SPIN Selling, a great model, was the brainchild of Neil Rackham who authored a book of the same name in 1988.
SPIN Selling is based on extensive research by Rackham and his company, Huthwaite. They examined large, complicated sales scenarios. After analysing more than 35,000 sales calls they were able to put to rest a variety of traditional myths about closing sales.
The book has been very successful selling over 150,000 copies.
The original survey showed that in successful sales calls it's the buyer who does most of the talking, which means that the salespeople are asking questions.
Asking questions means that the salesperson is building Rapport with the buyer, building
sales rapport with the buyer allows the buyer to feel more comfortable talking.
SPIN Selling proposes there are four types of questions, thus SPIN stands
for :
* Situation ( questions )
* Problem ( questions )
* Implication ( questions )
* Need-payoff ( questions )
Situation
Questions deal with the facts about the buyers existing situation.
Problem
Questions ask about the buyer's pain and focus the buyer on this pain while clarifying the problem, before asking implication questions.
These give Implied Needs.
Implication
Questions discuss the effects of the problem, before talking
about solutions, and develop the seriousness of the problem to increase the
buyer's motivation to change.
Need-Payoff
Questions get the buyer to tell you about their Explicit Needs and the benefits your solutions offers, rather than forcing you to explain the benefits to the buyer. Getting the buyer to state the benefits has greater impact while sounding a lot less pushy. What these questions do is probe for explicit needs.
The research uncovered the following facts :
The first students trained in the "SPIN" model showed an average of 17% improvement in sales results.
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This is not surprising, I well remember the quote, (but not the author),
that says:
People do not buy from salespeople because they understand their products
but because they felt the salesperson understood their problems.