WHAT IS SPIN® AND HOW DOES IT HELP TO IMPROVE SALES CONVERSATIONS?
While conventional sales training treats all need statements as generic: 'Find a need, meet it and you have a sale', the SPIN methodology helps sellers to make a difference between 2 types of need: "My present system is a bit slow." and one who says, "I need a faster system immediately."
The research proved that there is a clear distinction between statements of dissatisfaction, called Implied Needs, and statements of desire for a solution, named Explicit Needs. In major sales Implied Needs have no statistical relationship with success, whereas Explicit Needs are key indicators of a successful outcome. Successful salespeople use a questioning technique to convert Implied Needs to Explicit.
Rather than classifying questions by their form (e.g. open and closed questions), exceptional sales performers use four types of questions, which are categorised by their purpose:
- Situation Questions – to gather background information and understand the context of the sale
- Problem Questions – to explore the customer's dissatisfactions and concerns that your solution can solve
- Implication Questions – explore the 'knock-on' effect on other areas of the customer's business
- Need-Payoff Questions – invite the customer to consider the benefits of solving problems
SPIN came to live through a major behavioural long-term study in the early 70s: the research conducted showed the difference in behaviour of successful and less successful sales people. This further developed study constitutes the largest ever investigation into sales success. This research was carried out by Huthwaite International. The full, fascinating story of the research studies and the development of the SPIN Selling Skills model can be found in Making Major Sales and SPIN Selling, written by Neil Rackham, founder of Huthwaite. Huthwaite has also investigated in successful Negotiation behaviours.
CONTENT OF SPIN® SELLING TRAINING
By the end of the program each participant will:
- have analysed the strengths and weaknesses of their present selling style
- be able to describe the psychology of customer needs
- be able to describe the key behaviours, or skills, used by effective salespeople in their interactions with customers
- have a framework for planning sales calls in terms of these behaviours
- have frequently practised using the skills to develop customer needs in a way that greatly reduces the likelihood of objections
- have a strategy for dealing with difficult customers who raise objections or have low reaction levels
- have measured objectively their performance compared with the skill model and created an Action Plan for continued development of the skills after the programme.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Any employees involved in the sale of goods or services, which are seen as high-value, important decisions by the buyer. In addition to the obvious audience of sales executives and sales managers, this programme can be very beneficial to engineers, technical specialists or sales support staff who are involved in the selling process or who may be exposed to selling opportunities in the course of their work with customers.