Spin Selling

S P I N SELLING

Pooja k

Gouse

Mahender

PGP/SS/07-09/SEC B

Spin Selling

• Is a 'hurt and rescue' approach.

-You find their problem and 'hurt' them by exposing the terrible things that might happen (spot the use of tension). Then you ‘rescue’ them with your product.

Types of questions

SPIN Selling proposes there are four types of questions, thus SPIN stands for :

• Situation ( questions )

• Problem ( questions )

• Implication ( questions )

• Need-payoff ( questions )

S

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Situation questions

• Data-gathering questions about facts and background not to be over used.

• Minimize the small talk and focus on finding background detail that can be used to make sense of the buyer's business situation.

• This is about understanding the wider context before you zoom into the details. 

Problem questions• ~ Explore problems difficulties, and dissatisfactions in areas

where the seller’s product can help.

• Ask about the buyer's pain and focus the buyer on this pain while clarifying the problem

• Inexperienced sellers generally don’t ask enough .

• Ask questions to uncover problems which your product can address.

• Eg: If you are selling tractors, ask about maintenance costs,

breakdowns and so on. If you are selling life insurance, ask about how many dependents the person has.

Implication questions• Discuss the effects of the problem.

• Talk about solutions.

• Develop the seriousness of the problem to increase the buyer's motivation to change

• This is the 'hurt' of “HURT & RESCUE”.

Eg:

Life insurance salesperson could carefully ask what would happen to the children if the target person died or became very ill.

Need-Payoff questions

• ~ Get the customer to tell you the benefits that your solution could offer.

• With careful questions, you can get them to the state where they are asking for your product even before you show it to them.

• This is a very neat 'rescue' of ‘HURT & RESCUE’, where they either rescue themselves or ask you to rescue them.

Eg: The insurance sales person could ask questions that build

pictures of the target person's children being safe and secure whatever curve-balls the world might throw at the family.

Sales Behavior and Sales Success

Successful Salespeople are…

• Not better closers • Not better at handling objections • Not better at using open ended questions

Many believe the 3 key components to a sales pitch are:

1. Uncover needs with open and closed questions.

2. Overcome objections.

3. Close for the business.

Success in the Larger Sale

Traditional (not necessarily effective) steps of a sales call are:

• Opening the call~Relate to the buyer. • Investigating needs

• Giving benefits

• Objection handling

• Closing techniques

The 4 Stages of a Sales Call

1.  Preliminaries

2.    Investigating

3.    Demonstrating Capability

4.   Obtaining Commitment

.   

Preliminaries / Opening 

Introduce yourself How you begin conversation

Eg: 1. How are you?2. Nice Weather?3. Is that a picture of your daughter?

Keep these questions and this phase short. One or two, and don't let them go on.

    Investigating Finding out facts, information, and needs.

Eg:

How much do you see your company growing next year?

How do you keep track of how much work your managers are accomplishing?

What is your current work order system?

Very important &Crucial in large sales

In fact, the most important selling skill.

  Demonstrating Capability

Sell Benefits rather than Features and Advantages.

You must show customers that :

you can solve their problem

You have a solution

That it makes sense to do business with you

Obtaining Commitment

• Getting an agreement to proceed to a further stage of the sale.

• First check that you've covered all of the prospect's key concerns.

• Then summarize your benefits.

• Finally, propose the next appropriate level of commitment.

Obtaining Commitment: Closing the Sale

What is closing?

• Huthwaite’s definition of Closing:

A behavior used by the seller which implies or invites a commitment, so that the buyer’s next statement accepts or denies commitment.

A Glimmer of Light

• Closing techniques worked when the sale was small .

• Closing techniques failed when the size of the sale increased .

• Consider the psychology:Closing is, in effect, putting pressure on the customer to make a decision.  As this decision increases in size, the pressure tends to have a negative affect.

Eg: A young man courting a young woman.  The alternative close

of “shall we sit here or shall we sit there?” works because the decision is small.  However, the same young man may have a considerably lesser success rate with the alternative close of “my place or yours”.  The decision this close implicates is a much larger one.

Closing and Decision SizeClosing and Decision SizeBefore the training took place Huthwaite measured three things: • Transaction time :  How long did each sale or attempted sale take?

• Number of closes :  How often did the seller use a closing behavior during the transaction?

• Percentage sale : What percentage of the transactions resulted in a purchase?

Low-value items: The effects of closing training:

• Decreased the transaction time .• The number of closing behaviors increased .• The success rate increased

High-value items:The effects of closing training:

• Decreased the transaction time .• The number of closing behaviors increased .• The success rate decreased.

Two Conclusions

• By forcing the customer into a decision, closing techniques speed the sales transaction.

• Closing techniques may increase the chances of making a sale with low-priced products. 

• With expensive products or services, they reduce the chances of making a sale.

