Four Storytelling Techniques to Bring Your Data to Life

Nancy Duarte

The adage that “our world runs on data” means that decisions are being based on vast amounts of statistics. Data-derived insights drive what time trains stop running, when Starbucks introduces holiday cups, and the temperature of the building you might be sitting in right now.

Even though most corporate roles now work with data, it’s shockingly easy to forget that people generate most of it. When a user clicks a link, gets blood taken at the lab, or sets up a smartwatch, that person generates data. As people move, buy, sell, use, work, and live, their actions nudge numbers up or down and drive organizational decisions, big and small.

If it’s your role to communicate data insights and persuade people to change their behavior, you’ll have more influence and promote better decision-making if you emphasize the people behind the numbers. In a story, we root for the hero as he or she maneuvers through roadblocks. To use data to steer your organization in the right direction, you need to tap into the human tale your data can tell.

By leveraging four techniques from storytelling, leaders can bring a richer, more human understanding to the problem that the data reveals and better understand the opportunities it presents. Those techniques are identifying the hero and the hero’s adversary, speaking with people generating the data, identifying and addressing conflict, and sharing context.

Search for the Hero and the Adversary in the Data

Because most organizational data is generated by humans, the first step toward insight is to empathetically understand the people whose actions generate that data and who can turn slumps around.

These data-generating people are the characters in your story. In any story, myth, or movie, we get to know various characters and grow to love some and revile others. Some become heroes who overcome the obstacles in their paths and eventually defeat their adversaries.

In a data story, the hero is whoever can play a role in moving the data in the desirable direction. For businesses, the heroes could be employees, customers, or partners.

Consider the scenario of a CEO at a midsize software company where sales dropped 30% in the previous quarter. As she’s faced with the task of course-correcting this sharp decline, she needs to dig into the question, “What happened?” To find out, she’ll have to understand the people behind the company’s numbers and who the hero is who can reverse the sales slump.

In this scenario, the CEO’s determination is that the sales team is the likely hero in the turnaround. The data shows that they have been working harder than ever, and the decline isn’t due to their lack of effort. But perhaps the team has an adversary, something or someone causing the numbers to go down. Or perhaps new inefficiencies have been introduced by a change in process or added bureaucracy.

Speak With the People Generating the Data

Data tells you what has happened in the past, but it doesn’t always tell you why. Talking to the people generating the numbers can help.

To help a hero get unstuck, a leader has to go straight to the source. Reading forums, conducting surveys, analyzing customer comments, and hiring consultants are all tools to help learn what is in the hero’s way. But the best way to really understand people’s issues is to speak with them directly.

To do so, identify a random sampling of data heroes. Speak with them, asking about their concerns, opinions, and motivations. Empathetically listen. You’ll hear things that surveys and Salesforce data simply can’t tell you.

By talking directly with a senior manager, the software CEO from our sample scenario might learn that her sales team has been struggling to fully adapt to new sales software that was designed to streamline a previously sticky process. While half of the sales team has wholeheartedly embraced the change, more senior team members are feeling frustrated. They’re fumbling to learn the new tool and still leaning on a legacy process.

This is a human element of the story that may not have been revealed through data alone. But after speaking with the people behind the numbers, our CEO knows who to work with in order to reverse the trajectory.

Identify and Address Conflict

All heroes in a story face conflict. Having a hero to root for makes a tale engaging. Heroes typically face some classic encounters: discord with another character, clashes with nature, tension with a social group, war within themselves, and struggles with change.

In a business context, heroes can be in conflict with a system (as some of the sales team has been with the new software in our scenario), conflict with another person (a change in leadership could be causing issues within the organization), or conflict with themselves (maybe they’re struggling with burnout or didn’t take the training they were asked to).

By identifying the type of conflict people are facing, a leader gets a clearer view of how to communicate information that will help the hero get unstuck.

Share Context

Current data points, though significant, don’t exist in a vacuum. Data collected over time creates a bigger picture of victories and defeats. Sharing context can help leaders motivate their organizations and move their heroes forward and on to victory, especially after a defeat.

