"SPIN-sales". Book in 15 minutes

At one time, while working in a large company, I passed a sales training. He was led by a well-known coach, and everything was organized at a decent level. However, during the training, the feeling that we were taught some tricks of salespeople, who by all means needed to “sniff” their goods, did not leave me. It was repeatedly emphasized how important it is to ask open-ended questions, how to conduct presentations, how to deftly respond to objections, how to use closing techniques.

Observing the sales process in practice (we were selling expensive business solutions), I saw that the process of interaction with the customer in reality does not fit into the training schemes. After reading Neil Reckham's book "SPIN-sales" everything fell into place. I realized that the tricks of small sales are useless, and even harmful for large ones. Despite the fact that the book was published long ago and is recognized worldwide as a guide to major sales number 1, perhaps not everyone is familiar with its findings. Therefore, we in MakeRight.ru have prepared an abbreviated version of our sammari (summary) specifically for readers of Megamind:

Large sales are fundamentally different from small and require a different approach. Which one

Nein Reckham's SPIN methodology for large sales is based on 12 years of research by Huthwaite, during which 35,000 meetings with customers in 23 different countries of the world were analyzed and 116 factors that had a significant impact on the sales result were considered. Interestingly, no one has done such large-scale sales research before.
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What is the difference between large and small sales?

One of the main differences is the duration of the transaction. You may need to hold many meetings with different people. And even if you had a brilliant presentation, it is far from a fact that this will help the sale.



The most important thing is that "the psychology of sales, requiring multiple meetings, is fundamentally different from sales from one meeting ."

Also large sales are distinguished by a large amount of buyer's obligations. Consent to a big deal is a serious decision. Also in large sales, the risk increases in the event of an error, and they usually have a long-term relationship between the seller and the buyer.

Neil Reckham describes an experiment that clearly shows the difference between a large sale and a small one. In front of potential customers was a spectacular presentation of the product. Everything seemed to be good - potential clients remembered from five to seven key points of the presentation of the eight listed. They also said that the likelihood that they will purchase a product is high. It seems that this result can be happy?

But ... After a week, all potential buyers answered the researchers that they had forgotten most of the information, and the purchase of the product was no longer in their plans.

So why the sale was not realized despite the excellent presentation and good feedback from customers after its completion?

The fact is that if the contract was concluded immediately after the presentation, then, most likely, if it was successful, the seller would have concluded a deal. However, large sales are not usually concluded immediately after the presentation. They require a long study of conditions and much more time. The time until the closing of the transaction is significantly stretched.

Based on his research, Neil Reckham made a number of significant conclusions:

• many skills that contributed to successful small sales, prevented the successful implementation of large transactions;
• the style of conducting large-scale sales, which require several meetings to establish business relations, differs significantly from the style of making a transaction on the basis of one meeting;
• as sales increase, buyer's behavior changes significantly and requires other skills from the seller.

In addition, the pushy style that is customary for small sales is not suitable for large sales, when the seller tries to immediately overcome all the objections of the buyer, telling him about the advantages of his offer. There is a great danger that this will sharply alienate a potential client.

“The rule is: you can be assertive if you have the opportunity to take an order here and now; but if you part with the buyer without receiving an order from him, the shown assertiveness will reduce your chances of ultimate success. And since the buyer will not resume contact with you, you may never know where the mistake was made. So, assertive and hard style works for small sales with one-time contacts, and he usually acts against you in case several meetings are required for making a deal. ”

In general, large sales are not characterized by impulsiveness, which can determine the behavior of the buyer when he makes small purchases. “ As the size of sales grows, the importance of rational elements grows .” Customers are more likely to make an informed decision based on a deep study of the proposal and with the involvement of experts within their company. Decisions are often made collectively and not at all by the persons with whom the meeting was held or to whom the presentation was shown. Purchasing decisions can be made by persons on whom the sales manager may not have a way out.

“Large purchases, by definition, require serious decisions from the buyer, and this affects the psychology of the sale. With a small sale, the buyer thinks less about value. As sales increase, sellers must build a perception of the value of their goods and services. Forming a perception of value is perhaps the single most important skill for making large sales. ”

Studies have shown that those salespeople who fail to understand this, usually describe the advantages of the product. Successful sellers take a different approach - they reveal the value of the offer.

In addition, large sales usually imply a long-term relationship between the seller and the buyer. Therefore, the sale itself becomes part of their relationship. Relationships are crucial in large sales as opposed to small ones.

"With a large sale, the product and the seller are often perceived by the buyer as a whole."

