“Sell the holes not the drill” - SPIN SELLING

So how do you become a SPIN doctor?

The stereotype of the successful sales person is a sharp-talker. They are pushy, they can talk for hours, giving prospects all the answers, bamboozling them into buying, even if they don’t really want or need to.

In real life, the opposite is true. More sales happen when the prospect does more of the talking. 

SPIN

This approach was popularised in the theory of SPIN selling. SPIN was developed by Neil Rackham, when he wrote a hugely successful book, also called ‘SPIN’, in 1988. Rackham and his colleagues listened to more than 35,000 sales calls, and the pattern was clear. 

People are more likely to buy from people they have a rapport with. The easiest way for a salesperson to build rapport is to appear like they understand their prospect’s problems. The way to find out those problems? Ask questions.

Question time

The components of SPIN selling are 4 types of questions that the salesperson can deploy at different stages of the selling process.

• Situation questions
• Problem questions
• Implication questions
• Need-payoff questions

See what they did there?

Let’s analyse these components one by one and show you how they work. I'll relate the questions back to myself when I was running a startup called EspressGo.

Situation

Situation questions concern where the prospect is at this current moment in time. You’re collecting facts, numbers and background. Examples could be:

• What social media channels are you currently using to promote your startup?
• How many products do you sell?

In the tech age, however, researching someone’s current situation is pretty easy. Plus, prospects find talking about this sort of thing quite dull. My advice is to do your research on the situation properly before your call, and don’t spend a long time on the ‘S’, get moving to the ‘PIN’.

Problem

This is the part where you really find out what’s driving your prospect. You’re asking about their pain points. 

Ask questions that get them talking about the challenges they’re facing. Reinforce these challenges by asking questions that clarify them. For example:

• How impactful are the results vs what you actually want to achieve from your Facebook advertising?
• How long are the quiet periods?

As you do this, you’ll uncover implied needs that you can address. Keep digging away.

• Who is executing your social media strategy?
• When do you advertise to find more customers?

Implication

This is the part where you make the buyer tell you the impact of their problem. They do this themselves, you do not need to do it for them. 

Discuss how their problem is affecting their business. Reinforce how serious the problem is, and how they need to make change urgently to solve it.

Remember, it’s still all about the questions.

• How much are you losing if your Facebook ads don’t return your investment?
• What happens if you don’t win any new clients for a month?

By this stage, the prospect should be building their own argument to buying from you.

Need-Payoff

The final part of the process. This is where you focus on the solution, which happens to be what you’re selling. 

However, you’re not telling them about your solution, you’re asking the questions that get the prospect to solve the puzzle themselves.

• If a lead generation platform could bring in 1000 leads per month, how would that affect your bottom line?
• If there was a piece of tech which could allow users to book appointments at a discount during quiet periods, how much revenue could you bring in?

These questions help you close the deal without coming across as the pushy salesman. The prospect states the benefits for you. Eventually, the penny drops.

Try it

If you haven’t tried SPIN selling yourself, give it a go. Start by writing down a list of questions that relate to your company. Ask the right questions and reap the rewards. It’s the difference between selling a product, and getting your prospect to sell the product to themselves.

When you do SPIN selling right you make your prospect feel comfortable enough to talk about their goals. It’s their hopes and fears which keep them up at night. They want someone who they can talk to, who believes in their business and their success as much as they do. If you can make them feel that way, it’s your pathway to success.

What do you think? Do you practise SPIN selling? What questions do you find really get your prospects talking? Leave me a comment below. 

If there are any other selling techniques you would recommend, which ones are they?