In the sample scenario, if the CEO were to share just the most recent data, her team might not feel that they can recover the lost sales to date. Seeing a 30% decrease could demoralize them. But if the CEO zooms out a little and looks at a longer time frame, she might discover that sales bounced back after a similar decline five years earlier.

Sharing the details about how the sales team recovered in the past demonstrates to them that if they could make a turnaround then, they can certainly do it again.

We should never let our data speak for itself. With big data as pervasive as it is today, it is easily classified as noise, and that’s especially true when there is no real context to support it. Productive people help data move in a desirable direction. In every shocking statistic, hockey-stick growth curve, or line chart that hits the x-axis like a lead balloon, there’s a heroic story waiting to be revealed.

Learning to curate and tell stories within an organization can become a kind of superpower for a leader. By humanizing the data, leaders bring a greater understanding to the problems that data initially reveals. When they take the time to speak with the data story’s characters, get to know the hero-in-waiting’s fears and motivations, address the conflict that the hero is facing, and put the data challenge into an appropriate context, leaders develop a deeper, more human connection to their opportunities for moving forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nancy Duarte (@nancyduarte) is CEO of Duarte Inc., a communications firm in Silicon Valley and New York. She’s the author of DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story (Ideapress Publishing, 2019).

https://bit.ly/2Zu3RvG

18 Things Strong Businesses Do

Too many times CEOs and business leaders separate overarching principles of life from how they run their businesses. I don’t see it that way. The very same principles we use for personal development and parenting apply directly to how we approach our business lives and working with co-workers. Refer to the picture above that lists 18 things that strong people do. Let’s take that same list and apply it to business.

• They reflect on progress
  • An essential part of any corporate culture is knowing where we came from and what got us here. We know that a part of employee engagement is having a strong belief in what we do and work for. It’s important for businesses to articulate a solid message and establish corporate culture. This also speaks to investing in excellent market knowledge and a deep insight into the business sectors you operate in.

• They tolerate discomfort
  • Business is not for the faint of heart. It can be challenging to lead departments, divisions, and companies. You will never be liked or respected 100% of the time. Many times you will make unpopular decisions. As an effective business leader you will need to be able to tolerate immense levels of discomfort at certain times in your career.

• They think productively
  • How do we know how a business thinks? We look at the internal process within it’s communication network. How do the leaders work together? Are they productive with each other or is there so much personal competition that no one trusts one another? Is everyone too afraid of the VP’s to ever really tell them the truth? That is not a productive environment. Can your internal processes tolerate the truth, healthy conflict, and innovation? If this is true about your company then it is well on it’s way to communicating productively.

• They expend their mental energy wisely
  • Have solid discipline on what issues you choose to get involved in. All corporations have politics mixed with personal ambition. It can create some of the most challenging and competitive environments anyone can imagine. Successful navigation is based on picking your battles wisely. You will not be able to fix everything that is broken.

• They evaluate their core beliefs
  • Business leaders need to be able to look at themselves in the mirror each morning and feel that their choices are leading the company in a positive direction. They have to have a set of core beliefs that consistently drive the choices they make on a daily basis. These are the small steps that will lead to the ultimate destination or goal.

• They have staying power
  • These businesses have established effective brand loyalty and operate under efficient monetary policies. In many ways, this is the most desirable characteristic on the list. The ability to remain present and competitive in your market segment is the desire of every business.

• They are prepared to work and succeed on their own merits
  • Is your company’s leadership accessible and known by the employees? Do they feel that you know them, or is there a sense that the executive team is untouchable and beyond reproach? I think the latter is often times seen as the old school paradigm. Businesses of the future will need to have leaders than can stand on their own merits and be good personal communicators as well as inspirational.

• They enjoy their time alone
  • Is your business actively involved in developing its talent pool? Do you develop the potential leaders in your midst? Fostering growth and development within your company is one of the wisest investments you can make that pays dividends on multiple fronts. While boosting employee engagement, career development can also help identify tomorrow’s leaders by giving them opportunities to flex their muscle in relatively safe business scenarios.

