Chapter 1: Practice Makes Perfection

To develop the SPIN Selling methodology, Neil Rackham had created a scientific
research that looked at and measured the behaviors of sellers and buyers. He ran the
largest study on the subject ever done so far, counting with more than 30 researchers
who studied more than 35,000 sales leads in more than 20 countries. Neil noted that the
quality of the salesperson’s questions was the key factor in whether the sale was closed
or not, and with that huge stack of data Neil and his team analyzed the success map
and named it SPIN. SPIN is an acronym that represents the key factors that must be
explored in a sale for it to be successful. They are:
S – Situation
P – Problem
I – Implication
N – Need-payoff
Asking the right questions is crucial for a successful sale, but you will not close many
deals if you do not adopt a method.

Chapter 2: Small Fish Bait Does Not

Work On Sharks…
In sales, the routine of calling dozens of people every day can be exhausting and less
than glamorous. Traditional sales techniques are poorly assertive, slow, and
monotonous. The traditional process says that you should open your calls or emails or
meetings with open-ended questions to understand the interests of the client. Present
the benefits of the product that relate to these interests, work the objections and close
the sale.
Easy, isn’t it? The bad news is that this does not work when it comes to high-value
sales. Neil, however, saw an interesting opportunity in the sales market. He realized
that the conventional wisdom in the sales world was that “selling is selling.” And so the
simpler sales techniques – used in smaller markets and contracts were replicated in the
same way for larger, more complex sales between companies.
But, big fish do not bite the same bait as minnows. To fish for sharks, you have to use
the correct bait. Let’s assume you sell servers, for example. First, you explain that you
work for HP, describe the features and specifications of your servers and finally try to
close the sale, right?
Wrong! In the above example, you forgot to investigate your customer, which is where
you always get the sale. You need to understand what the customer really needs before
attempting to depart for demonstration and closing.
 Chapter 3: All Sales Have Four Basic
Steps
 Preliminaries: These are the opening events that set the tone and warm the
business. An example would be to open a conversation with these questions:
How are you? How’s the weather? This phase should be short, always.
 Research: Find facts, information, and needs. Examples of questions that you
can ask during the research phrase include: How much growth do you project
for next year? How does your management system help you design this
growth?
 Demonstration of capabilities: This is the phase where you show that you
can solve the prospect’s problem. Avoid going into this phase until the
prospect makes explicit that your demonstration will solve the problem.
Examples: if the prospect says, “It’s clear to me that I’m going to need
software to help me design my best growth,” then you can begin this phase.
 Get commitment: Have the seller accept the sale and the next steps of how
to proceed. First, you must ensure that you handle all the concerns/needs,
then summarize the benefits and ultimately propose the next level of
commitment.

Chapter 4: Changing How To Close

In smaller sales, especially direct to the end consumer, simple closing techniques can
work. You can use short deadlines or inventories to create urgency.
In complex sales, this kind of approach does not work. In certain cases, the prospect
may react negatively. And when they work in a complex sale, it is possible that the
contract has been closed at a much lower value than it could potentially be. The best
way to close larger and easier sales is to understand that not all sales have to result in
immediate closure or loss. The most important thing about selling is not the closing itself
but helping the prospect figure out what they really need. In complex sales rather than
“closing”, the important thing is to understand the customer’s needs, tie up the small
issues that could get bigger together and create urgency for a solution. Unlike smaller
and simpler sales, in complex sales, these needs arise in different situations. In a
company, the buying environment requires reflection and research by the buyer. It
involves moving many stakeholders in the organization. It involves understanding the
explicit needs of the buyer as well as the implicit ones. Good salespeople know how to
identify these implicit needs, but making a big sale requires more than being a good
listener. And to do this, you must, after identifying an implicit need, turn it into an explicit
necessity! An implicit need is a weak signal that a prospect wants to buy and it needs to
be strengthened. If you can turn implicit signals and point them out as explicit needs to
your prospects, you’ll be able to convince them more easily to buy a solution that solves
 all the needs that are visible to them. SPIN Selling’s strategy is one way to help you
achieve this. It helps you ask the right questions at the right time.

Chapter 5: Mapping The Situation

To learn more about your prospects, you must begin with questions that explore the
situation and the problem. Questioning your prospect’s situation helps you get an
understanding of the larger context, and this helps you to build a relationship in the right
way. To develop authority, you need to know your market, your product/service, and
your prospect’s product/service. That is why it’s essential to do pre-meeting research
and preparation. Ask questions that lead you to the facts directly. It is vital to ask a lot,
but also not to tire your prospect with many questions. Examples of useful situational
questions:
 What equipment do you use to manage your network?
 What is your segment of customers with less satisfaction?
 How have you scaled your organization’s sales team?

Chapter 6: Mapping Problems

Once you have identified your prospect’s scenario through situational questions, it is
now time for you to understand the real issues. You can then use the questions about
problems as they will help you discover the difficulties of your prospects. Good problem
questions include, “Are you satisfied with your vendor?” Or perhaps “Is it not too difficult
for you to do this task manually?”