What factors influence sales success?

Observing how salespeople work, the team of Neil Reckham conditionally divided each meeting into 4 parts:

1. The beginning of the meeting - the actions before the start of sales, which are designed to set up for sale.
2. Research - obtaining information from the client through questions.
3. Demonstration of opportunities - at this stage the seller shows that he has a solution to the client’s problems.
4. Getting a commitment. In small sales, this is usually the completion of a deal, in large sales, this is what Neil Reckham calls “progress” - getting access to decision-makers, or agreeing to test a product. It is important to note that if the seller considers the meeting successful, it does not mean that it really is, even if positive feedback from the customer has been received. The main criterion of success is progress.

The idea that sales success is the beginning of the meeting is rooted. But, as it turned out during the study, in large sales, the beginning of the meeting is not decisive. The most important and decisive was the second stage - the study, when the salesman asks a potential client a series of questions, the answers to which allow him to better understand and know the client's needs. As the author notes, with the help of such leading questions, an ordinary seller is able to improve his sales results by 20 percent.

Importance of questions

Neil Reckham explains the reasons for the importance of questions in sales:

• Questions help customers talk. In successful meetings, the buyer usually says more, not the seller;
• With questions focused attention. For example, a teacher who asks questions from the audience attracts much more attention than simply reading a lecture;
• The seller, who will excel in explanations, does not convince people at all. People are not so easy to part with their convictions, and insisting that they are not right the seller, rather cause rejection, and not make progress. But literate questions just can contribute to the fact that people change their beliefs.

Questions help clarify customer needs. It is foolish to try to sell a person what he does not need.
Questions are definitely important. At any sales training you can hear about the importance of the questions. Moreover, it is believed that it is better to ask open questions, that is, those that are not enough to answer "yes" or "no." Where did this belief come from and is it true? Neil Reckham's research team found that there is no relationship between open questions and successful meetings. Some of the sellers used them, some did not, but this did not affect the result of the meeting.

But what questions help sell if not open?

Identify Needs - Hidden and Explicit

The researchers suggested that not at all open questions affect the success of the sale. Important questions that help find and reveal the needs of the buyer. A sales professional needs to understand that the buyer has not only obvious, but also hidden needs. What are hidden needs?

“Hidden needs are a statement by the buyer of problems, difficulties, and grievances. A typical example is the phrases “Our existing system has insufficient capacity”, “I am dissatisfied with the waste rate” or “We are not satisfied with the existing speed of the process.
Explicit needs are the buyer's specific statements about the need or desire to purchase. Typical examples of explicit needs are: “We need a faster system,” “We are looking for a more reliable machine,” or “I want to be able to make backup copies.”

Hidden needs indicate that the client is dissatisfied with something, he has a problem.

He may want to solve the problem or leave it at that. How does he make a decision? Based on the value equation - weighting the cost and importance of the solution. If the buyer finds that the cost of solving the problem is too high compared with the significance of the problem, he will not buy. If he sees that the problem is serious, then he will get her solution. Therefore, the sales manager should direct their questions to identify hidden needs, and then show the client how important his problem is. It should be remembered that the client himself may not understand how important the problem is and how much it costs to delay its resolution.

As for explicit needs, then, as Neil Reckham notes, they clearly indicate the client’s willingness to purchase. In successful meetings, the client expressed more obvious needs. How should the seller act so that the customer expresses more obvious needs?

If we are talking about small sales, then you need to ask questions that identify problems (hidden needs), and then offer them a solution. In large sales, another approach is required - “the goal of the questions in a large sale is to identify hidden needs and develop them to the level of explicit ones”.

How to do it? Using the technique of SPIN, developed by Neil Rekhem.

Spin sales

SPIN is an abbreviation for four types of questions:

C - situational
P - problem
And - extracting
H - guides

These questions are aimed at finding out specific data. As the author notes, many sales trainings are taught to ask situational questions. For example, “how many years has your company been working?”, “What are your indicators ...?” And others. But in a large number such questions are beginning to annoy potential customers. As it turned out in the course of the study, fewer situational issues are characteristic of successful meetings as compared with unsuccessful ones. Sometimes they may indicate weak seller training. The author advises only a little time to devote to such issues, and only when necessary.

P - problem. These questions are aimed at finding out the hidden needs, possible problems and difficulties existing with potential customers. They have a good effect on success in small sales, but not in large ones. Their role in large sales is to provide the source material for building the sales process. These are questions in the spirit of “are you satisfied with something?” Or “do you have any difficulties with something?”.

