If you sell commodities or transactional low-value items, the Challenger model may be overkill. But if you sell complex, high-stakes solutions to skeptical buyers? You cannot afford to be a simple Relationship Builder.
Conventional wisdom said that salespeople needed to be either the (always grinding) or the Relationship Builder (always networking). While those styles worked in the past, Dixon and Adamson discovered they were not the top performers. The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon EPUB
In the modern B2B landscape, the rules of engagement have changed. The days of the "Relationship Builder"—the salesperson who simply took clients to lunch and hoped for loyalty—are fading. According to Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson of CEB (Corporate Executive Board), there is one archetype that consistently outperforms the rest. If you sell commodities or transactional low-value items,