Salespeople create value in the sales dialogue by using spin questions. what do these questions do?

12th December 2019 |   Bob Apollo

Following my initial two “Spotlight on…” articles on Sandler and Strategic Selling, I now want to turn my attention to another long-established, widely adopted and still-relevant sales methodology: SPIN® Selling from Huthwaite International.

The concepts behind SPIN® were the result of extensive research by Neil Rackham and his colleagues into the patterns of success and failure in complex B2B sales. Many of the ideas must have seemed counter-intuitive when they were first published three decades ago but have undoubtedly stood the test of time.

Rackham identified a number of significant differences between simple and complex sales and challenged the then-current thinking about the relative merits of open versus closed questions and the traditional emphasis on teaching salespeople how to handle customer objections.

Continuations and advances

He established a particularly important distinction between continuations and advances – something also recognised by Sandler as being critical to sales success. Simply put, in a “continuation” (the outcome of the majority conversations in which the salesperson hasn’t actually been thrown out) the customer agrees to the principle of further dialogue, but all the resulting actions tend to be with the seller.

In an “advance”, however, the prospective customer not only agrees to continue the dialogue but also (this is the critical element) commits to take some non-trivial actions themselves, such as providing previously restricted information, introducing the salesperson to their colleagues, agreeing to take an important next step, and so on.

These incremental customer commitments turn out to be critical to making meaningful progress in a complex sales environment, and successful salespeople both then and now tend to be the ones who have mastered the art of persuading a well-qualified customer to make a series of meaningful advances.

Value-creating conversations

But how are these advances to be achieved? Rackham suggested that they depend upon the salesperson’s skills in having value-creating conversations with their prospective customers – the sort of conversation that a prospect will look back on and conclude was a valuable use of their time. Customers are naturally much more likely to want to continue a dialogue if they feel that they will continue to learn new and useful things from the next conversation.

The research found that the type of questions that salespeople asked, the sequence and relative frequency of the question types and the skill with which they asked them had a huge impact on the chances of getting an advance and – ultimately – achieving a successful sale.

Four types of question

The four question types that underpin the SPIN® acronym are:

1. SITUATIONAL questions establish basic facts about the customer’s situation and circumstances such as the size of their organisation, the systems they have in use, and so on. Ineffective salespeople tend to ask a disproportionately large percentage of situational questions – as if they were on a box-ticking fact-finding mission. But customers deeply resent being asked a series of self-serving fact-based discovery questions, particularly when so much of the asked-for information could have been uncovered by doing some judicious internet-based research.
2. PROBLEM questions seek to uncover the prospect’s key business challenges, threats and opportunities. When SPIN® was first published, the dominant objective was to uncover the issues the prospect was already aware of in order to make a connection with the vendor’s potential solution. But more recently SPIN® and other methodologies have recognised the value of helping the prospective customer to recognise and acknowledge issues they may have not yet been aware of or had undervalued. Rather than asking customers “what keeps them up at night” (which must rank amongst the worst questions a salesperson could possibly ask), today’s skilled salespeople are helping their customers to identify previously unconsidered needs.
3. IMPLICATION questions are the most powerful of the four original SPIN® questions, and top sales performers tend to make particularly effective use of them. They help the customer to think through the potential consequences of the issues they have acknowledged. Customers regard well-crafted implication questions as being particularly stimulating and valuable because they help them to position the scope of the problems they are wrestling with, and to establish whether the business case for dealing with them is compelling.
4. NEED/PAYOFF questions help the customer to compare and contrast the costs and risks of sticking with the status quo versus the potential business benefits associated with a decision to change. Rackham wanted to call these “value” questions, but this would have resulted in the acronym SPIV, which I hope no self-respecting salesperson would want to be associated with.

Applying these questions

So how should these four question types be applied? Situational questions can and should be minimised through intelligent preparation. Problem questions help salespeople to better understand their prospect’s issues and challenges. Implication questions help salespeople to establish the relative importance of the acknowledged problems. Need/Payoff questions help to determine the strength of the resulting business case.

Whilst there is a broad logic to the Situation-Problem-Implication-Need/Payoff sequence, it would be wrong and unproductive for salespeople to adopt a simple linear approach. The most skilful salespeople often loop back from implication questions to uncover new problems, and from need/payoff questions to implication, problem and (occasionally) fresh situational questions.

Is the SPIN® model complete? I’d argue that Rackham identified but didn’t explicitly name a fifth key question type in his book: commitment questions.

In any complex B2B sale, building up the full picture requires a series of conversations. It’s particularly important that both the salesperson and the customer believe they are getting value from each phase of the conversation, and this will be evidenced by a well-qualified prospect’s willingness to commit to a series of meaningful advances.

Commitment questions

But is the SPIN® model complete? I’d argue that Rackham identified but didn’t explicitly name a fifth key question type in his book: commitment questions.

COMMITMENT questions test the prospective customer’s willingness to agree to a meaningful next step or advance. The best place to seek such a commitment is often at the start of each phase of dialogue rather than at the end.