• They are willing to fail
  • We know that some of the most successful entrepreneurs are on the cutting edge of where the market is headed. This can be a very risky place to be, and just as many fail as succeed on any given day. Are you willing to fail? Is your business playing so safe to survive that they are no longer relevant? Safety certainly has its time and place in business, but it’s usually not for an extended period of time and never a consistent business strategy for the movers and shakers.

• They celebrate other people’s success
  • Does your company foster an environment of productive excellence? One that promotes competition but not at the cost of the human relationships that make the business function? We need to be able to recognize accomplishments and have that energize us to achieve. This kind of attitude can be contagious but it must start at the top. People are recognized for the ideas and given credit for what they bring.

• They accept full responsibility for their past behavior
  • Is your leadership accountable? Do they promote personal accountability? Or is there an environment of survival and passing the buck? On a personal level no one wants to lose their job, but the lack of accountability can be pervasive within a company if the leadership is not also subjected to the same thing. Ultimately, the assurance of accountability is what drives good decision making in the moment, rather than damage control after the fact.

• They invest energy in the present
  • How effective is your company’s leadership team at managing the day to day? Is the team incentivized to be micromanagers or are they hands off types? Both of these can have positive and negative consequences in all types of areas. Ideally, effective leaders approach the day to day with a blended approach where the situation dictates what kind approach will work best. Managing the day to day requires your front line managers to have good coaching and communication skills.

• They are willing to take calculated risks
  • Is your business taking the right kind of risks? Are you leveraged too much and cannot weather a period of loss or failure successfully? Risk taking is certainly essential within the global business climate, but excessive risk is dangerous. This can leverage the careers of your employees, and the ultimate viability of the business itself. All leaders need to be effective at balancing risk and choose the path that yields long-term growth.

• They are kind
  • Can businesses be kind? Of course they can. In many ways the alternative fuel market is trying to be kind to the planet. We can be kind to our customers by investing in effective internal processes and producing good high quality products. We can be kind to our employees by creating a positive work environment, fostering ways to reduce stress and promote wellness. This one is probably the easiest to integrate into most segments of our businesses, and it’s the one that is most directly related to a personal characteristic as well.

• They stay happy
  • Can your business sustain itself through the tough times? Can you maintain a positive attitude even when you are under scrutiny? Every business has regulatory, finance, and ethical pressures. Are you able to maintain a positive approach in the midst of dealing with these tough pressures? The ability to stay positive can say a lot about the leadership team.

• They embrace change
  • Constant change is the only thing that is guaranteed not to change. So many things can change on any given day. The government, stock market, fiscal climate, natural disasters, and so many other things can present our businesses with obstacles and opportunities. Rarely is a change only a challenge, rather it almost always presents an opportunity to someone even if it’s only because of their unique way of solving the problem. We must embrace change, especially in this exponentially changing global tech driven market.

• They keep control
  • Strategic long range planning is one of the best ways to create the semblance of control, which is the ability to anticipate the inevitable uncontrollable events effectively. When your leadership is involved with maintaining an effective long-range plan and also maintaining that plan on a regular basis, several things happen. The team is in alignment and communicating about the plan frequently. They also understand all of the background discussion that went into the critical discussions and decisions and have the ability to handle the small issues in their world using the same priorities.

• They move on
  • Forward thinking and avoiding “status quo” thinking can be easier said than done. It’s the rare business that truly tolerates, let alone, promotes an environment of innovation. Business leaders can foster this kind of thinking in themselves, but fail to create an environment that promotes this kind of thinking in their employees. When you examine the sectors of the market that are the fastest growing and will be the most relevant in the future, they clearly are focused on innovation.

This post was originally published on the Northlink Consulting Blog 12/27/2015

Michael Hintz

https://bit.ly/3ggEwet

Маркетинг без бюджета: 10 мощных тактик

Что делать, когда нет денег на продвижение?

