Should you put the SPIN framework of questions to work in your business?

Neil Rackham and his training company, Huthwaite, put together the SPIN framework of questions to help businesses navigate the tricky road to a competitive edge and to successfully winning business.

In his book SPIN Selling, Neil used a great quote from a business leader he interviewed:

If I fell into a ditch, 50 salespeople can sell me a ladder to get out, but only 1 can sell me something that stops me falling in, in the first place.

This is the key to the SPIN framework. Don’t give the customer what you think they want – give them what they ACTUALLY want, or even better, something that they don’t know they want but, once discovered, cannot do without.

There is nothing revolutionary about the SPIN questions – they’re just the questions that successful salespeople ask on a good day, when it’s all going very well. All 4 types of questions are needed and all can be learned.

So why not give the SPIN framework a try with your customers?

Here are 4 helping hands to get you started:

1. Situation questions – help you understand your customer’s current situation and gather background information.
2. Problem questions – help search out problems, difficulties and issues which your product can solve (sad questions).
3. Implication questions – home in on the problems you’ve discovered and get clarity on the seriousness of the issues (sad questions).
4. Needs/payoff questions – lead your customer to the conclusion that your product or service is the solution to the problems they are facing and that those problems would go away as a result of them buying from you (happy questions).