The Challenger Sale (One)

Post date: 12-Jan-2015 18:45:08

A recent publication by Dixon and Adamson (2011) claims to be a revolution in selling: its biggest strength is that it finally takes note of the shift in the purchasing behavior of large corporates. I am always keen to dissect the commercial products masquerading as scientific research---so keen in this case that I will split my analysis into several posts.

To start off, a publication in Harvard Business Review (in this case, Brent, Dixon, & Toman, 2012) supporting an earlier monograph always raises a big bullshit flag for me. Thus I was particularly pleased to find support in Rapp and colleagues (2014) whose criticism of the challenger model ranged from lack of originality to logical inconsistency to statistical incompetence.

First, Rapp and colleagues (2014) argue that the challenger model is merely a regurgitation---and not a very consistent one at that---of the existing concepts of customer orientation and selling orientation, which have been researched to death over the last 20 years or so. The only mildly original thing is the idea of generating tension with the customer, but, while Rapp and colleagues strongly doubt it is a good strategy, particularly with new prospects, my opinion is that the jury is still out on this one. The fact that Dixon and Adamson (2011) derived this idea from a survey of 6000 professionals is not sufficient until this idea is independently validated.

Rapp and colleagues (2014) also point out logical inconsistencies in the model like, for example, the suggestion that developing relationships with the customer should take the secondary position to delivering disruptive, challenging insights to selected players within the customer. What the challenger designers do leave out of this equation is the salesperson’s credibility. In order for the buyer to merely listen to a disrupting presentation---let alone end up being disrupted by it---the salesperson should have credibility with the buyer. Since the model assumes evolved, sophisticated buyers, an expensive suit worn by the salesperson can no longer count as such source of credibility---only an established relationship can. So, we go back to relationship building as a prerequisite rather than a secondary consideration.

On the statistical note, Rapp and colleagues (2014) claim that the designers of the challenger method should have used cluster analysis, instead of factor analysis, when coming up with their taxonomy of evolved salesperson behaviors. My argument in this respect is that we do not know what actually happened: maybe Dixon and Adamson (2011) did use cluster analysis, but called it factor analysis not to confuse their readers with statistical snobbery.

And here lies the biggest problem with the challenger model posing as a scientific breakthrough. The differentiating factor of scientific research is not the use of statistical equilibristics or tormenting huge numbers of participants with elaborate questionnaires. It is peer review. Until critically-minded researchers are able to look at your data and your methods in order to see how exactly you arrived at your conclusions, you can call your endeavors anything but scientific research.

I will look into all other strengths and weaknesses of the challenger model in my future posts, but I wanted to begin this series with establishing in the minds of my readers that what the challenger model is seriously short on is science.

References

Brent, A., Dixon, M., & Toman, N. (2012). The end of solution sales. Harvard Business Review, 90(7/8), 60 – 68.

Dixon, M., & Adamson, B. (2011). The challenger sale: Taking control of the customer conversation. New York, NY: Penguin.

Rapp, A., Bachrach, D. G., Panagopoulos, N., & Ogilvie, J. (2014). Salespeople as knowledge brokers: A review and critique of the challenger sales model. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 34, 245 – 259.