It is now over 20 years since I attended my first selling course with Huthwaite Research, SPIN selling. I attended it in Ireland and it was part of a series of training, that included other ‘hard sell’ training that companies used provide back then, when door knocking was still the prime way to get a foot in the door. SPIN was not hard sell however. It was truly about partnership and consulting.
SPIN has always stuck with me, and always will. SPIN is a solution selling methodology and comes from an acronym for Situation, Problem,Implication and Need. I remember listening to my Neil Rackham cassette tapes in the car over and over. Even now, whenever I meet a client I find it is still an incredibly relevant model to navigate and to us for consultative sales and exploring a clients situation and their real business or sales problems, challenges or goals. A great example of this is laser eye surgery in Dublin.
The client and the buyer are so busy now, that if we don’t offer them a solution or benefits that solve problems, we will not become a trusted sales partner or a strategic supplier to them. We will remain just a supplier.
Understanding, communication and helping a client to consider the implication of not getting the best solution,, is highly critical to meet real needs and have them feeling they will continually trust us to work for on their goals and not just ours. SPIN selling creates customer loyalty to us. I encourage you to learn about SPIN selling and to watch the Neil Rackam Video below.