While understanding the customer’s business remains key to sales success, training sales representatives to probe their customers is less effective than previously thought, especially as it presumes that customers fully recognize their needs and pain points. What sets Challengers apart is their ability to understand the customer business better than the customer does. Dixon and Adamson encourage sales professionals to be upfront in their intention to teach for differentiation, even if this behavior seems arrogant.

Surveying customer organizations on their B2B supplier needs, the SEC found that brand, product, service, and price had a surprisingly low impact on customer loyalty. The factor that proved to be overwhelmingly influential in generating loyalty was the sales experience itself. The authors thus conclude that loyalty relies less on what suppliers are selling than on how they drive the customer’s interest in the product.

Looking deeper into the sales experience, the SEC asked respondents to rank attributes that contributed to customer loyalty. While stakeholder consensus and purchase simplicity proved to be strong deciding factors among customers, successful suppliers effectively differentiated themselves by offering valuable business insight. The results of the SEC study affirm that the ability to diagnose the customer’s business needs is much less relevant than the ability to provide the customer with new perspectives.