After determining an agenda and mutually agreed goals for the conversation, we might profitably ask “assuming we both agree that we have achieved these goals at the end of our meeting, would it be reasonable to also agree that our next step should be to [something that represents a genuine advance]?”

Students of Sandler will recognise the parallels between this question type and their concept of the upfront commit.

SPIN® awareness, when combined with commitment questions (SPIN®+C), remains a very relevant foundation for planning to effective sales conversations. But I’d also like to suggest that asking the right questions at the right time is still an incomplete framework.

Choosing the right time

Successful salespeople are able to interweave thoughtfully chosen SPIN®+C questions with equally well-chosen insights, stories and anecdotes that help to educate and inform the customer, and which make the resulting conversation that much more valuable for all concerned.

So: is the SPIN® model still relevant? My experience (and recent research) suggests that the answer is absolutely yes, in combination with appropriate commitment questions and making sure we give back at least as much as we gain from the conversation with our carefully chosen contributions.

If we succeed, we will stimulate our customer to respond with their own well-chosen questions, insights, stories and anecdotes and we will make that all-important valuable advance much more likely – to the great benefit of everyone involved in the conversation.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Based on extensive observational research and analysis of sales behaviours, SPIN selling enables salespeople to acquire a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs, build a persuasive case around specific problems and provide effective solutions. Created and developed here at Huthwaite International, SPIN Selling continues to be one of the most iconic and widely used sales methodologies across the globe - crossing cultural boundaries and evolving with changing customer behaviour.

As the creators of SPIN Selling, in this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about this timeless approach to sales success.

Contents

What is SPIN Selling?

Although customer behaviours have changed over the years and are always evolving, SPIN Selling continues to be the most iconic and revered sales methodology in the world - used by 30% of the top 100 biggest companies in the world (Forbes), as well as smaller organisations who find SPIN equally accessible and supportive for their sales teams.

Over the past four decades, SPIN selling has proven to be the most effective way to improve sales success and deliver bottom line results. But before we get into the specifics of how SPIN selling works, let’s first establish the fundamentals - what SPIN selling actually is, and why it was developed.

Learn the science behind why SPIN selling works and quickly start implementing the four stage questioning framework used by successful salespeople with our free whitepaper:

SPIN is the world’s leading sales methodology, as outlined in Neil Rackham’s groundbreaking book ‘SPIN Selling’ first published in 1988 - reprinted many times and in dozens of languages. Rackham’s SPIN behaviours were developed here at Huthwaite International, following years of in-depth research into what successful salespeople do differently.

What we’ve found is that effective sellers focus on the customer’s buying process, not on their own sales process. The Buying Cycle outlines the key phases that customers go through when deciding whether or not to buy.

Depending upon where customers are in the Buying Cycle, they may or may not volunteer their needs and we might have to uncover them actively, using questions.

The SPIN selling method is built around four types of key sales questions - each fulfilling crucial roles within a sales process:

• Situation: questions about the customer’s current situation
• Problem: questions about the customer’s difficulties or dissatisfactions
• Implication: questions about the consequences or implications of the customer’s problems
• Need-Payoff: questions that explore the importance to the customer of solving a problem

Essentially, these questions provide a logical framework rather than a rigid sequence allowing salespeople to enhance communication with their prospects, deliver value and close more deals as a result. They steer the conversation away from the salesperson, to focus on customers and their needs.

Crucially, SPIN Selling isn’t simply a technique that you can read about and apply easily alongside other sales tactics as a quick way to win more deals. To be successful with the SPIN sales model requires proper training, application, and most importantly, a commitment to changing your behaviour or the behaviour of your team, for the long term.

Does SPIN Selling work? Scientifica share their story here.

Is SPIN Selling still relevant?

Without a doubt. Although SPIN Selling was created over 30 years ago, its teachings are perhaps more relevant than ever before.

Today, prospects have a lot more choices and a wealth of information at their disposal, which means they are often less willing to engage with salespeople - the stakes are higher to make a positive and lasting impression.

What has changed is that selling as a whole is no longer just about persuading prospects, as buyers today can and will make their own decisions. However, what does influence a buying decision is the salesperson and their behaviour. After all, many products today are commodities - what tips the scale towards a decision is the person selling, and how well they can respond to customer needs and offer value.

This makes the application of SPIN Selling skills integral to sales success - uncovering problems, solving challenges and communicating value right away. SPIN fundamentals are especially important in the absence of face-to-face meetings, when salespeople are selling remotely and need to gather crucial information quickly.

In a world where your prospect could be speaking to multiple salespeople at once, SPIN Selling ensures you’re the one they want to do business with.

But how exactly does SPIN work in the current climate? See what Neil Rackham has to say about the relevancy of SPIN today:

Video transcription: The SPIN model is about understanding. I suppose the breakthrough with SPIN was it's no longer about persuading customers, people persuade themselves. It's about really understanding them and their needs so they could do a good job of creating value. That hasn't changed, but some other things have changed which make the SPIN model probably more relevant today than it was thirty years ago.

