Want to grow your accountancy firm? Don’t hire a relationship builder...

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This business breakthrough report has to challenge your thinking.
It has to challenge you because, according to the research, the key to sales success is to challenge!
Whether you sell complex solutions or simple products and services – if you want to grow sales the evidence says you should avoid building ‘the-client-is-always-right’ relationships.
What’s reassuring is that even big firms make the mistake of not challenging, preferring to focus on building non-challenging relationships with their clients.
Here’s a global head of sales in the hospitality industry saying:
“...this is really hard to look at. For the last ten years it’s been our stated strategy to hire effective relationship builders.”
Neil Rackham, founder of a world renowned sales training company, says:
“...It (a customer relationship) is a reward that the salesperson earns by creating customer value. If you help customers think differently and bring them new ideas – which is what the ‘Challenger’ rep does – then you earn the right to a relationship.”
A subtle but vital distinction.
You need to recruit Challenger sales people – not relationship builders. And train all your existing people in the skills of being a Challenger.
Only then will you earn the right to a profitable client relationship.
Start with 4 helping hands here or read on for the full Bitesize Business Breakthrough.
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Towards the complex sale
The simple product or simple service sale is prone to commoditisation – and this drives prices down.
For this reason, it’s not surprising that 75%+ of businesses express their desire to be seen as a solution provider (complex) rather than a product provider (simple).
But for solution selling to work you have to be seen to be solving a genuine problem for your client.
For this reason, you need to be seen as a Challenger to help your clients navigate the maze of complexity they are dealing with.
5 types of sales person
A massive and sophisticated study of 6,000+ sales people across 90 companies points to 5 behavioural clusters of sales people:
Which one best describes your firm’s approach to selling?
The evidence says it’s the Challenger who is most likely to be a sales star in more complex sales.
The Challenger pushes the client, loves debate, understands the client’s business and always has a different view of the world.
As a result, they are best at dealing with known and unknown challenges the client is experiencing.
The Challenger helps clients navigate their maze of problems, delivers real value and earns the right to sales success.
Here's the proven solution for you...
Build ‘Challenger’ selling skills to grow sales.
This means getting better at teaching, tailoring to and asserting control with your customers.
Xerox show us the way...
KEY FACT
When Xerox adopted the ‘Challenger’ sales approach in 2013 they achieved sales growth worth £52m:
“We want our sales force to deliver insight and value, not sales pitches. That’s why our entire organization is being trained on the skills and behaviours that make Challengers successful.”
– Kevin Warren, Xerox
Xerox set about challenging their customers on the importance of colour. By using a challenging insight with customers – that 77% of students agree that colour boosts performance – Xerox saw a 17% increase in sales.
The most difficult time...
Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson were driven to find out what made for successful selling in 2009.
You’ll find their findings in the excellent book ‘The Challenger Sale’ and more on the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) website – see the download tools for more information on both.
What drove their initial research was the impact of the 2008 financial crash and the recession that followed.
If you could be successful at selling at this time it would make you good at selling anytime!
STOP seeing relationship building as the path to increased sales
START challenging your clients to think differently about their business
Click here to get to the checklist for growing sales by challenging your clients more...
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Learn to be a Challenger
Dixon and Adamson discovered that the skills, attitudes, behaviours and knowledge of being a Challenger can be learned.
If your firm installs the tools, training, coaching plus a reward and recognition process you’ll build a more ‘challenging’ sales team.
It worked for SAP (a global software solutions business).
KEY FACT
At SAP between 2012 and 2016, 5,500 sales people attended Challenger training.
As a result, they closed 26% more deals than before they were trained. They also generated 15% more sales opportunities than those who had not been trained.
What sort of difference would this make to your sales growth?
The challenge of 3 key skills
One skill is not enough.
Success at being a Challenger depends on a combination of 3 skills – teach, tailor, control.
Here’s what Dixon and Adamson say:
“If you TEACH without tailoring your approach to the different individuals within an organisation, you come off as irrelevant.
If you TAILOR to but don’t teach your clients something new, you risk sounding like every other supplier.
If you TAKE CONTROL but offer no value, you risk being simply annoying.”
The combination of the 3 matters.

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1. Challengers teach clients
Dixon and Adamson’s evidence suggests that 53% of what drives B2B purchase decisions is the sales person’s ability to teach the clients something new or challenge their thinking.
Work out and share new ideas with your client that can make them money or save them money – these are even more potent if they’re ideas your client hadn’t realised even existed.
Just like Xerox did around the insight that colour boosts performance – this boosted Xerox sales by 17%!
But be commercial.
“The sweet spot of client loyalty is outperforming your competitors on those things you’ve taught your clients to be important.”
This means your firm has work to do to strengthen the strengths you have (like Xerox on colour) that will also give your clients a win.
Share a commercial insight and bring a unique and provocative perspective on your client’s business – it’s far more valuable than sharing features and benefits alone.
2. Challengers tailor their message
Successful Challenger sales people seek widespread support across a client’s team – because they know in a complex decision consensus will be sought to make the decision.
It’s not enough for a sales person to get the approval of the highest-ranking decision maker.
The challenges and the messages that are relevant to the MD are different to those of the engineer using, say, a new robotic arm or new software tool. The quality manager will have another different perspective too. And what about the packaging team?
Challengers will position their sales pitch to different types of client stake holders within the organisation – they’ll tailor their message.
It’s hard to do this ‘on the hoof’. It requires preparation and planning. Start to anticipate the different people involved in a buying decision, what their issues will be and your unique insight that can help them.