Four possible outcomes of a sales call:

1. Orders

2. Advances

3. Continuations

4. No-sales

Orders

•Where the customer makes a firm commitment to buy.

Advances • Where an event takes place, either in the call or after it,

that makes the sales move forward toward a decision.  Typical Advances might include:

o A customer’s agreement to attend an off-site demonstration

o A clearance that will get you in front of higher level of decision maker

o An agreement to run a trial or test of your product

o Access to parts of the account that were previously inaccessible to you

Continuations • Where the sale will continue but where no

specific action has been agreed upon by the customer to move it forward.

o “Thank you for coming.  Why don’t you visit us again the next time you’re in the area?”

o “Fantastic presentation, we’re very impressed.  Let’s meet again some time.”

o “We liked what we saw and we’ll be in touch if we need to take things further.”

No-sales

• Where the customer actively refuses a commitment.

Obtaining Commitment: Four Successful Actions

1. Giving attention to Investigating and Demonstrating Capability.

2. Checking that key concerns are covered .

3. Summarizing the Benefits.

4. Proposing a commitment.

Giving attention to Investigating and Demonstrating Capability.

Successful salespeople give their primary attention to this action.

Successful salespeople do an outstanding job of building needs during the Investigating stage.

If you can convince customers that they need what you are offering, then they will often close the sale for you.

Checking that key concerns are covered.

• Sellers who were most effective in obtaining commitment from their customers would invariably take the initiave and ask the buyer whether there were any further points or concerns that needed to be addressed .

Summarizing the Benefits

o In a larger sale, summary will almost always be a helpful way to bring key points into focus just before the decision.

Proposing a commitment.

Asking for the commitment is not what successful sellers do.

In all the other stages of the sale, asking behaviors are much more successful than giving behaviors.

At the point of commitment, successful sellers don’t ask–they tell.

Most natural and effective: Suggest an appropriate next step to the customer.

CUSTOMER NEEDS IN SALE

INVESTIGATING

•QUESTIONS

•COLLECT DATA

NEED DEVELOPMENT

Types of needs

•Implied needs

•Explicit needs

VALUE EQUATION

Relationship between the size of needs and cost of a solution

Problem> cost of solving=sales

Problem<cost of solving=no sales

THE SPIN STRATEGY• S-Situation questions:

• These questions collect facts and background data

• Experience speaks while asking them

• Chances of buyer getting bored

• Bottom line: Always do u homework before you give your call.

SPIN

• P-Problem questions

• Strongly linked to Sale success-especially small sales.

• Experience goes along with these questions.

• It provides a base in the large sales

• They usually help in covering the implied needs.

SPIN

• I-Implication questions.

• Helpful in large sales.

• Implications are the language of decision makers, and if you can talk their language, you’ll influence them better.

• If not asked properly these questions can create a negative impact.

SPIN• N-Need pay off questions.

• These help in developing Implied needs into Explicit needs.

• Success in dealing with existing customers.

• Need Pay-Off questions reduce Objections.

• Need-payoff Questions are important because they focus attention on solutions, not problems.

SPIN MODEL• Initially, Situation Questions are asked to establish background

facts.

• Next, quickly move to Problem Questions to explore problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions.

• In smaller sales we could offer solutions on the spot but we need to hold back in large sales.

• Once the problem is justified by the buyer, we need to ask need-payoff questions.

Features and Benefits: The Classic Ways to Demonstrate Capability

FEATURES

• Features-Facts, data, or information about your product or

services.

• In larger sales, Features have a negative effect.

• Features are low-power statements that do little to help you sell.

BENEFITS

Research says two types of benefits:– Type A benefit (Advantages)

– Type B benefit (Benefits)

Type A benefits are helpful in smaller sales

Type B benefits are helpful in any size of sales.

FEATURES, ADVANTAGES, AND BENEFITS IN THE LONGER SELLING CYCLE

• Advantages usually run out of steam

• Selling New Products

• Demonstrating Capability Effectively– Don’t demonstrate capabilities too early in the call.

– Beware Advantages .

– Be careful with new products.

PREVENTING OBJECTIONS

• Features and Price Concerns

• Treating Symptoms or Treating Causes?

• The Sales-Training approach to Objections.

• Preventing objections from your customers– Objections early in the call.

– Objections about value.

PRELIMINARIES: OPENING THE CALL

• First Impressions

• Conventional openings :– Relate to the buyers personal interests.

– Make an opening benefit statement.

MAKE YOUR PRELIMINARIES EFFECTIVE

TURNING THEORY INTO PRACTICE

• The Four Golden Rules for Learning Skills

• Rule 1:Practice only one thing at a time.

• Rule 2:Try the new thing at least 3 times.

• Rule 3:Quantity before quality

• Rule 4:Practice in safe situations.

SUMMARY

• FOUR STAGES OF A SALES CALL

– Preliminaries

– Investigating

– Demonstrating Capability

– Obtaining Commitment