Сокращения и жесткие ограничения бюджетов усложняют работу маркетологам, но даже без бюджета можно реализовать много разных проектов.

Ниже перечислены основные тактики, которые помогут компании укрепить авторитет и повысить узнаваемость бренда, а также улучшить показатели трафика сайта. Для реализации большинства из них нужна только команда, которая поможет создать отличный контент.  

1. Создавайте полезный контент

Создание контента – один из лучших способов продвижения бренда, если у вас скромный бюджет. Например, вы можете начать вести блог. Ведение блога – отличный способ привлечь целевую аудиторию и создать поток органического трафика на сайт. Кроме того, можно использовать пространство блога, чтобы отвечать на вопросы клиентов, таким образом привлекая новые потенциальные лиды.

Если у вас нет новый идей, помните, что всегда можно перепрофилировать уже существующий контент. Нет необходимости заново изобретать колесо с каждым новым постом. Вы можете создать инфографику или видео, чтобы привлечь новую аудиторию с помощью разных платформ, таких как YouTube, например.

Кроме того, вы можете сотрудничать с другими площадками и вести гостевой блог на других сайтах, а также размещать гостевые посты в своем блоге. Это отличный способ бесплатно расширить свою аудиторию.

Определите целевую аудиторию и ее болевые точки. Создавайте материалы, из которых читатели смогут вынести хотя бы одну полезную и ценную мысль. Таким образом вы сможете формировать список потенциальных клиентов, которые впоследствии могут превратиться в продажи. Контент-маркетинг – мощный инструмент. Если у вас нет на это времени, наймите консультанта или агентство по доступным ценам.

2. Начните вести подкаст

Еще один эффективный способ добраться до целевой аудитории – это подкастинг. С его помощью вы сможете разнообразить ваш контент-маркетинг. Для начала попробуйте перепрофилировать старый контент блога в темы для подкаста, а затем продвигать его через собственные медиа-каналы.

Подкаст поможет завоевать верных последователей и, в конечном счете, лояльных клиентов ваших продуктов и услуг, а также укрепить репутацию личного бренда и компании в целом.

3. Предложите бесплатный пробный период

На первый взгляд, пробный бесплатный доступ может показаться корпоративным или финансовым решением, хотя на самом деле он является отличной маркетинговой тактикой. Когда вы предлагаете бесплатно попробовать свой продукт или сервис, вам удается выстроить доверительные отношения с клиентом и улучшить репутацию бренда.

Позвольте клиенту оценить, насколько прекрасен ваш продукт или сервис. Тем самым вы избалуете клиента, и он не захочет уходить. Даже если вы потеряете несколько человек после пробного периода, то сможете получить ценную обратную связь и дообработать свое предложение.  

4. Устраивайте розыгрыши

Проведение розыгрышей совместно с другими компаниями – беспроигрышный вариант для всех сторон. Если вы можете выйти на новую аудиториию, чтобы рассказать о себе и своих сервисах, сделайте это. Награда за участие в розыгрыше должна быть полезной и привлекательной для потенциальных участников, а также иметь стратегическое значение для вашего бизнеса.

С помощью совместного розыгрыша о вас узнает новая аудитория, на которую у вас не было выхода ранее. После окончания этой инициативы вам может показаться, что ваши ресурсы истощены, но в любом случае у вас должно останутся новые лиды и последователи, с которыми можно продолжать работать.

5. Поощряйте создание пользовательского контента

Вы наверняка задавали себе вопрос «как я могу получить контент бесплатно». Ответ очевиден – User generated content (UGC) – контент, который создают сами пользователи. Истории клиентов, читателей и подписчиков обычно являются частью краудсорсинговой инициативы, когда компания просит пользователей предложить идеи или материалы, которые они смогут переиздать.

