SPIN: four kinds of questions

Rackham's team studied thousands of sales calls and found that in larger sales, successful sellers asked a particular pattern of questions. He named it SPIN.

Situation: facts about the buyer's current state. Needed, but ask few; too many bore buyers.
Problem: difficulties and dissatisfactions. "Are you happy with how long that takes?"
Implication: consequences of the problem. "What does that delay cost you each month?" These make a small problem feel big enough to solve.
Need-payoff: the value of solving it, in the buyer's own words. "If that were fixed, what would it mean for your team?"

Why it works

When buyers state the value themselves, they convince themselves. Rackham also found that pitching features early, before implications are explored, often creates objections instead of sales.

Say this

“What happens to the rest of the week when Monday's orders come in late?”

Avoid this

“Our system has 24/7 support and real-time sync. (before you know the problem)”

Apply it: Retail and e-commerce

Your product: a premium laptop. Your buyer: a shopper comparing options in store and online.

Write two questions of each SPIN type for your product. In your next practice call, ask at least one implication and one need-payoff question before mentioning any feature.

Study plan (40 min)

Read: 20 min
Written exercise: 20 min

Based on

SPIN Selling (Neil Rackham)

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