps fear tension? We see two reasons. First, they feel they have no choice — it's either acquiesce
or lose the deal. Yet, in a recent survey of sales reps and procurement officers, BayGroup International
determined that while 75 percent of reps believe that procurement has the upper hand in the rep-customer
relationship, 75 percent of procurement officers believe that reps have more power. What does that tell us? At the
very least, if reps give in simply because of a perceived power imbalance, they're conceding way too easily.
Second, most reps adopt a passive posture because senior management has told them to. How so? In ongoing
efforts to differentiate their companies, virtually every leadership team has exhorted their team to "put the
customer first," or "place the customer at the center of everything we do." It's not a bad strategy, mind you, but it
backfires when leadership is vague about how this translates to specific behavior. Without clear guidance, most
reps simply slip into "order taker" mode, closing small, disaggregated, price-driven deals at a discount all in the
name of "giving customers what they want."
How would you describe the best reps in your organization? Do they acquiesce to customer demands and
passively take business that's given to them or do they push their customers and use tension to their advantage?