SPIN Selling

The SPIN Selling Strategy has been developed by Neil Rackham to address issues with conventional sales training programs for large, complex sales in major accounts. SPIN focuses on 4 basic factors:

1. Situation
2. Problem
3. Implication
4. Need-payoff

At the center of the SPIN methodology is the ability to systematically ask the right questions, starting with general questions about the Situation of the customer.
In a second phase questions are asked to identify existing Problems the potential customer is facing and which might be solved by the products or services the sales person can offer.
This is further elaborated upon in the third phase where Implication questions increase the awareness of the customer about the potential consequences of the problems. Preferably, it is the customer himself who discovers these consequences!
Finally, in phase 4, the customer is stimulated to formulate the need-payoff relationship between his problems and the solution offered by the sales person.
In summary, by asking the right questions in the right sequence, the sales person helps the customer to discover and accept the solution offered as the way forward for his company.