Например, компания Lay's уже много лет проводит кампанию «Do Us a Flavor» – сделай нам вкус, от английского выражения «Do Us a Favor» – окажи нам услугу. Бренд просит аудиторию предложить новые идеи о вкусе чипсов. Можно предложить поклонникам бренда выложить фотографии с вашим продуктом и попросить добавить хэштег к посту в Instagram.

Подобные активности помогут улучшить присутствие в интернете и репутацию бренда практически бесплатно, а также помочь команде принимать продуктовые и маркетинговые решения.

6. Развивайте присутствие в соцсетях

Социальные сети – пожалуй, важнейший канал, с помощью которого поколение Z узнает о новостях и новых продуктах. Но не все компании этим пользуются. Тем не менее любая компания может начать создавать свое собственное интернет-сообщество бесплатно.

Вам придется создать много интересного контента, чтобы по-настоящему начать доминировать в мире социальных сетей. Можно использовать посты, живое видео или формат историй, чтобы рассказать о компании, предложить пользователям создать свой контент или взаимодействовать с аудиторией, создавая шаг за шагом свой бренд.

7. Вовлекайтесь в жизнь профильных сообществ

Следите за тем, что происходит вокруг вас в жизни местного или релевантного вашему бизнесу сообщества. Когда будет возможность, присоединяйтесь к его инициативам и проектам. Вы можете выступить спонсором или партнером локальных или профессиональных мероприятий или даже организовать собственное мероприятие для них. Участие в жизни других сообществ может быть экономически эффективным способом повысить узнаваемость бренда и охватить новую аудиторию.

8. Проведите вебинар

Inbound Marketing (входящий маркетинг) – это подход, при котором компании используют тактики для привлечения внимания целевой аудитории без прямой и навязчивой рекламы, предлагая какие-то «полезности».

По словам Кристен Бейкер, менеджера по маркетингу HubSpot, вебинары дают возможность компаниям провести цифровое интерактивное мероприятие для целевой аудитории и клиентов, независимо от их местоположения. Их можно использовать для повышения конверсии, узнаваемости бренда, увеличения доходов,  утверждения себя в качестве эксперта в своей области, а также для сбора контактов и лидов.

Советы по успешному проведению вебинаров можно найти в статье 20 советов тем, кто хочет провести успешный вебинар и избежать ошибок

9. Проверьте присутствие в онлайн-каталогах

Одна из главных целей отдела маркетинга – добиться активного онлайн-присутствия. Присутствие в различных онлайн-каталогах – хороший способ этого достичь. Когда пользователи что-то ищут в интернете, каталоги предоставляют информацию о вашей компании, которая указана в учетной записи (имя, адрес, телефон, веб-сайт). Вот почему надо давать полное описание вашей компании и стараться быть указанным в как можно в большем количестве каталогов. Как правило, обновление описания компании является бесплатным, и вы можете предоставить больше информации для оптимизации присутствия в разных каталогах.

10. Улучшайте SEO-стратегию

SEO может быть непростой задачей, но, на самом деле, это один из самых эффективных способов увеличить трафик на сайте и расширить органический охват.

Для улучшения SEO-стратегии, проведите анализ ключевых слов, рассмотрите возможность создания блога, плана построения ссылок и оптимизации контента вашего сайта.

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Как видите, затраты на маркетинг могут быть не такими уж дорогими. Можно использовать сразу несколько тактик даже с ограниченным бюджетом. Для большинства вышеперечисленных стратегий нужны только люди, которые будут создавать контент.

По материалам blog.hubspot.com, перевела с английского Алина Прудских

18 Things to Control When Things Are Out of Control

ANTHONY IANNARINO

These things are within your control. Focusing on the things that are within your control is the best response to a world that is out of control.

