The old way of selling is broken. Golf outings, dinner meetings, relationship building over drinks—it’s not working anymore. Your buyers show up knowing everything about your competitors. Procurement departments want value, not friendships.
But here’s the thing everyone gets wrong: relationships matter more than ever. You just can’t build them the old way.
We’ve worked with sales teams across many different industries. And regardless of the scale and scope of the business, the ones winning share a common trait, without realizing it. They’ve figured out how to blend SNI’s Prepare → Probe → Propose approach with Challenger’s Teach → Tailor → Take Control method.
Why Your Golf Game Alone Won’t Save You Now
Remember when landing a client meant landing a perfect drive on the 18th hole? When closing deals happened over dinner and drinks, not spreadsheets and RFPs? Those days are fading fast, and the numbers don’t lie.
The relationship sale isn’t exactly dead—it’s just changing so fundamentally that everything you thought you knew about selling might need a serious update.
The Brutal Truth About Modern Buyers
Your prospects aren’t waiting around for you anymore. They’re doing their homework before you even know they exist. The data tells a story that would make any old-school sales rep break out in a cold sweat:
Nearly 70% of the B2B buying process is now complete before buyers ever speak to a salesperson. That’s right—by the time you get your chance to shine, buyers have already researched solutions, consulted peers, read reviews, and formed strong preferences.
Moreover, almost half of buyers consider only 1-3 vendors in total compared to 33% a year ago, and 71% ultimately choose the vendor they favored from the start.
Welcome to the Committee of No
Gone are the cozy days of one-on-one relationships with your key contact. Today’s average B2B purchase involves more than 11 decision-makers—double what it was just a decade ago, according to Gartner (since acquired by Richardson).
Gartner’s research also shows that this parade of stakeholders represents everyone from procurement and finance to IT and end-users, all with priorities and perspectives.
These buying committees don’t care if you took Bob from accounting to the ballgame. They want data. They want ROI. They want to justify their decisions with spreadsheets, not handshakes. In fact, 86% of large B2B purchases now go through a formal RFP/RFQ process, turning what used to be relationship-driven deals into structured, measurable competitions.
Procurement: The Fun Police of Business
If B2B sales were a party, procurement would be the team showing up with clipboards and calculators to shut it down. These departments have positioned themselves as the ultimate fun police, systematically removing any trace of emotion, gut instinct, or genuine excitement from business purchases.
Consider it this way: procurement professionals are basically trained to be charm-proof. Your winning personality? Your genuine enthusiasm for solving their problems? Might as well be invisible. Their entire playbook revolves around one simple rule: if you can’t put a number on it, it doesn’t count.
And here’s the kicker—even when buyers actually love what you’re offering, they still can’t pull the trigger on pure excitement. They know that back at headquarters, someone will ask the dreaded question: “Why did you choose this vendor?” And “because they seemed passionate about our success” isn’t going to cut it anymore. They need spreadsheets, ROI calculations, and competitive analyses to justify what their gut already told them was the right choice.
This mentality has taken particularly strong hold in North America, where buyers have weaponized efficiency. Forrester research reveals that over 30% of North American buyers now prioritize “ease of doing business” above almost everything else. Compare that to Asia-Pacific, where trust and relationships carry more weight, and you can see how North American commerce has evolved into a sterile, transaction-focused machine.
Trust Issues: From Gut to Data
Trust used to come easy. “I know Jim well; he’s always taken me to the game and never let me down.” Today? Only about 29% of B2B buyers trust information from salespeople, while 80-90% trust peer recommendations or independent industry experts.
Yet here’s the twist: buyers still value relationships—they just define them differently. About 84% choose vendors they’ve worked with before, and 90% have prior experience with at least one vendor in their final consideration set. But these relationships are built on proven value delivery, not personal friendships.
The new currency of trust? Insight. Edelman’s research found that 73% of B2B buyers consider thought leadership content more trustworthy for evaluating a company’s capability than traditional marketing. When sellers deliver valuable insights, 60% of decision-makers say they’d pay a premium for that expertise.
Introducing the Challenger Sales Model and Its Impact
In 2011, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson dropped a research bomb that blew up everything sales teams thought they knew about winning deals. Their book, “The Challenger Sale,” not only suggested a new approach but proved the old one was broken. And they had 6,000 sales reps’ worth of data to back it up.
