Neil rackham's 'SPIN Selling®' model

Neil Rackam's SPIN Selling® model is a fine example of a consultative selling process and 'needs-creation selling'. SPIN Selling® was developed by Neil Rackham in the 1970s-80s, from his extensive 12-year study into successful selling behaviour in 20 leading sales organizations, in 23 countries, involving analysis of data from 35,000 sales calls. Rackham's book 'Spin Selling' is one of the biggest selling books on the subject of sales, and the SPIN® methodology remains a mainstay of the Huthwaite (US/UK) training organizations that he founded. Rackham's SPIN® model is a simple communications structure used by a sales person to develop the selling opportunity with the prospective customer:

S - Situation - the customer's circumstances

P - Problem - a difficulty for the customer I - Implication - the difficulty causes more serious disadvantage/cost
N - Need (or Need-payoff) - the difficulty must be solved (by the seller's offering)

In other words:

1. Discuss, understand or explain the situation with the prospect.

2. Next identify a/the problem that exists or could arise.

3. Explain, discuss or understand the implication of the problem for the prospect's business (how the problem produces a significant organizational or business disadvantage, which is therefore an opportunity to achieve major organizational or business improvement).

4. This effectively creates a need or opportunity to rectify the problem (by selling the sales person's product/service) - the 'payoff'.

SPIN® endures as one of the most versatile, memorable and useful sales models.

The SPIN® acronym is also one of the most popular and widely known selling and business acronyms.

Note that SPIN® and SPIN SELLING® methods and materials are subject to copyright and intellectual property control of the Huthwaite organizations of the US and UK. SPIN® and SPIN SELLING® methods and materials are not to be used in the provision of training and development products and services without a licence. Depending upon the geographic territory, the rights and sales jurisdictions for SPIN® and SPIN SELLING® are owned by either Huthwaite Inc., Huthwaite.com - USA, or Huthwaite International, Huthwaite.co.uk - UK/Europe. See SPIN® copyright details.

open plan selling, strategic selling, e.g., Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling®

To my best knowledge, the term 'Open Plan Selling' was first coined by a wonderful and inspirational British business consultant and trainer, Stanley Guffogg, during the early-1980s. His ideas and philosophies were many years ahead of their time, and they provide much of the bedrock for what is written here.

I had the great pleasure reconnecting and meeting once again with Stanley Guffogg in April 2008 after losing touch almost twenty years ago. He confirmed that indeed the term 'Open Plan Selling' was his conception, together with some of the surrounding theory, although as with theories in general much of the inspiration and components derive from various contributory ideas and influences. He was also able to explain some of the underpinning principles of Open Plan Selling - which hitherto have not been fully represented in this section. Accordingly this item will soon be expanded, upon which it will have far greater relevance to modern thinking and expectations in ethical responsible selling. The underlying philosophy of Open Plan Selling is helping and enabling rather than persuading and influencing, which represented a major departure from traditional selling 'push' or 'pull' models.

Strategic selling (lower case generic description) is also commonly used today to describe similar selling ideas and processes, but be very careful not to confuse this with Miller Heiman's registered and protected 'Strategic Selling® (upper case trademark) sales training methods and products.

The American Miller Heiman organization uses the term Strategic Selling® to describe its own particular sales training methods and products, first published in the Miller Heiman book Strategic Selling® in 1985, and more recently updated and revised in The New Strategic Selling® by Stephen Heiman, Diane Sanchez and Tad Tuleja (1995 and later revisions). See the books below, see the explanations of the strategic selling terminology in the glossary above, and see the Miller Heiman copyright details.

The explanation in this section is concerned with 'open plan selling' and 'strategic selling' (lower-case generic descriptive in the sense of selling strategically), and is not an attempt to summarise or describe Miller Heiman's sales training methods or products in any way. For that you'll need to buy the books or the Miller Heiman materials, and a licence as well if you seek to sell or provide Miller Heiman products.

open plan selling and strategic selling (small 's' - not Miller Heiman Strategic Selling®)

Open plan selling is in many ways a completely different approach to the old prescriptive and relatively rigid Seven Steps of the Sale, and the Professional Selling Skills model, that began in the 1960s. Open plan selling is also more advanced than most consultative selling methods being practiced today, largely because of the strategic aspects of the open plan approach.

Open plan selling is especially suited to the business-to-business major accounts selling function - which is now the principle domain of the field-based sales person (because field-based sales people are very expensive people and low-value business can't recover their costs). However, the open plan selling principles - not the full-blooded structure - can and should be readily adapted for all other types of selling, including even telesales (selling by telephone).

In modern business-to-business selling, successful sales people and organizations provide a tailored product or service which delivers a big measurable strategic improvement to the customer's own businesses. This implies that the customer contact should be a strategic buyer - usually at least a director, or in a small company the finance director or CEO. Nobody lower in the organization has the necessary authority and budget.