1. Sleep: If you want to feel a lot better, have much more energy, be a lot more productive, and do better work, there may not be anything more important than getting a good night’s sleep. We underestimate how important sleep is to our overall health and our performance.
2. Hydration: Most people walk around dehydrated (I am one of them). After sleep, if you want to feel less groggy and improve your energy, drink a lot more water. Start your day with a large glass of ice water as soon as you wake up, rehydrating yourself as you start your day.
3. Nutrition: Trade eating things that give you comfort for food that fuels you. Maybe go with Michael Pollan’s recommendation, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Eliminating sugar is, by itself, a huge upgrade to your nutrition.
4. Exercise: The human body is designed for a different time. It is designed to do more physical work than what is required of knowledge workers (those of us who work with our minds, instead of our backs and hands). You don’t need to complete an Ironman unless that is your thing. Take a walk. Do some yoga. Lift some weights. You will feel better—and you will recognize a benefit in your overall performance.
5. Morning Routine: Starting your day with a morning routine can and will set you up to have a successful day. The list above this point offers several things worth the first hour of your day. Maybe you want to write morning pages or meditate. Maybe you want to pray. Do whatever ensures you are in the right frame of mind by doing what sets you up for success and get a sense of control first thing.
6. Attitude: The four categories above makes this one easier to achieve. Your attitude is a variable when it comes to your happiness and your effectiveness, especially in turbulent times. Your attitude is determined mainly by whether or not you are grateful. If you recognize your life as your greatest gift, you’ll generally have a good attitude. You could do worse than starting your day writing down the three things you are grateful for upon waking. Pro tip: Write down how the negative events you experience are valuable for you, and you’ll have an even better attitude.
7. Mindset: Each day, you are faced with a decision. You can choose to be the protagonist in the story you are writing, or you can be the victim. You can decide to be proactive, moving towards your goals, or reactive, passively waiting for the world to impose its will on you. Along with your attitude, your fixed mindset is going to determine your worldview. Control here is a superpower.
8. The Media You Consume: The media you allow into your mind is very much a type of nutrition. You can reject media that is designed to agitate you, to cause you to feel a sense of fear or dread, or sensationalize stories to capture your attention. Control comes from filtering out that which is harmful to your attitude and mindset, choosing instead to take in only that which strengthens you, improves you, inspires you, and supports your attitude, your mindset, and your goals.
9. Your Goals: There may be someone at work who has given you a goal, but outside of that, you are all on your own, left alone to drift unless you decide for yourself what you want. Setting goals provides a target, a beacon, to guide your decisions. Because they have a deadline, they compel you to take action and achieve your goals. Your life is either going to look like something you designed, or it is going to look a lot like all the others who drift.
10. Your Focus: You control your focus. When you allow something or someone to control your focus, you can easily find yourself focused on things that don’t serve you. You have a short time here, and if you want to make the most of it, you need to focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. There are not too many things you might do to move in the direction of your choosing. Call this your priorities.
11. The Quantity of Your Work: How much work you do is wholly within your control. You can spend your days accomplishing nothing, allowing the news of the day and small urgencies dominate your time, or you can decide to make major progress on what is important. Eliminating distractions and giving yourself over to your work will result in you getting more done faster, and pulling the results forward in time.
12. The Quality of Your Work: You also control the quality of your work. You can do just enough to get by, or you can do exceptional work. External factors have no power to impact the quality of the work you do; that is an individual choice you have to make for yourself.
13. Planning Your Week: There may not be anything more powerful when it comes to generating results as planning your week before it starts. Determining what you are going to accomplish, blocking the time to work on your goals and priorities, and executing your plan is control. Beginning each day already knowing what you are going to do eliminates wasting time responding to externalities and deciding what to do.
14. How You Invest Your Time: Lately, people have taken great pride in sharing how much time they spend streaming television shows. Most people leave their email open all day, waiting to respond to other people instead of doing something more important. There is nothing wrong with intentional distractions, but allowing them to dominate your time is to lose control.
15. Your Notifications: No law states that “One must be notified and monitor in real-time every email, text message, social media notification, or news story on their smartphone or computer.” If you want a greater sense of control and better results, turn off all notifications on your computer and your smartphone. Choose to review what is important a few times a day, always between the 90-minute blocks of uninterrupted time you use to do quality work, the work that moves you towards your goals.
16. Who You Spend Time With: There is an old saying that you will become the composite of the five people you spend the most time with, something I believe is an iron law of success. You are infected with other people’s beliefs, their views, and their values, just as you can infect others with yours. Spend time with the people you love, but also spend time with people who have something you want.
17. Who You Don’t Spend Time With: Of all the things I know with great certainty, I know that spending time with people who have low standards for themselves will have a deleterious impact on your attitude, your mindset, and your results. You can choose to avoid the pessimist, the cynic, and the skeptics, all who want you to commiserate as a way to validate their low standards and their fears.
18. Evening Routine: An evening routine will help keep you on track as you move back to the top of this list. Maybe you take account of your day. Maybe you write down what you learned or read a book for an hour before you go to sleep. Perhaps you reflect on your day and remind yourself what you are grateful for, a perfect end to the day. Whatever you do, the routine will benefit you, and it will give you a feeling that your life is within your control.