Picture 2009: the economy was in the toilet, buyers were more cautious than ever, and relationship selling was ineffective. Dixon and Adamson from the Corporate Executive Board (which later became Gartner, which has since been acquired by Richardson) decided to determine what was working. What they discovered would make relationship builders everywhere question their entire existence.
The Five Types: A Sales Rep Survival Guide
Dixon and Adamson didn’t just study successful salespeople—they categorized everyone into five distinct types. Think of it as a personality test for quota crushers.
- Relationship Builders: Those spent their days cultivating relationships with buyers, thinking friendship would translate to sales. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. These folks made up only 7% of high performers.
- Hard Workers: The sellers who believed sheer effort would save the day. They made more calls, stayed later, and tried harder. Noble? Yes. Effective? Not so much.
- Lone Wolves: The folks who marched to their own drummer, following instinct over process. Sometimes it worked, but consistency wasn’t their strong suit.
- Problem Solvers: Those who excelled at cleaning up messes after the sale and building customer loyalty through reliability. Great for retention, not so hot for new business.
- Challengers: Then came the challengers, the rebels who questioned everything, taught customers new perspectives, and weren’t afraid to ruffle feathers. These troublemakers accounted for 40% of high performers. The math was crystal clear: being challenging paid off.
The Three-Step Framework: Teach, Tailor, Take Control
Challengers didn’t wing it—they followed a specific playbook that Dixon and Adamson distilled into three core behaviors.
- Teach for Differentiation: Challengers deliver unique insights that buyers couldn’t Google and reframe the customer’s understanding of their needs and opportunities. They don’t just respond to what the customer says they want; they teach customers something new about their business and often uncover problems or opportunities they never considered.
- Tailor for Resonance: They customized their message to resonate with each customer stakeholder’s specific priorities, needs, and value drivers. A CFO cared about ROI; an operations manager worried about efficiency. Challengers spoke everyone’s language fluently.
- Take Control of the Sale: This aspect separated the pros from the pretenders. Challengers guided conversations, created urgency, and didn’t shy away from tough pricing discussions. They led deals instead of just participating in them.
Why Everyone Suddenly Became a Challenger
The book not only presented research, but it also started a revolution. Sales organizations worldwide scrambled to implement Challenger principles. Training companies built entire curricula around Teach, Tailor, Take Control. Sales managers learned new coaching techniques to develop more challenging reps.
The model resonated because it addressed a fundamental truth: customers were drowning in information but starving for insight. They could research products all day, but still needed someone to help them connect the dots between their problems and solutions.
Companies realized they needed salespeople who could cut through the noise, challenge assumptions, and drive decisions. Being agreeable and accommodating wasn’t enough anymore—buyers respected sellers who brought valuable perspectives to the table.
“Sales organizations can achieve growth by challenging customers-delivering interactions designed to disrupt their current thinking and impart new knowledge. It’s about more than just making a sale.” – Brent Adamson, co-author of The Challenger Sale
How the SNI Approach Complements Challenger: When Theory Meets Street Smarts
Your sales team has invested in Challenger training. They’ve mastered the theory—teach, tailor, take control. But when procurement drops the hammer and demands 30% off, what do they do when the pressure’s on?
Here’s the hard truth: sales and negotiation training are different animals. Challenger gets your reps to the table. It builds relationships, uncovers needs, and advances deals. But defending value when buyers push back? That’s a whole different skill set.
Smart companies are waking up to this. They’re pairing world-class sales training with specialized negotiation experts. Because knowing how to sell and negotiate isn’t the same thing.
That’s where SNI comes in to bridge that gap. Your team already knows they should challenge customers—we show them exactly how to do it when the pressure’s on. While others preach theory about “teaching insights,” we arm your reps with the words and frameworks that make buyers stop demanding discounts and start seeing value.
Something powerful happens when you combine our 3 P’s with Challenger’s 3 T’s. Your team not only wins deals but seamlessly moves from consultative selling to confident negotiating to protect every dollar of value they’ve created.
TEACH with Insight: The Prepare Phase
Challenger reps excel because they bring insights buyers can’t simply search for on the internet. But how do they find those insights? That’s where SNI’s Preparation Planner comes in—the research engine that powers Challenger’s teaching moments.