3. Challengers take control
If 80% of buying decisions are lost to no decision at all, what do you do?
Take control.
“Challengers are assertive – they tend to ‘press’ customers a little – both on their thinking and around things like pricing.”
“...being assertive does not mean being aggressive or, worse still, annoying or abusive. This is all about the reps’ willingness and ability to stand their ground when the customer pushes back.”
– Dixon and Adamson, The Challenger Sale
Challengers are comfortable with tension and are unlikely to acquiesce to every client demand. When necessary, they can press clients a bit – not just in terms of their thinking but around things like price.
The challenge of being a Challenger?
You don’t learn to be a Challenger overnight. Time and effort is required to learn and build the 3 skills – teach, tailor and control.
But you already know your firm well. You already have a good understanding of your clients’ businesses too. Investing time in seeking a unique insight for your clients that you can help with takes work. But it’s work that can bring sales success.
To get a checklist of what to do in a Challenger sales conversation, check out the download tools link you’ll find at the bottom of this page.
Your guide for succeeding in challenger sales:
4 helping hands for you…
It can be really hard to acknowledge that the relationship builders are not helping you grow the sales in your firm.
You need to see yourselves and your sales people as Challengers. And turn your attention to building the skills of ‘challenging’ to grow your profits:
1
Be clear that relationship builders can be useful, but they are not your best source of sales growth –Challengers are
2
Build your sales team’s teaching skills and knowledge
3
Build your team’s tailoring skills and knowledge
4
And build your team’s abilities to show control when it’s needed.
Click here to re-read this whole Bitesize Business Breakthrough
TIME TO DISAGREE
“We are trying to make selling our ‘stuff’ as easy as we can – this all makes it seem way to complicated”
Selling is hard because buying is hard. Different studies suggest there’s anywhere between 5 and 10 people involved in a B2B buying decision.
Worse, the diversity of expectations makes it hard for people to agree on the purpose, price and success metrics of your sales offer.
It pays to accept that sales isn’t easy and put the work into figuring out how you can teach, tailor and control your buyers’ experience.
This becomes even more important when you realise that 53% of the buying decision relies on the quality of your buyers’ overall experience of the sales process (the value-to price ratio has only a 9% influence) according to the research by the authors.
“My competition aren’t challenging our clients, they are trying to make it as easy as possible to work with them!”
If by making it easy to work with them they are simply being nice and investing lots of time and networking across your clients, they are being relationship builders. These rarely grow sales.
As stated earlier, the research by CEB, from the book ‘The Challenger Sale’, suggests that in complex sales the star sales performers are 200% more effective than all the other types of sales people (including relationship builders). And the star performers are more likely to be Challengers than any other type of sales person.
And Challengers have a deep understanding of their client’s business, using that understanding to push their client’s thinking and teach them something about how they can make their business more effective. Xerox did this using colour, by creating a debate with their customer that was relevant to their customer, and then driving them to take action.
“When business is tough it’s about being in the right place at the right time whether you’re challenging or not!”
The research by Dixon and Adamson kicked off in 2009 when the last recession was at its height.
At this time most sales people were wondering when things would pick up again. However, the research showed that a few sales people continued to win sales for their business – Challenger sales people were recession-proof.
Those that succeeded used a blend of teach, tailor and control – these Challengers were winners even when it was as tough as it gets.
ULTIMATE ARGUMENT:
“How do I know that challenging our clients will help us grow the profits of our firm?”
Xerox added 17% to sales by challenging their customers on colour and helping them see how to get value from the use of colour. This has been worth tens of millions of pounds to Xerox.
When you start to focus on challenging your clients you too could realise sales growth. But only if you give it a serious try.
What’s to lose from better understanding your client’s business, engaging in debate, pushing your client a little and sharing a different view of the world? You’ll be demonstrating a level of care and a determination to help not seen before.
Your 'Make It Happen' checklist:
To grow sales start challenging your clients more...
Being nice and likeable, thinking ‘the-customer-is-always-right’, being generous with your time, working hard to ensure that your clients’ needs are met, being accessible and ready to serve are worthy relationship building skills.
However...
1
Relationship building is not your best source of sales growth
Relationship builders are useful, but Challengers are your best source of sales growth. Challengers create constructive tension in client conversations by using a combination of three skills...
2
Build your sales people’s TEACHING skills and knowledge
Teach your clients something new or challenge their thinking to create some constructive tension in your client conversations. Work out and share new ideas with your client that can make them money or save money (like Xerox)...
3
Build your TAILORING skills and knowledge
Seek widespread support across your client’s team – in a complex decision your client will seek consensus across their people, only then will they make a decision. Tailor your messages (and your challenges) to each of the people involved in the buying decision.
4
Build your sales people’s ability to show CONTROL when it’s needed
Don’t acquiesce to every client demand. When necessary, press clients a bit – not just in terms of their thinking but around things like price. But remember, if you take control but offer no value, you risk being simply annoying!
Want to know more?
The Challenger Sale
Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
Neil Rackham left the UK and successfully built a global sales training company from the USA. So, when Neil suggests that:
“...any sales force that ignores the message of this book does so at its peril.”
…it’s worth taking note. He goes on to say:
“In recent years, customers have been demanding more depth and expertise. They expect sales people to teach them things they don’t know. These are the core skills of Challengers. They are the skills of the future”
‘The Challenger Sale’ is essential reading for anyone wanting to grow sales.
YOUR SUPPORT TOOLS ARE HERE:
Go to the link below and you'll find a selection of practical support tools to help you challenge your clients more to build better sales
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