Sales methodology: Part I(SPIN Selling )

Introduction:

Sales methodology is usually mis-understood with Sales process. Unlike sales process, the selling methodology doesn’t refer to the entire sales cycle. It’s generally relevant to one specific part of it i.e. qualification, discovery, storyboarding, demo etc.?

Every organization should develop its own sales process based on its products, services, industry and market. What works for one company may totally different for other. But in case of Sales methodologies, this may not be true. Different teams can implement the same selling methodology and see similar success irrespective of the product, services, industry etc.

Identifying the sales methodology best suits your business at a specific point in the sales lifecycle is important.

This article describes one of the sales methodologies – SPIN selling

What is SPIN selling:

SPIN is an acronym for the four types of questions salespeople should ask to their clients:?

o???Situation

o???Problem

o???Implication

o???Need-Payoff

These questions help to understand the buyers pain points and challenges and build rapport with the buyer. The detail about each types questions are discussed below:

• ?Situation questions:?These types of questions aim to understand a prospect’s current situation although sales reps should still do research before a meeting.

Ex: "How you are tracking your forecasting?"

• Problem questions: These get to the heart of the prospect’s issue. Ex:?"Do you find that you have trouble is viewing your customer data and track activities around them?"
• ?Implication questions:?These questions probe the prospect to think about the consequences of not solving the problem. Ex:?"As there is no centralized system to know about your prospects, how does that affect the organization?"
• Need-payoff questions:?These types questions prompt the prospect to consider how the situation would change if their problem was solved. Ex:?"If you were able to get a 360-degree view of your customer across the departments, how it is going to benefit your organization?"

Conclusion:

The purpose of SPIN selling is to guide prospects to these realizations on their own instead of explicitly telling about the value of the product or its potential impact,?

Reference Book: “The Spin Selling” By Neil Rackham

About the Author: Ashwini Kr. Raj

Ashwini is having experiences over decade on diversified domains like Sales and Operations, Delivery and project Management etc. Currently he is heading Global Salesforce Practice of a renewed IT service-based company. He is an Amazon best-selling author. He is an NLP Coach. His workshop “NLP for Sales” is well appreciated in Sales fraternity.