The only way to develop tailored strategic offerings is by researching the market and understanding the customer's business, which means the sales person must understand business, and be comfortable talking at director level. When you do business at this strategic level you are at a higher level than your competitors, who are still selling ordinary products and services to middle managers and buyers without true authority. Selling strategically takes time - time to train sales people, and time for selling opportunities to be identified and researched.

The open plan or strategic selling (lower case - not Miller Heiman) process and summary below assumes a major account scenario, whose size and complexity let's say does not enable a sales proposal to be formulated at the first meeting.

For smaller-scale opportunities the middle stages numbers 4 to 7 are effectively compressed or leap-frogged so that the formulation of the proposal and its presentation happens at the first appointment (stage 3) or soon after it.

open plan selling process:

1. research and plan - market sector, prospect, and decide initial approach

2. make the appointment

3. attend appointment to build rapport and credibility, gather information about business needs, aims and process, and develop/agree a project/product/service specification

4. agree survey/audit proposal (normally applicable)

5. carry out survey/audit (normally applicable)

6. write product/service proposal

7. present proposal

8. negotiate/refine/adapt/conclude agreement

9. oversee fulfilment/completion

10. feedback/review/maintain ongoing relationship

open plan selling in summary:

research and plan - open plan selling - step 1

In open plan selling, research and planning is a very important part of the process. The bigger the prospect organization or potential sale, the more planning and preparation is required. Major accounts need extensive researching before any serious approach is made to begin dialogue with an influencer or decision-maker. This is to enable the sales person to decide on the best initial approach or opening proposition. Implicit in this is deciding what is likely to be the strongest perceived organizational benefit that could accrue from the product or service in question, as perceived by the person to be approached (different people have different personal and organizational views and priorities). Generally it is best to concentrate on one strong organizational benefit. A benefit-loaded 'catch-all' approach does not work, because it's impossible to make a strong impact while promoting lots of different points - people respond most to a single relevant point of interest (see the advertising tricks of the trade for more detail on this).

Assuming a large account is being targeted, the sales person must acquire as much as reasonably possible of the following information about the prospect organization:

· the organization's size and shape (turnover, staff types and numbers, sites, management and corporate structure, subsidiaries and parent organization)

· strategy and trading situation (main business aims, issues, priorities, trends of business and sector, a profile of the organization's customers and competitors, and what the company considers important for its own customers)

· current and future demand, volume, scale for the product/service in question

· current supply arrangements and contract review dates

· decision-making process (who decides, on what basis, when and how)

· decision-makers and influencers (names, positions, responsibilities and locations)

· the organization's strategic implications, threats and opportunities that the product/service in question affects or could affect (in terms of the organization's strategic aims, operating efficiency, product and service quality, staff reaction and attitudes, and particularly how the product/service in question affects or could affect the organization's own competitive strengths and added value to its own customers)

The final point in bold is the really special part, and obviously requires a good insight into the prospect's business and market. The other information is what all good sales people will be trying to discover, but only the open plan sales person will look for the final point. The final point is absolutely pivotal to the open plan selling process. When the sales person moves the dialogue with the prospect into this area then the sale takes on a completely different complexion; it completely transcends and surpasses any benefits, USPs or UPBs, that other sales people might be discussing.

These days it's easier to research and plan for a sales call than it used to be, because of the wealth of information available in company brochures, websites and from the organization's own staff, notably in customer service, press relations, and from the relative openness of most organizations. Trade journals and trade associations are other useful information sources for building up a picture. Depending on the particular product or service, different people in the prospect organization will potentially be able to provide company-specific information about important matters such as contract review dates, purchasing procedures and authority, even sometimes very useful details of attitudes, politics, the styles of the key people, and their priorities.

With a sensitive approach it's often possible obtain the trust and co-operation of somebody in the prospect organization, so as to provide this information, particularly if the discussion is positioned as non-threatening, empathic and of some strategic potential for the prospect. The rules of AIDA apply even to this information gathering element alone.

The secretaries and personal assistants of the influencers and decision-makers are generally very helpful in providing information to sales people once an appointment has been made - assuming they are asked politely and given proper reason - because they know that a well-informed visitor is more likely to enable a productive meeting, thereby saving the boss's time. It's often worth approaching these people for information and guidance even prior to making the approach for an appointment. Again the justification needs to be sensitively and professionally positioned.

It's important to strike the right balance between researching prior to the first appointment, and researching during the first appointment. The sales person should take advantage of all information that is obtainable easily and leave the rest to be filled in at the first meeting - as a rule, prospects respect and respond well to a well-prepared approach because it shows professionalism, and allows a relevant and focused discussion. Conversely, a prospect responds poorly to a 'blind' approach because it suggests a lack of care and it usually produces a vague, ill-informed discussion, which wastes time.

A good technique for planning and research is to design a 'pro-forma' or checklist of items to be researched for new prospects. This template will be different for each sales organization and product and maybe sector, but once designed serves as a really useful tool, both to gather the right data and to provide the discipline for it to actually be done.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1021