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SPIN Selling Questions
Questions are the foundation of SPIN Selling. Rackham and his team found that top-performing salespeople rarely ask random, low-value questions.
Not only do all the questions have a clear purpose, but the order in which they are asked is strategic as well.
The four main types of SPIN Selling questions are:
Situation.
Problem.
Implication.
Need for payment.
We already saw that they are the acronyms of SPIN and each one has a clear objective, so let's examine each type in more detail.
Situation
Use situational questions to find out where your prospects are—from their processes and points where they know they have a problem, to competitive plans and results.
Specific questions depend on your product.
For example, if you offer coaching for new managers, you might ask a question like this: How do you introduce new department managers to your company?
If you are in the auto parts business, on the other hand, you might ask: How do you purchase accessories for your store now?
Here are some example questions that you can customize for your own use:
Note the lack of fact-gathering questions such as “How big is your company?”, “How many locations do you have?”, “What products do you sell?”, and so on.
When Rackham published SPIN Selling, there was neither information available to sellers.
Now that you can uncover a long list of key details about a buyer's perspective with a quick online search, many situational questions are no longer effective.
Not only do they make buyers impatient, these questions also leave less time for what matters most.
Only ask as few questions in this category as you can and make sure you have done your research before the call or visit.
Problem
At this stage, sales representatives identify potential areas of opportunity.
In other words, what value is not being met? Where is the unmet perspective?
Chances are the company doesn't even know they have a problem, so you need email lists uk to dig into the commonalities of their solution and add value.
For this case, the most pertinent questions are the following:
How expensive is X?
How many people are required to achieve the necessary results?
What happens if you are not successful with X?
Does this process ever fail?
Are you satisfied with your current X process?
How reliable is your equipment?
When you have problems, is it usually easy to figure out what went wrong?
How much effort does it take to fix your tools or buy new ones?
Are you satisfied with your current provider?
Implication
Once you've identified a problem, find out how serious or relevant it is.