[fumar]

This is spot-on. As someone who works in enterprise sales, the best performers (if performance is based on growing investment from the client into x product), are challengers.

Sales tactics, like aggressive selling or throwing everything at the wall see what sticks, does not work in enterprise sales. The enterprise sell is complex and nuanced based on all the decision makers and influencers. It helps to be less of a "classic-sales" person and more of a doctor. You want to diagnose, understand, and provide a recommendation. Often-times like a doctor, the client (patient) does not want hear or accept the solution (antidote). This is where the challenger mindset comes into play, the great sales folks are pushing for the "true solution" even if the client-team is not onboard. It can take time to get a champion on the client side who sees the light. Just to be clear enterprise sales only works if the solution is solving true business outcomes.

For selling to new clients, its important for the sales team to run a client diagnostic to understand if the product (solution) has a right to win. Its just the start of understanding the client. I will say getting to know the client and their hurdles is crucial and the clients are experts at their problems. But, they are not experts at solving it. That is why the sales person is there and why the product exists.