Spin Selling

What makes success in major sales? How do some salespeople consistently outsell their competition? Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger ones? How can salespeople dramatically increase their sales volume from major accounts?

Now you can find answers to all these questions with the SPIN strategy.

The Huthwaite corporation’s 12-year, $1 million research into effective sales performance — published here for the first time in the United States — is the best-documented account of sales success ever collected. It has resulted in the unique sales strategy, SPIN — Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff. The SPIN strategy is already used by many of the world’s top sales forces. Now, with the publication of this new book, these revolutionary, easy-to-apply methods can be yours.

The author explains with wit and authority why traditional sales models, which were developed for small consumer sales, just don’t work for large sales. He shows how conventional selling methods are doomed to fail in major sales. But most important of all, he unfolds with supreme clarity the enormously successful SPIN strategy.

No other method is so completely backed by hard research data. You may find the techniques controversial. They will often go against the grain of conventional sales training. But in the end, the powerful evidence presented here will convince and convert you.

The author helps you put SPIN into practice with clear graphics, real-world examples, and informative cases. If you are successful with small sales but are finding major accounts tough to handle, SPIN will show you what's going wrong and how to put it right. If the competition is chipping away at your market share, SPIN will give you inspired strategies to regain the advantage. If you're a sales manager and the people you manage aren't selling as they should, this book outlines the specific behaviors which will produce better sales performance.

1. Sales Behavior and Sales Success
• Success in the Larger Sale
• The Major Sale
• The Four Stages of a Sales Call
• Questions and Success
2. Obtaining Commitment: Closing the Sale
• What Is Closing?
• The Consensus on Clsoing
• Starting the Research
• Initial Research
• The Photo-Store Study
• Closing and Client Sophistication
• Closing and Post-Sale Satisfaction
• Why Is the Rest of the Army Out of Step?
• Obtaining the Right Commitment
• Obtaining Commitment: Four Successful Actions
3. Customer Needs in the Major Sale
• Different Needs in Small Sales and Large
• How Needs Develop
• Implied and Explicit Needs
• Buying Signals in the Major Sales
4. The SPIN Strategy
• Situation Questions
• Problem Questions
• Implication Questions
• Need-payoff Questions
• The Difference between Implication andn Need-payoff Questions
• Back to Open and Closed Questions
• The SPIN Model
• How to Use SPIN Questions
5. Giving Benefits in Major Sales
• Features and Benefits: The Classic Ways to Demonstrate Capability
• The Relative Impacts of Features, Advantages, and Benefits
• Selling New Products
• Demonstrating Capability Effectively
6. Preventing Objections
• Features and Price Concerns
• Advantages and Objections
• Benefits and Support/Approval
7. Preliminaries: Opening the Call
• First Impressions
• Conventional Openings
• A Framework for Opening the Call
8. Turning Theory into Practice
• The Four Golden Rules for Learning Skills
• A Summary of the Call Stages
• A Strategy for Learning the SPIN Behaviors
• A Final Word
9. Appendix A. Evaluating the SPIN Model
• Correlations and Causes
• Is Proof Possible?
• Enter Motorola Canada
• A New Evaluation Test
• Final Thoughts on Evaluation
10. Appendix B. Closing-Attitude Scale
• Calculate Your Score
• What Do the Scores Mean?

One of the few well-reputed sales-techniques today (and well researched as well). Read it, even if sales is not your primary career.