The Challenger Customer

Author: Brent Adamson
Publisher: Portfolio
ISBN: 1591848156
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Four years ago, the bestselling authors of The Challenger Sale overturned decades of conventional wisdom with a bold new approach to sales. Now their latest research reveals something even more surprising: Being a Challenger seller isn’t enough. Your success or failure also depends on who you challenge. Picture your ideal customer: friendly, eager to meet, ready to coach you through the sale and champion your products and services across the organization. It turns out that’s the last person you need. Most marketing and sales teams go after low-hanging fruit: buyers who are eager and have clearly articulated needs. That’s simply human nature; it’s much easier to build a relationship with someone who always makes time for you, engages with your content, and listens attentively. But according to brand-new CEB research—based on data from thousands of B2B marketers, sellers, and buyers around the world—the highest-performing teams focus their time on potential customers who are far more skeptical, far less interested in meeting, and ultimately agnostic as to who wins the deal. How could this be? The authors of The Challenger Customer reveal that high-performing B2B teams grasp something that their average-performing peers don’t: Now that big, complex deals increasingly require consensus among a wide range of players across the organization, the limiting factor is rarely the salesperson’s inability to get an individual stakeholder to agree to a solution. More often it’s that the stakeholders inside the company can’t even agree with one another about what the problem is. It turns out only a very specific type of customer stakeholder has the credibility, persuasive skill, and will to effectively challenge his or her colleagues to pursue anything more ambitious than the status quo. These customers get deals to the finish line far more often than friendlier stakeholders who seem so receptive at first. In other words, Challenger sellers do best when they target Challenger customers. The Challenger Customer unveils research-based tools that will help you distinguish the "Talkers" from the "Mobilizers" in any organization. It also provides a blueprint for finding them, engaging them with disruptive insight, and equipping them to effectively challenge their own organization.

The Challenger Sale

Author: Matthew Dixon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101545895
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships-and you'd be wrong. The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them. The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades. Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one-the Challenger- delivers consistently high performance. Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale. The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force. The authors explain how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers' expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

The Effortless Experience

Author: Matthew Dixon
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698137582
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Everyone knows that the best way to create customer loyalty is with service so good, so over the top, that it surprises and delights. But what if everyone is wrong? In their acclaimed bestseller The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and his colleagues at CEB busted many longstanding myths about sales. Now they’ve turned their research and analysis to a new vital business subject—customer loyalty—with a new book that turns the conventional wisdom on its head. The idea that companies must delight customers by exceeding service expectations is so entrenched that managers rarely even question it. They devote untold time, energy, and resources to trying to dazzle people and inspire their undying loyalty. Yet CEB’s careful research over five years and tens of thousands of respondents proves that the “dazzle factor” is wildly overrated—it simply doesn’t predict repeat sales, share of wallet, or positive wordof-mouth. The reality: Loyalty is driven by how well a company delivers on its basic promises and solves day-to-day problems, not on how spectacular its service experience might be. Most customers don’t want to be “wowed”; they want an effortless experience. And they are far more likely to punish you for bad service than to reward you for good service. If you put on your customer hat rather than your manager or marketer hat, this makes a lot of sense. What do you really want from your cable company, a free month of HBO when it screws up or a fast, painless restoration of your connection? What about your bank—do you want free cookies and a cheerful smile, even a personal relationship with your teller? Or just a quick in-and-out transaction and an easy way to get a refund when it accidentally overcharges on fees? The Effortless Experience takes readers on a fascinating journey deep inside the customer experience to reveal what really makes customers loyal—and disloyal. The authors lay out the four key pillars of a low-effort customer experience, along the way delivering robust data, shocking insights and profiles of companies that are already using the principles revealed by CEB’s research, with great results. And they include many tools and templates you can start applying right away to improve service, reduce costs, decrease customer churn, and ultimately generate the elusive loyalty that the “dazzle factor” fails to deliver. The rewards are there for the taking, and the pathway to achieving them is now clearly marked.

The Challenger Customer

Author: Brent Adamson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698406184
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Eating the Big Fish

Author: Adam Morgan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470527757
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
EATING THE BIG FISH : How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded The second edition of the international bestseller, now revised and updated for 2009, just in time for the business challenges ahead. It contains over 25 new interviews and case histories, two completely new chapters, introduces a new typology of 12 different kinds of Challengers, has extensive updates of the main chapters, a range of new exercises, supplies weblinks to view interviews online and offers supplementary downloadable information.

