Just trying to find out more about this selling technique. Can you enlighten me? I know the basics (situation, problem, implication, need) but would like to hear about your experiences and opinions.
-Tcat
I’ve been in sales most of my professional life, and (IMO) most of the time you’re selling anything expensive or complex it’s going to involve "consultative"selling in one form or another. I don’t see how you can be an effective salesperson any other way unless you’re just clerking sales.
OK, I lied. I do want more than opinions. Can you tell me about SPIN selling, what each part means in the real world (how you go about it), etc.
Thanks-
-Tcat
I am in a company that has gone in big for SPIN. It is late and I am heading for a meeting/vacation in Las Vegas, so I can’t give in depth info, but in general I agree with the philosophy.
The problem is, most sales managers, when forced to make a decision, go with the guy most like Zig Ziglar.
Two cents from me. I’ve been involved professionally with sales and marketing in more industries and market sectors than most. As well as doing my own fair share of selling over the years, I’ve also taught sales people.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with the SPIN approach. There’s nothing particularly wrong with a zillion other snappy acronyms and material that fills days of seminars and pages upon pages of trendy books on sales techniques. It suits everyone to believe that these books and seminars and ‘methods’ are worth studying. In reality, it’s just a version of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Selling comes down to two things: common sense and a numbers game.
Common sense tells you that the better you understand a customer’s needs, the better placed you are to win the sale. It’s not exactly genius-level insight is it? If you don’t have much common sense, all the sales techniques and methods in the world won’t do you much good. If you DO have common sense, then you probably don’t need much else. And one month out in the real world actually trying to sell stuff to people will teach you more than ten years of seminars and methods with trendy acronyms.
Numbers game: in 99 cases out of 100, the salesman (or woman) who gets the best results is simply the one who puts in more time, effort and efficient use of resources finding leads, tracking leads, contacting leads, making calls, making visits, keeping up to date with calls and correspondence and so on. If I can cold call 10 prospects a day and you can only manage 9, I’ll beat you in the long run. It’s just a numbers game. If I’m better than you at following up those prospects with calls at one month, three month and six month intervals, because I keep better records and follow a good routine, then I’ll beat you. As one very experienced and successful salesman said to me, ‘It’s that easy, and it’s that difficult’.
ianzin made excellent points.
Forget all of the slick techniques. Do you know your product/service? Do you know your competition-not their slogan or logo-do you know them-strengths/weaknesses? Why do customers buy from them? Are they happy afterwards? Why and why not?
I haven’t advertised in close to a decade-my business is property maintenance and remodeling with some value added sidelines.
Embrace the needs of your customer, to the point that if you know a competitor can offer a better price for equal investment, you call the competitor yourself and give them a detailed, qualified lead. Then follow up.
The goodwill/loyalty from your customers and competition will come back in spades. 
S Situational Questions - “How many employees/customers do you support?”
P Problem Questions - “Are you staffed to handle that many calls?” Does your network reach saturation sometimes?"
I Implication Questions - “How does that affect your response times?”
N Needs-Payoff Questions - If you were able to reduce transaction times, would your sales increase due to fewer drop-offs?"
It is a way of framing questions based upon the point in the sales cycle that the prospect is in. You don’t offer solutions until the prospect has acknowledged a problem and a need to solve it. That is the jist of “SPIN”, although it is a lot more than that.
Although it applies to more basic transactions, it is really designed for complex sales, such as enterprise software or outsourcing or new products.
Back before my 3 year stint in sales, Neil Rackham’s book was required reading and a pre-cursor to our 4 week corporate sales class. Even though my sales skills were ‘average’ and barely at the quota level, I found SPIN a useful tool.
To have a better handle on what the Situational & Problematical Questions are, it’s a good idea to work or intern in the industry you’ll be selling to.
Never answer your own Implication Questions - Let the prospect discover them or refer them to a satisfied client.
Answers to Needs Payoff questions should always tie back to your product’s sizzle.