It’s always interesting to have a guest speaker in class, and Evan Adams has yet to disappoint. His most recent lecture about the book “The Challenger Sale” was particularly fascinating.
I’ve done a lot of research about personality tests and personality types, but I have never analyzed people from this angle before. This new sales perspective was enlightening, especially when we’re all probably going to have to sell something at some point in our lives.
According to “The Challenger Sale,” there are five profiles that all salespeople fall into. The first is the Hard Worker. This person is highly motivated and is always looking for ways to improve him or herself. The Hard Worker shows up early and stays late- a classic Grover.
The Lone Wolf is a confident, self-assured, and independent salesperson. He or she delivers excellent results, but is not much of a team player.
The third profile is the Relationship Builder. This person always looks beyond the sale to ensure customer satisfaction. These salespeople are intentional about building long-term relationships with their customers, sometimes to their detriment.
The fourth profile (the one to which I most relate) is the Problem Solver. Problem Solvers are detail-oriented and work tirelessly to solve one problem in its entirety before they move on to the next one. While this is a good thing, it can also hinder productivity. However, these salespeople are some of the most reliable when it comes to serving the customers and ensuring that all customer needs are met.
The final profile is the Challenger. According to the research cited in the book, the salespeople who fit in this profile are most commonly the high performers. The Challenger has a deep understanding of the customer’s business, and is willing to push the customer to try new solutions. This person is as much of an asset as the product they are selling.
The insight provided by these profiles can be invaluable in analyzing yourself and your interactions with others- even outside of the sales context.
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You would think that the hard workers would be the highest performers because of their work ethic so it was definitely surprising to learn how effective the Challenger approach is.
With the Challenger being as much of an asset as someone selling a product, it reminded me of a trend that was discussed in Professor Kocur’s sales class last semester. We talked about four trends that have affected the evolution of sales and one of them being Value Co-Creation. Value Co-Creation is where the salesman has a deep understanding of the customer’s business and they sit down together, envision the future and the potential problems that may arise to which will need resolved. The salesman and the customer create innovative solutions together, to where the products and problems may not be developed yet, but the main goal is to be proactive with the ever changing marketplace and consumer needs.
I also find Evan Addam’s lecture about the different types of selling profiles super interesting. As he talking about each profile, I found myself trying to figure out which one I was but I thought I seemed to fit more than one profile. I seemed to fit a bunch of the qualities that each had so I was torn about which one I seem to learn more towards. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!