The Challenger Customer: The Overlooked Lesson
- Scott Peterson
- Apr 1
- 4 min read
I recently wrote about an overlooked lesson from The Challenger Sale—that success isn’t just about hiring Challengers, but about the organization’s responsibility to design and develop how they “teach,” “tailor,” and “take control.”
Now, I’m shifting focus to their follow-up book, The Challenger Customer—which plays an equally important role in sales success by ensuring the right stakeholders are involved at the right time in the buying journey.
If your organization doesn’t define the sales process and identify which stakeholders need to be involved at each stage, your salespeople will take the path of least resistance—leaving key decision-makers out.
That’s exactly why 40-60% of lost deals are due to “indecision.”
The best sales teams don’t just hire great sellers. They build a process that ensures sellers engage the right stakeholders, at the right time, in the right way.
The Rise of Buying by Committee
Gone are the days when a single executive could simply approve a major purchase.
In today’s world, buying by committee is the norm.
Adamson and Dixon’s research, based on a survey of 3,000+ stakeholders, revealed a striking reality:
The average B2B purchase now involves 5.4 stakeholders. (And that number has only grown over the past decade.)
That means 5+ people with different roles, priorities, and concerns—each influencing the final decision.
If your team hasn’t adapted to this complexity, your opportunities are likely stalling at a high rate.
Why Deals Stall: The Organization’s Role
Traditional sales approaches, like how I was originally trained years ago, focused on engaging stakeholders one at a time:
Meet with each one
Uncover their pains
Present a tailored solution
But that approach fails in complex deals.
By the time all 5.4 stakeholders are engaged, the result is often a Frankenstein of a solution—designed to appease everyone but satisfy no one.
The real challenge isn’t just the number of stakeholders—it’s ensuring the right ones are engaged at the right time.
And that responsibility isn’t just on the salesperson.
When organizations fail to define a clear sales process, salespeople are forced to figure it out on their own, leading to:
Salespeople taking the path of least resistance (advancing opportunities without key stakeholders involvement)
Critical decision-makers surfacing late and killing the opportunity
Inconsistent stakeholder engagement, making sales opportunities unpredictable.
Sales leadership has an organizational responsibility to:
Establish a structured sales process that maps out which stakeholders need to be engaged at key stages.
Equip sales teams with the right messaging and approach for each stakeholder group.
Provide clear guidance on when and how to involve Mobilizers, Talkers, and Blockers.
When organizations fail to do this, they leave too much to chance—and that’s why deals stall.
The 3 Buyer Profiles: Who Really Moves the Deal?
Dixon and Adamson’s research categorized buyers into three distinct groups:
1. Mobilizers (The Change Agents)
Mobilizers drive action within their organizations. They challenge internal thinking, build consensus, and push for change. These are your champions—find them early.
2. Talkers (The Friendly but Ineffective Contacts)
Talkers love engaging in discussions but lack the influence and authority to drive decisions. They make you feel good, but they don’t get deals done.
3. Blockers (The Defenders of the Status Quo)
Blockers resist change. They are wired to maintain existing processes and actively push back against new solutions. If you don’t identify and address them early, they’ll derail your deal later.
This is why an organizationally supported sales process is critical. Salespeople shouldn’t have to guess who to involve or when—they should be set up for success.
Navigating Complexity in B2B Sales
In today’s B2B sales world, the biggest risk isn’t losing to a competitor—it’s losing to no decision.
Deals stall when:
Stakeholders aren’t aligned
Hidden decision-makers surface late
The status quo wins by default
To fix this, sales organizations—not just individual reps—must change how they operate.
What Winning Sales Organizations Do Differently
Start with the right stakeholder. If you don’t begin with a Mobilizer, get connected to them early.
Uncover & incorporate “hidden” stakeholders. Many deals die because a key decision-maker was never engaged in the buying journey. Proactively guide your buyer to involve the right people at the right time.
Take and maintain control of the sale. Buyers don’t just need information—they need help navigating their own internal complexities. Control the process by giving them a clear roadmap to consensus and action.
This isn’t just the salesperson’s job—it’s a company-wide sales strategy.
Conclusion: Winning in a Consensus-Driven World
Buying by committee is the reality. Sellers who don’t identify and incorporate key stakeholders will continue to struggle with stalled deals and indecision.
But this isn’t just a sales execution problem—it’s an organizational challenge.
Winning sales teams don’t just hire great sellers—they build repeatable, scalable processes that help them:
Engage the right stakeholders
Drive consensus earlier in the buying process
Avoid late-stage deal-killers
The best organizations don’t expect salespeople to figure it out—they equip them with the tools to succeed.
Where to Start: The Revenue Compass Assessment
If you want to build a high performing sales team that is able to identify and incorporate the 5.4 stakeholders, you need to first identify your sales organization’s bright spots and bottlenecks.
The Revenue Compass Assessment helps you evaluate your sales strategy, process, structure, and management to pinpoint exactly where to focus your efforts.
Go Deeper:
Or check out my new book: Beyond the Founder Rainmaker - Build Your Blue Chip Sales Strategy
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