Chapter 7: Escalating To The

Implications
The implications questions deepen the real consequences of your prospect’s problems.
The reason to make the sale happen starts at this stage. However, most vendors stop
the investigation process in the previous two phases: Your prospect may be blind to the
impacts and consequences of their problems, and their job is to highlight them, bringing
to the conversation the consequences of these problems that your client may not have
considered, such as overtime costs, etc. The idea of each implication is to make the
problem even bigger and, if done correctly, the implication questions will accelerate the
closing. Examples of good implications questions include:
 What are the effects of this problem on your billing?
 How many customers will you lose next year if it stays that way?
 What happens if we do not solve this until next December?

Chapter 8: Supplying The Needs

In the final stage of SPIN Selling, your objective is to make the prospect realize the
value and urgency of solving the identified problem. You need to ensure that the buyers
 recognize the product’s benefits to the problem. You need to be able to ask how they
intend to solve the company’s problems. You can also make the prospect imagine what
the future would look like if that problem disappeared. If everything has happened as
planned and you have drawn up a good plan, your prospect should see your proposal
not only as an effective but also the most obvious solution. In the problem-solving
phase, you have to focus on the problem and move on to the solution. For this, it is
necessary to create a positive tone, to have good intonation and motivate the prospect
to feel, to live in a world without the problem. Examples of good solution questions
include:
 What would be the revenue impact if we could implement this software?
 How many hours will this save from your staff each month?

Chapter 9: Demonstrate The Solution

With Mastery
Do not present the features of your product just because they exist. Presenting your
solutions and demonstrations too soon invites the customer to show objections.
Features and functionalities are just facts. The benefits are that they are the elements of
your offer that make your prospect’s life better. Amateur marketers focus primarily on
features or advantages of a product and identify these elements as benefits when they
are not. The advantages of a product show how it can help your prospects and although
they are more persuasive than the features and can attract a prospect’s interest, they
are also just information. When you demonstrate the benefits of your product, you show
exactly how your product can meet a specific need of your prospect. You are not selling
a standard product, rather you are selling a solution tailored to your prospect’s interests
and problems. So, forget the advantages and features and instead focus on the
solution.

Chapter 10: The Easiest Way To

Avoid Objections
Objections are more often than not seen as a sign of real interest in an offer, and not
necessarily as the problem. Sellers are trained to deal with objections and to resolve
them when the answer could have often been to avoid them. The easiest way to avoid
objections is to work well at the implications stage and make your prospect explicitly
mention their problems, consequences, and needs. By positioning yourself as a doctor
treating the problems and their causes, you become much less prone to objections.
SPIN Selling By Neil Rackham -
Summary
This is the third article in a four part series on Neil Rackam's book Spin Selling. In
the book he outlines what questions to ask when to move prospects all the way
through the buying process. If you ask the wrong questions at the wrong stage
the interaction will often stall. On the other hand if you ask the right questions at
the right time, you will often find the prospect quickly becomes eagerly
interested in your product and excited to buy. The third type of question to ask is
all about drawing connections from problems to implications.

If you have not yet read the first article in this series on the SPIN Selling System. I
would recommend you start with that article. It is titled The 4 Spin Selling
Questions.

The Order Of Questions in the SPIN Selling System

1. Situation Questions

2. Problem Questions

3. Implication Questions

4. Need-Payoff Questions

SPIN Selling Summary

Implication Questions
Implication questions are questions in the sales process that ask ask about the
problems consequences, effects or impacts. This step is critical as once the
prospect realizes they have a problem, as pointing out the implications can show
the problem is a much larger concern then initially thought. The idea is to extend
and expand the effects of the problem and link the problem to other potential
problems to make the buyer eager to find a solution.

Implication Question Examples

Examples of implication questions would be (I will use examples related to my

customer who provides office coffee.

1. How has the problems with your office coffee system affected your staff?

2. Has having people wait in line for coffee affected your teams ability to respond
to client calls?

3. Has running out of coffee supplies before a sales meeting ever caused a sales
meeting with a prospective client to get off to a bad start?

4. Has a visitor to your office ever been left with a bad image of your company
because your coffee did not taste very good?

If you do have problems with your office coffee just give me a call at (519) 880-
8675. One of my customers that I represent provides office coffeeand does an
outstanding job.

Asking implications questions should be a component of any sales call. The

implication questions you ask should be well thought out, if possible even plan
out ahead of time what your implication questions will be. When asking an
implication question you need to be careful not to ask a question that the
prospect will say an implication does not exist. If this happens the prospects
interest in buying will decrease. That is why it is best to plan out your implication
questions before hand. If you only find out the problems the prospect is having
in the sales call though, you will need to do your best and think on your feet.
Always error on the side of caution though and don't ask the question if you
think there is a chance the prospect will say there is no implication. If this is the
case continue to ask problem questions until a you identify an implication.
Another thing you need to be careful not to do is identify an implication that you
can not fix with your product or service. If you do this, the prospect will look for
another supplier who can also fill that need. You will also want to be careful you
do not ask implication questions too early in the call before you have built
rapport or in relation to sensitive areas (organization politics, personal issues,
decisions the buyer recently made). If you do this you will probably have an
uncomfortable buyer who no longer wants to talk to you. Be sure to also vary the
way you ask your implication questions so that your conversation sounds natural.

Implication Question Lead-in Examples

Examples of how you could start an implication question are

1. What effect does that have on...

2. How often does that cause.....

3. What does that result in when.....

4. Does that ever lead to......