Silver Linings

Author: June Scobee Rodgers
Publisher: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 9781573120340
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
June Scobee Rodgers, wife of Challenger Commander Dick Scobee, tells of her inspirational journey from victim of the Challenger tragedy to survivor committed to continuing the mission.

The Challenger

Author: Terri Farley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1665916486
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
The beloved sixth book in the middle grade Phantom Stallion series about a girl, her horse, and the beauty of the American West returns with a brand-new, stunning cover and bonus material! Perfect for fans of Canterwood Crest and classic horse stories like Black Beauty and My Friend Flicka. Cougars have been spotted nearby, but they haven’t hurt the ranch horses—yet. So Samantha is outraged when a neighboring rancher vows to kill the cats on sight. And her family’s horses may be safe, but out on the range, Sam spots a wild young stallion without a herd. Being alone puts this horse in danger. But can Sam protect the rebellious mustang and still save the cougars?

Digital Customer Service

Author: Rick DeLisi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119841909
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
Digital Customer Service is the new standard for creating a 5-star customer experience As much as technology has improved our lives, for many people customer service experiences remain unnecessarily frustrating. But the advent of Digital Customer Service (DCS) promises to make these interactions seamless and effortless by creating experiences that occur entirely on a customer's own screen, even in situations where it is preferable to speak to an agent. Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for an On-Screen World traces the evolution of customer service—as well as the evolution of customer expectations and the underlying psychology that drives customer behavior - from the days of the first call centers in the 1980s all the way to today's digital world. Written for Customer Service and Customer Experience leaders as well as C-suite executives (CEOs, CFOs, CIOs), Digital Customer Service helps business leaders balance three critical priorities: Creating an excellent experience for customers that increases customer loyalty and profitability Driving down the cost of Customer Service/Support interactions, while increasing revenue through Sales interactions Moving quickly toward the goal of "digital transformation" We have discovered—in our research and our first-hand experience—that when companies commit to achieving true Digital Customer Service, they can make significant progress toward all three of these goals at once. Digital Customer Service provides the roadmap for how your company can get there. And when you do, who wins? EVERYONE.

The Customer Service Revolution

Author: John R. DiJulius
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1626341303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 143

Book Description
In The Customer Service Revolution, DiJulius points out how numerous companies have made Customer service their biggest competitive advantage, are dominating their industries, and have made price irrelevant. As a result of this Customer service revolution, people are being treated differently, better, and in a way like never before. This is a result of how companies and management are treating their employees and how employees are treating each other and the Customer—which ultimately permeates into people’s personal lives at home and in their communities. Can the way you run your business or treat your Customers have an effect on the world at large? John DiJulius will show you just that! Drawing on years of experience consulting with the top customer service companies around the world and in his role building his first business, John Robert’s Spa, into one of the top 20 salons in the US, DiJulius will show you exactly how to create your very own Customer service revolution and make price irrelevant.

Gap Selling

Author: Keenan
Publisher: Sales Guy Publishing
ISBN: 9781732891029
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
People don't buy from people they like. No! Your buyer doesn't care about you or your product or service. It's not your job to overcome objections, it's your buyer's. Closing isn't a skill of good salespeople; it's the skill of weak salespeople. Price isn't the main reason salespeople lose the sale. Gap Selling shreds traditional and closely held sales beliefs that have been hurting salespeople for decades. For years, salespeople have embraced a myriad of sales tactics and belief systems that have unknowingly created many of the issues they have been trying to avoid such as: long sales cycles, price objections, no decision, prospects going dark, last minute feature requests, and more. Success at sales requires more than a set of tactics. Salespeople need to understand the game of sales, how sales works, and what the buyer is going through in order to make the decision to buy (change) or not to buy (not change). Gap Selling is a game-changing book designed to raise the sales IQ of selling organizations around the world. In his unapologetic and irreverent style, Keenan breaks down the tired old sales myths causing today's frustrating sales issues, to highlight a deceptively powerful new way to connect with buyers. Today's sales world is littered with glorified order takers, beholden to a frustrated buyer, unable to influence the sale and create value. Gap Selling flips the script and creates salespeople with immense influence at every stage of the buying process, capable of impacting the sales metrics that matter: Shorter Sales Cycles Increased Revenue Elevated Deal Values Higher Win Rates Fewer No Decisions More Leads And Happier Buyers Gap Selling elevates the sales world's selling IQ and turns sales order takers into sales influencers.