Neil Reckham recommends:

• write down before the meeting three possible customer problems that your offer can solve.
• write down questions that can identify these problems.

As the author notes, if you cannot do this, then it is better not to go to a meeting at all and not to waste either your own time or someone else's time.

However, in large sales it is not worth spending too much time on problematic issues. The most important task is to transform the revealed hidden needs of a potential client into explicit ones. What can help this?

As the author notes, “ enough evidence has been gathered that the main and only difference between sellers who are incredibly successful in large sales and middling is that successful people are able to develop hidden needs to the level of explicit ones. The question is how they do it . ”

Neil Reckham's team study showed that successful salespeople, when asking questions at meetings, make it so that:

• The problem began to see the client more serious. Retrieving questions are aimed at this - they exacerbate the problem.
• the solution to the problem began to seem more meaningful to the client. For this purpose, guiding questions are used.

And - retrieving questions. They are aimed at ensuring that the client began to perceive the problem as more serious.

Example:

“ Vendor (retrieving question): Judging by your words, difficulties with using these machines can lead to the problem of turnover of operators you have trained. Right?

The buyer (understanding that the problem is more serious than it seemed): Yes, people do not like working on these machines, so operators usually do not stay with us.

Seller (retrieving question): How tangible is the operator's fluidity in terms of training costs?

Buyer (gradually realizing the seriousness of the problem): It takes about two months for the operator to gain sufficient experience and about 4 thousand dollars for salary and social package for each operator. In addition, we are paying $ 500 to Contortomat to ensure that new operators are trained at their Southampton plant. Still add about a thousand to shipping costs. It turns out that we spend more than 5 thousand dollars on the training of each operator, and this year we have already trained five . ”

Retrieving questions should be used in meetings with decision makers.

Neil Reckham recommends preparing extraction questions in advance, for which you should:

• write down the potential problem of a potential client;
• assume that the difficulties associated with it;
• write down questions that can be asked about each difficulty.

However, when using retrieving questions, care must be taken not to immerse the client in unnecessary sad thoughts about the problems that will ruin his mood. Therefore, you need to be able to go on time to a different type of questions - on the guides.

H - guiding questions. Their task is to focus the attention of a potential client on the way out of problems.

“Typical examples of such questions are:“ Is it important for you to solve this problem? ”,“ Why do you find this solution so useful? ”Or“ Could it be useful for you in something else? ”.

Guide questions also reduce objections.

Plus, the guiding questions are that the sales specialist does not need to overcome the resistance of the client and paint the benefits of the product, since the client will call the benefits and rather agree with himself than with someone else.

An example of using guide questions:

“ Seller (guiding question): If you can control subscribers access to a long-distance network, will this help you?

Buyer: This will certainly prevent some part of unauthorized long-distance calls, because most of them are the result of the illegal use of long-distance calls . ”

However, it is important to remember that it is better to avoid asking guiding questions at the very beginning of the meeting, as they force the buyer to tense up and take a defensive position, as, for example, in the case of the question: “If I show you something worthwhile, will you be interested?”. Another example of an unsuitable start of the meeting: “If I show you a way to increase productivity, will you include us in the list of bidders?” Or “Would you be interested in a faster way to work with accounts?” And also they should not be asked if you do not have a suitable solution for them.

Summarizing the above, we can draw the following conclusions:

1. Successful salespeople start meeting with situational issues - for general information. But they clearly observe the measure, as situational issues in large numbers can annoy the buyer or annoy him.
2. Then sellers quickly move on to problematic issues that reveal problems, difficulties, and discontent. By asking problematic questions, they find out the hidden needs of the buyer.
3. In small sales at this stage, solutions can be offered, but for the success of large sales, extracting questions are needed in order for the hidden need to become larger and more vital.
4. When the buyer agrees that the problem is serious enough and can justify the action, successful sellers ask guiding questions that encourage the buyer to focus on the solutions and describe the benefits derived from the implementation of the proposed solution.

Benefits in large sales

You can often hear the opinion that the sales person needs to show the customer the benefits of the offer, and not just list the characteristics. This seems quite logical, but another surprising discovery made as a result of the study of Neil Rekhama was that "the benefits, in the sense that we were all taught, are ineffective in large sales and are more likely to cause a negative response from the buyer ."

The study showed that the description of the characteristics of the proposal to a small extent has a positive effect in small sales, but in large sales have a negative effect if used at the beginning of the meeting or neutral - if later. In addition, users tend to respond better to characteristics than decision-makers.