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The Challenger Sale

Compete and win in a customer-empowered world

Why Challenger?

Three questions sales leaders frequently ask prompted the research leading to Challenger:

1. What sets the best sales reps apart in a complex sales environment?
2. How do you replicate winning sales behaviors?
3. How do you create a differentiated sales experience? 

We studied thousands of customers and sales professionals around the world, spanning every major industry, geography and go-to-market model, and discovered that classic relationship building is a losing approach in today’s complex business-to-business sales.

Instead, challenging customer thinking and teaching customers new insights are key.  Download Gartner's latest research to learn how Challenger has evolved.

The sales environment is complex

The traditional approach to selling doesn’t work today. Deals are increasingly complex, and customers have access to more information earlier in the sale. As a result, customers are buying in new ways, delaying initial contact with suppliers and requiring greater consensus to move forward.

Today’s customers don’t need sales reps in the same way as in the past — customers now wait until they are 57% through the purchase process before contacting a rep. Buyers do independent research and set their own purchase criteria, all before the first seller interaction.

For the first time, our customers know more about us than we know about them.

Vice President, Sales, Healthcare Industry

It’s not what you sell, it’s how you sell

Due to this more complicated sales environment, it’s no longer just about what you sell, but rather how you sell.

Our research revealed that 53% of customer loyalty is driven by the sales experience — more so than by the brand, product, service and price combined. A customer's interaction with a rep largely dictates this experience. 

Sellers fall into one of five profiles

Our research revealed that every sales professional in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles:

Hard Worker: Goes the extra mile, doesn’t give up easily, is self-motivated, likes feedback and development 

Challenger: Has different view of the world, understands the customer’s business, loves to debate, pushes the customer 

Relationship Builder: Builds strong customer advocates, is generous with time to help others, gets along with everyone 

Lone Wolf: Follows own instincts, is self-assured, is independent 

Problem Solver: Responds reliably, ensures all problems are solved, is detail-oriented

Challenger reps are most likely to win

Challenger reps outperform all other profiles. In fact, more than 50% of all star performers in complex sales environments are Challengers.

Challenger rep behaviors build constructive tension

Challengers teach, offering a unique perspective and maintaining two-way communication.

They tailor their approach according to customer value drivers and economic drivers.

And they take control of the money discussion with the customer.

Challengers lead with insight

The Challenger selling approach relies on delivering insight about an unknown problem or opportunity in the customer’s business that the supplier is uniquely positioned to solve.

Challengers capture the customer’s current belief or assumption, expose the flaws or misinformation in that thinking and present a better course of action. The better course of action helps customers learn something new about their business, usually how to save money, make money or mitigate risk.

Keys to a successful Challenger rollout

Companies who achieve the largest commercial impact from Challenger focus on building sustainable capabilities by taking a methodical approach to change management and sustaining momentum over time.

Generate buy-in

Prepare the organization

Align sales and marketing

Equip managers to coach and lead change

Build commercial insights

Design and deliver training

Embed into account planning, opportunity pursuit & CRM

Reinforce the change

Stay ahead of changing customer dynamics