The Challenger Customer Review

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them about problems or changes in their own industry. But it is clear that rather than take offense, it actually helps the stakeholders move from agreeing on the smallest number of things, to having a greater overlap within the group mental model.

3. Lastly, on page 188, it discusses how Cisco was making an attempt to bridge the gap between IT and Marketing departments by learning more about CMO’s. Obviously in doing so I thought they would talk to CMO’s and see what they were saying. The interesting and surprising part to the story though, was that they were not only doing that but looking at marketing content that was aimed at CMO’s. By doing this they seemed to get a much more well-rounded view of how CMO’s think, function, and operate and were therefore able to find overlap in the language used by both CMO’s and IT professionals and allow their mental models to overlap in a greater way.

Overall, the book truly changed the way I view selling, particularly in the B2B space. The greatest take away I believe I have personally was that it is oftentimes much harder for a group to buy than it is for an individual to sell. When turning the tables on the typical sales approach like this, so many issues that arise in the purchasing process become much clearer and begin to make more sense. Groups, specifically diverse ones, typically have little in common when coming from different silos of large companies. Because of this it is hard for them to agree on anything more than the most basic ideas when negotiation a deal. By attacking the problem in reverse, however, as well as finding Mobilizers within the company, commercial sellers are able to break down individual mental models and ideas and create a new one that is shared by the group and allows the seller to succeed far more often than with previous methods. All in all, it is definitely an idea and strategy that I will closely consider in my next dealings as a sales professional.