One of those things is that the products have become commodities. So that salespeople are the differentiator. If salespeople are the differentiator then how do they differentiate? They differentiate by really understanding the customer much more deeply than the competition, by being able to create new creative solutions, by being able to bring value and the SPIN model is a very helpful way to do that, but we are in the 21st century and the SPIN model has got to change. Way back when we did the original SPIN research, we found that situation questions, questions about fact, were slightly negatively correlated with success. You could ask too many of them.

Today they're actively positively negatively correlated. That is, you ask a lot of situation questions and the customer become really impatient. They'll say you should have done your homework, you should have known that because a lot of the things that you found out with the SPIN model thirty years ago, you found that face to face with the customer because there was no other way to do it. Today you can research that. You don't have to ask as many situation questions. So situation questions change.

Why SPIN Selling works: The Science Behind the Method

In the early 1970s, Neil Rackham and his team set out to uncover what really made top salespeople the best. Were they more charismatic? Was it in their genetics?

Out of 35,000 sales calls came the answer, and SPIN Selling was created. The findings of this revolutionary study - the largest of its kind - were very telling. In fact, they dispelled numerous, popular sales practices and myths, with the most important findings being that:

• All customer needs are different. This seems obvious, however what we mean here is that focusing on the ‘features and benefits’ of a product or a service isn’t going to work unless they are linked to specific customer needs.
• Closing techniques are actually counterproductive to the sales process. Skilled sellers explore their customer needs in depth, demonstrate their capability to meet those needs and show a clear business case for their solution before they attempt to close the sale.
• Great salespeople are most definitely made, not born! Customers demand empathy and integrity. Successful salespeople work hard to become considered and skilled professionals that their customers can trust to provide them with great solutions to their challenges.

Most importantly, it isn’t the appearance or charm of salespeople that helps them close deals - but their behaviours.

In observing what top performers said and did within a sales call, the Huthwaite research group pioneered the use of a research tool, now widely known as Behaviour Analysis. By monitoring and observing how top performing salespeople acted, the team found which behaviours were synonymous with successful outcomes in various scenarios.

We call this a Success Model, and at Huthwaite International, we train salespeople to modify their existing behaviour to match it. Our training focuses on the individual components that make certain behaviours successful, and mirrors this through interactive role plays and skills transfer sessions that allow skills to be used in the workplace.

Our SPIN training courses focus on the hard science behind learning soft skills, and you can see why in this video:

This is just an overview of why the SPIN Selling model works based on the findings of the initial study, as well as our ongoing research. Huthwaite International has analysed over 35,000 sales interviews, in 47 countries, and studied 116 factors which may play a role in improving sales performance. As the creators of SPIN selling, ours remains the largest ever investigation into sales success - and the results speak for themselves.

Each SPIN trainer must be officially licensed and regularly monitored in order to ensure they can combine our unique methodology with a high quality, consistent learning experience.

The SPIN sales model defined

The foundation of SPIN selling is based on a flexible questioning model that allows salespeople to gain a 360 view of where customers are in a sales cycle and what they need.

The SPIN sales methodology gives salespeople a structure to work with - a success proven alternative to enthusiastically dominating customer conversations. SPIN ensures that not only is the customer given the opportunity to speak, but that sales people actually listen. This allows them to properly understand and service their customers’ needs.

SPIN selling helps achieve this through 4 key question types.

What are the SPIN selling questions?

To have the best chance when pitching to a buyer, the seller needs to know and understand their needs. 

Research shows buyers rate the value of sales people as highest when they’re asked about future problems, not just the challenges they’re currently facing. 

To address all of the buyer’s needs, it’s important to ask situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff questions. Let’s find out what they are, and see examples of SPIN questions.

Examples of SPIN questions

Situation

Stop talking and start listening. Find out the buyer’s needs by listening to what their current issues are. 

For example, at Huthwaite International, our sellers can create a well-rounded picture of the buyer’s current difficulties by asking the following questions:

• What is the sales team's target this quarter?
• Have you had previous sales training?
• What are the biggest challenges faced by your organisation concerning the sales team?

These questions are about your services, but are used as an indication of what SPIN questions to ask next.

Problem

The seller should ask SPIN questions to anticipate potential challenges the buyer may be currently experiencing.

Going back to the previous example, the buyer told us that they have offices in four cities in Europe and grew rapidly in the last year. No one in their company has had any formal sales training, and their sellers aren’t hitting their targets. Potential questions we could ask in this situation are:

• What concerns do you have with the potential volume of missed business opportunities when trying to meet your sales targets?
• What problems are you experiencing with your globally spread sales team?

The seller can use these answers to inform the implication questions by delving deeper into their issue to not only discuss the present, but the future.

Implication

The seller needs to discuss the impact current issues could have on the buyer’s business long-term if their situation stays the same.

Returning to the Huthwaite International scenario, it’s clear to the seller that if the buyer doesn’t properly train their sales team, the business will not hit their core KPIs. As a result, the growth that the business has faced in the last year will plateau and begin to decline. Potential questions the seller could ask to get more information are: