One of the pioneering books in sales, this is a must-read, based on a huge 12-year, $1-million dollar research to understand effective sales performance. It narrows its details into the SPIN methodology (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff). Written by Neil Rackham, former president and founder of Huthwaite corporation.
One of my key takeaways of this book is how it developed the sales methodology away from “just focus on closing the deal” into a more structured approach to understand why customers buy in the first place. Neil highlights the difference of techniques that work when closing small deals, versus larger deals with higher value of products and services.
Neil provides a lot of concrete examples in various situations, and argues that for high value selling – you don’t want to start a conversation with potential interests to the buyer, or explaining your product in a positive phrase. Rather, 3 things are key:
– Get to the point early
– Don’t talk about solutions too soon
– Focus on the questions
Some memorable quotes
“If you can get the customer to tell you the ways in which your solution will help, then you don’t invite objections. Customers react more positively if they are treated as the experts.” “The traditional selling models, methods, and techniques that most of us have been trained to use work best in small sales. For now, let me define small as a sale which can normally be completed in a single call and which involves a low dollar value. Unfortunately, these tried-and-true low-value sales techniques, most of them dating from the 1920s, don’t work today.””Is your sales call so valuable that your client would write a check for your visit?”
Start by picking just one behavior to practice. Don’t move on to the next until you’re confident you’ve got the first behavior right. Never judge whether a new behavior is effective until you’ve tried it at least three times.
“It’s very confusing choosing between different systems. So I’d like to begin by looking at some of the factors you should consider to help you make the right choice.” “The most common strategic error that salespeople make in this phase of the sale is that they don’t try to uncover the customer’s guidelines, or criteria, for making the decision.”
“Never try directly to diminish or minimize something which is important to another person. By making a direct challenge to a crucial criterion you are more likely to strengthen it than to diminish it. Your best strategy is to begin by accepting that the criterion is legitimately important.”