We developed this tool during those early CEB collaborations, specifically to help reps discover and organize commercial insights around four critical areas: Precedents, Alternatives, Interests, and Deadlines. Your procurement leaders will recognize this approach because it mirrors how they evaluate suppliers—they want vendors who understand their business deeply enough to challenge their assumptions.
Your reps shouldn’t just research the company. They need to understand:
- What similar companies lost by waiting to act (Precedents)
- What options the buyer really has, including doing nothing (Alternatives)
- What keeps each stakeholder awake at night (Interests)
- What deadlines drive urgency (Deadlines)
Every insight must tie to the cost of inaction, ROI, or risk avoided. Your sales managers can verify this by asking one simple question: “So what? How does this translate to dollars for the customer?”
CEB’s research proved that buyers respect reps who teach them something new about their business. SNI’s contribution was showing exactly how to prepare those teaching moments consistently.
TAILOR by Probing: The Probe Phase
Challenger’s “tailor” principle demands customized messages for each stakeholder. But how do you uncover what really matters to the CFO versus the operations manager? Through strategic probing that goes beyond surface-level needs.
During our partnership with CEB, we replaced generic discovery questions with interest-mapping inquiries. Instead of asking about the budget (a position), we probe for the interests behind that position.
For instance, replace transactional questions with strategic ones:
Instead of: “What’s your budget?”
Ask: “If this initiative fails to deliver results, what happens to your department?”
Instead of: “Who else are you looking at?”
Ask: “What criteria will the decision committee use to evaluate options?”
Your L&D teams can role-play these scenarios, too. Give reps safe spaces to practice handling objections without defaulting to price concessions. When a prospect says, “Your price is too high,” your rep should have three prepared responses that pivot back to value.
The ROI calculators your team builds should be conversation starters, not closing tools. Use them during discovery to help prospects quantify their pain points, not just at the end to justify the price.
TAKE CONTROL with Value Trades: The Propose Phase
Challenger’s “take control” phase requires assertive guidance of the sales process, especially around pricing. But being assertive without being aggressive takes skill. That’s where SNI’s “Propose” principles deliver.
SNI’s approach sequences negotiations strategically. Handle price and scope early in the process, not during final negotiations when everyone’s desperate to close. Your reps need scripts for common scenarios:
When buyers push on price: “Help me understand what specifically needs to change about our price for this to be a fit.”
When committees want to negotiate: “Which decision would be easier—adjusting the timeline or the scope?”
Your sales operations should track concession patterns. Which reps consistently protect margins? Which ones cave early? The data tells you who needs coaching on the Propose phase.
Train your teams on conditional concessions:
- “If we can reduce the implementation timeline, we can reduce the cost.”
- “For a multi-year commitment, we can offer additional value at this price.”
- “With quarterly payments instead of annual, this pricing makes sense.”
Every concession requires a trade. This principle protects your margins while making buyers feel they’re getting something special.
Your procurement leaders actually prefer this approach. They’d rather negotiate fairly than deal with suppliers who mysteriously find 40% discounts when pressed. It builds trust and sets proper expectations.
So, stop training reps on what to think. Start training them on what to say. The words matter. The sequence matters. The timing matters.
Final Thoughts: Relationships Aren’t Dead, They Just Got Smarter
The old relationship sale didn’t die—it just grew up. Your buyers still want relationships, but not the kind built over steakhouses and fairways. They want partners who actually make them better at their jobs.
That’s the beauty of combining SNI’s Prepare-Probe-Propose with Challenger’s Teach-Tailor-Take Control. Both get something right that relationship sellers missed: people trust you when you help them succeed, not when you buy them drinks.
Think about your own team for a second:
- Are your reps bringing insights buyers didn’t already know?
- Do they ask questions that matter or just go through the motions?
- When price comes up, do they trade value or just cut deals?
If you’re wincing at any of those answers, you’re not the only one. Most teams get stuck somewhere between the old way and the new way.
So if you want to stop getting stuck, reach out to us. At SNI, we’ve helped sales teams master this stuff since before “Challenger” was even a thing. Whether you need a full workshop or just want to tighten up your negotiation skills, we can help.
Relationships matter. How you build them has changed. Ready to catch up?
