Spin Selling

A typical sales engagement is more like a mind game. Sucessful salesman is the one who can listen well... Pick up the key words.... Words that define the customers needs, feelings, mood or viewpoint. One approach to a sales call is to take it like a mind game. You are trying to pre-empt what the other person (in this case customer) is thinking. A useful tip would be never to hard sell. Also, hold your aces till the correct time comes. Build on the latent need of the customer. Build it till you feel that the iron is hot enough to strike. Believe me you will be very very effective. The trick lies in mastering this art. Simple mundane and hackneyed pitches can become a silver bullet if used at the right time.

Afterall isn't it what SPIN selling (Neil Rackham) is all about:

You start of by asking Situational questions, keep probing till you set the context right. Identify the painpoints by askin the Problem questions. Now you know that there is a need that exists, build on it.... by asking Inference questions... and seal the deal by asking Need-PayOff kind of questions. Lets take a simple sale as an example. Say placements committe of an IIM going for a pitch. Here is how u shud start.

Situational Questions: Don't jump the gun and start tom tomming about your campus!! Start asking Situational Questions.... So Sir, how often do you recruit from B-school campuses. What campuses do you go to? Do you go to XYZ colleges also? Whats the philosophy behind your hiring strategy? What kind of people are you looking for? Skill sets? How do you grade campuses? What criterion? Do you evaluate it often? Enough....

Problem Questions: Change gears!! Have you ever faced any problems, in terms of number of people joining? Slots? Quality of people? Skill set training issues? Lack of adjustement by the new joinees? Unclear expectation settings? Quickly make a mind map of the pain points!! You have to use them next? Do you ever feel inspite of your grading of campuses you are not getting the right quality?

Inference Questions: Have you looked at premier Indian campuses? Have you tried to have a detailed job description? Have you built a relationship with campus in terms of workshops? Have you sponsored any events? Have you earned campus eye balls? Have you gauzed student quality through competitions? Have you negotiated for slots? What reasons have people given? Have you considered campuses with XYZ qualities are these not better? Now you have him thinking? Boss i never tried this with their campus?

Need-Payoff: You have developed his need to increase the campuses to visit? Now use your pitch and go for the kill!! The only catch is that you need to be prepared with the questions well in advance!! All four types....SPIN.. I hope I clarified the concept!!

This ladies and gentlemen was the SPIN selling concept in a nutshell! A very successful selling strategy developed by Neil Rackham after loads of research!! Search about it and read more!! Till then DB signs off!!

Cheers
DBS