In order to further explore the issue of demonstrating the benefits in the sales process, researchers identified two types of benefits:

1. Type A benefit is an advantage. Shows how the seller’s offer can help the buyer.
2. Type B Benefit - Benefit. Shows how the seller’s offer satisfies the buyer’s clear need.

Benefits have a positive effect on small sales, but in large sales, it is the benefits that are more effective - “by encouraging sellers to use benefits more often than benefits, we achieved sales growth of more than 30% ”.

In order to present a benefit, you need to know the clear need of the client. Most often this requires developing it from a hidden need with the help of extracting and guiding questions.

If we describe this strategy from the point of view of psychology, then sellers need to shift their attention from their proposal to the needs and desires of the client.

“Have you ever noticed that sales are suddenly starting to grow at the very moment when salesperson’s frustration in a new product and their loss of enthusiasm reaches its critical point?” While the product is new, they are predicting unprecedented success, the sellers are enthusiastic and devote a lot of time to mastering it. But as soon as they lose their illusions about the novelty, their attention switches from the product back to the buyer. ”

Objections?

Another conclusion from the study of the team of Neil Reckham questioned the conventional wisdom that it is necessary to spend a lot of time managing objections. Most often, the objections are caused by the seller, not the client. Successful sellers get a lot less objections because they know how to prevent them in time.

Thus, concern about the price arises from potential buyers more often during meetings in which the sales person lists many characteristics. Psychologically, this increases attention to price. This will be a plus if you sell an inexpensive product. After listening to the list of characteristics, the buyer will prepare for a high price. And he will be pleasantly surprised by the low. But when selling expensive goods, this method is inefficient and will cause buyers' objection - listing characteristics will make them concentrate on price.

The buyers' objection also provokes an approach aimed at describing the advantages of the proposal (that is, statements that show how your proposal can help the buyer to use it).

Advantages cause objections due to the fact that they are aimed at solving a problem that has not yet been properly formulated.

What should be the correct approach to objections?

It should be focused on objection prevention. First, you need to create for the buyer the value of your offer by using retrieving and guiding questions, and only then reveal your possibilities and ways of solving the problems of the buyer.

Start and end of the meeting. How to avoid mistakes

Neil Reckham's study led to the conclusion that one of the most common mistakes at the beginning of a major sale is a premature conversation about the possibilities of supply and solutions.

“How often do you discuss your products, services or solutions during the first half of the meeting? If such a phenomenon is not uncommon in your practice, it most likely serves as a sign of an ineffective start to the meeting. ”

It should be remembered that the beginning of the meeting is not the most important part of it in large sales, and concentrate on the right questions to the client.

As for the closing of deals, Neil Rekhem’s team was awaited by unexpected discoveries. It disproved the need for frequent use of various closing techniques during the meeting. Closing is to a certain extent a method of exerting pressure on a customer. It may work well in small sales, but in large sales it causes a negative reaction.

“Closing techniques, like all other forms of pressure, lose effectiveness as the size of the solution increases.”

The study showed that sellers, who often use closing techniques, made fewer deals than those who did not abuse them.

However, it is important to understand that the lack of closure also has negative consequences for the meeting. In order for the meeting to be successful, the seller must receive a commitment from the buyer. Successful sellers use four consecutive steps for this:

1. Pay attention to research and demonstration of opportunities.
2. To ensure that all key questions are covered: “ We have found that sellers who succeed in obtaining a commitment from buyers always take the initiative and ask the buyer if there are any other questions or points that need to be addressed .”
3. To summarize the benefits: “ Successful sellers put all the pieces together, summarizing the key points of discussion, before moving on to getting the commitment. In small sales, summing up is not necessary, whereas in large sales it almost always helps to concentrate on key issues. Be sure to summarize key issues, especially benefits . ”
4. Offer a commitment: “ At the time of receiving the commitment, successful sellers do not ask, but tell. The most natural and most effective way to bring the meeting to a successful conclusion is to offer the buyer the next step . ”

It should be remembered that in large sales commitment may not mean a deal. This is primarily progress - for example, the appointment of a meeting with the senior management, the arrangement for the presentation.

In order to close the meeting successfully, you need to know what goals you want to achieve.

“Don't be content with delaying goals like“ gather information ”or“ cooperate in the future. ” However, do not set unattainable goals. It is necessary to support the promotion of the sale and to offer, as closing, actions that ensure the sale of progress. ”

How to move from theory to practice

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