SPIN Selling: What is different about this book from all other sales books?
SPIN Selling
If you lead an organization of salespeople who concentrate in the area of selling to major accounts or large dollar sales then you should read SPIN Selling
The Huthwaite corporation spent 1 million dollars in research money and 12 years researching the material for this book. It is considered the best-validated sales method available today. It was developed from observing and studying more than 35,000 sales call. The practices in this book are used by top sales forces across the world.
- What makes success in major sales?
- How do some sales people consistently outsell their competition?
- Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger one?
- How can salespeople dramatically increase their sales volume from major accounts?
What is different about this book from all other sales books?
1. Larger Sales: most books date back to E. K. Strong’s 1920s era studies on best practices for small sales.
2. Research Based: based on largest research project ever undertaken in the selling-skills area. 35,000 sales call analyzed over a 12 year period at an expense of over 1 million dollars.
- Studied the top salespeople from 20 of the world’s leading sales organizations
- Spent 7 years testing out the practical value of the ideas before making them public
- People trained in these techniques increased sales volumes 17% more than the control groups.
- 10,000 salespeople in 23 countries have been observed and studied.
- 100+ researches worked on this project.
- Study based on behavior-analysis method.
- Studied 116 factors that might play some part in sales performance.
Traditional Sales Training Sales Call Steps
1. Opening the call: general introductions, personal exchanges and opening with general benefit statements.
2. Investigating needs: the use of “open” and “closed” questions to determine customer’s needs.
3. Giving benefits: once needs discovered you present benefits of your product/service to meet the customer’s needs.
4. Objection handling: techniques used to overcome a customer’s objections and concerns.
5. Closing techniques: techniques that are designed to get the deal signed.
Small Sales vs. Large Sales
Small Sale: a sale which can normally be completed in a single call and which involves a low dollar value
Major Sales Characteristics:
Length of selling cycle: these sales take multiple calls over months and even years in some cases. These calls have a completely different psychology from singe-call sales.
“A key factor is that in a single-call sale the buying decision is usually taken then and there with the seller present, but in the multi-call sale the most important discussions and deliberations go on when the seller isn’t present, during the interval between calls.”
A good product pitch can have temporary effect on a customer, but a few days later it’s largely gone.
Size of customer’s commitment: The building of perceived value is probably the single most important selling skill in larger sales.
- Salespeople who didn’t successfully transfer to handling larger sales were those who had difficulty building the customer’s perception of value.
- The primary reason customer’s don’t buy in larger sales is that they don’t see enough value to justify such a large decision
- Customer is not so much buying a product/service but instead is entering a relationship.
- As the sale grows larger, the customer puts more emphasis on the salesperson as a factor in the decision. In a large sale, product and seller may become inseparable in the customer’s mind.
- Larger decisions are more public and a bad decision is much more visible.
- Customers become more cautious as the decision size increases.
- Purchase price is one factor that increases caution, but fear of making a public mistake may be even more important.
The ongoing relationship: Most larger sales involve an ongoing relationship with the customer.
The risk of mistakes: In small sales customers can afford to take more risk because the consequences are small, but as the size of the sale grows the risk grows with it.
Major Account Sales Strategy
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