Ch 4: The SPIN Strategy
[4] The SPIN Strategy
Chapter 3 concluded that the purpose of questions in a sales call is to uncover Implied Needs and to develop them into Explicit Needs. In this chapter we’ll be looking at how the four SPIN questions—Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff—can each be used to help this needs-development process.
Situation Questions
In our research at Huthwaite we found that very early in the sales call, particularly with new accounts or new customers, salespeople’s questions tend to follow an identifiable pattern. Suppose, for example, that you’re calling on me for the first time. What questions would you ask? You might want to know something about me, so you’d ask questions like:
What’s your position?
How long have you been here?
Do you make the purchasing decisions?
What do you see as your objectives in this area?
You might also want to know something about my business, so you might ask:
What sort of business do you run?
Is it growing or shrinking?
What’s your annual sales volume?
How many people do you employ?
You would need to understand how my business was operating, so you might ask questions like:
What equipment are you using at present?
How long have you had it?
Is it purchased or leased?
How many people use it?
What’s the common factor in all these questions? Each one collects facts, information, and background data about the customer’s existing situation. So we gave them the obvious name, Situation Questions (Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1. Situation Questions.
Situation Questions are an essential part of most sales calls, particularly those calls made early in the selling cycle. What did our research uncover about them?
Situation Questions are not positively related to success. In calls that succeed, sellers ask fewer Situation Questions than in calls that fail.
Inexperienced salespeople ask more Situation Questions than do those who have longer sales experience.
Situation Questions are an essential part of questioning, but they must be used carefully. Successful salespeople ask fewer Situation Questions. Each one they ask has a focus, or purpose.
Buyers quickly become bored or impatient if asked too many Situation Questions.
These findings are easy to explain. Ask yourself who benefits from Situation Questions, the buyer or the seller? Clearly it’s the seller. A busy customer doesn’t generally derive great delight and happiness from giving a salesperson detail after detail of his or her situation. And this is especially true of professional buyers and purchasing agents. I once worked for several weeks with buyers from British Petroleum’s central purchasing function. Even in my neutral role as an observer, I groaned inwardly when seller after seller asked questions like “Tell me about your business” or “What steps do you go through in making a purchasing decision here?” I don’t know how the buyers stayed sane, patiently answering the same questions day after day. I’ve come to believe that there’s a special place in hell reserved for wicked salespeople where they sit for all eternity being forced to answer their own Situation Questions.
Why do we find that inexperienced salespeople ask more Situation Questions than those with greater selling experience ask? Presumably it’s because Situation Questions are easy to ask and they feel safe. When I didn’t know much about selling, my main concern in the call was to be sure I didn’t offend the buyer. And because Situation Questions seemed so inoffensive, I asked a lot too many of them. Unfortunately, in those days, I hadn’t hit on the great sales truth that you can’t bore your customers into buying. And the fault with Situation Questions is that, from the buyer’s point of view, they are likely to be boring.
Does this mean that you shouldn’t ask Situation Questions? No—you can’t sell without them. What the research shows is that successful people don’t ask unnecessary Situation Questions. They do their homework before the call and, through good pre-call planning, eliminate many of the fact-finding questions that can bore the buyer.
As sellers become more experienced, their behavior changes. They no longer spend most of the call collecting background situation information. Instead, their questions move to a different area.
Problem Questions
Experienced salespeople are most likely to ask questions like these:
Are you satisfied with your present equipment?
What are the disadvantages of the way you’re handling this now?
Isn’t it difficult to process peak loads with your present system?
Does this old machine give you reliability problems?
What’s the common factor in all these questions? Each one probes for problems, difficulties, or dissatisfactions. Each invites the customer to state Implied Needs. We called them Problem Questions (Figure 4.2), and our research found that:
Figure 4.2. Problem Questions.
Problem Questions are more strongly linked to sales success than Situation Questions are.
In smaller sales the link is very strong: the more Problem Questions the seller asks, the greater the chances that the call will be successful.
In larger sales, however, Problem Questions are not strongly linked to sales success. There’s no evidence that by increasing your Problem Questions you can increase your sales effectiveness.
The ratio of Situation to Problem Questions asked by salespeople is a function of their experience. Experienced people ask a higher proportion of Problem Questions.
Let’s look more closely at what these findings mean. It’s hardly surprising that Problem Questions have a more positive effect on customers than Situation Questions do. If you can’t solve a problem for your customer, then there’s no basis for a sale. But if you uncover problems you can solve, then you’re potentially providing the buyer with something useful.
Problem Questions and Experience
It’s also easy to understand why experienced people ask fewer Situation Questions and more Problem Questions. I can remember how this happened in my own selling—possibly you’ve similar memories. When I was young and inexperienced, my typical sales call consisted of as many Situation Questions as the buyer would let me ask. Then, when the inevitable glazed expression crossed the buyer’s face, usually followed quickly by signs of impatience, I’d stop questioning and begin to talk features of what I had to offer. If at that point in my career you’d told me to ask about the buyer’s problems, I would have been reluctant. Even the “safe” Situation Questions were making my buyers impatient—I certainly didn’t want to risk upsetting them further with potentially offensive questions about problems.
But the day came when I screwed up my courage and began to ask about problems. To my surprise, instead of being offended, customers started to sit up and take notice. My calls improved. Soon I was spending more and more of the call asking about problems and less time uncovering interminable details of the situation. Most experienced people I’ve talked to can remember a very similar transition in their own selling.
Problem Questions in the Larger Sale
It’s true that Problem Questions are more strongly related to success in smaller sales, but they’re nevertheless an essential part of effective probing as the sale grows larger. After all, if you can’t uncover any problems to solve, you don’t have a basis for a business relationship. In major sales there are, as we’ll see in this chapter, other more powerful types of questions. But it’s Problem Questions that provide the raw material on which the rest of the sale will be built. When we’re coaching major-account salespeople, our starting point is most likely to be an analysis of how they are asking Problem Questions.
A Harder Question
Why should Problem Questions be so much more powerful in smaller sales than in large? Let’s look at the research evidence. As Figure 4.3 shows, in our analysis of 646 smaller sales we found that the level of Problem Questions was twice as high in calls that succeeded. And as described in Chapter 3, when we trained people selling cheaper goods to ask more Problem Questions, there was a significant increase in their sales.
Figure 4.3. Problem Questions predict success in simple sales.
However, Problem Questions are much less strongly linked to success in larger sales (Figure 4.4). This is because Implied Needs, as we saw in Chapter 3, don’t predict success in large sales. The purpose of Problem Questions is to uncover Implied Needs. So if Implied Needs don’t predict success in the larger sale, neither should Problem Questions.
Figure 4.4. Problem Questions do not predict success in larger sales.
An Interesting Exception
Although Problem Questions are generally more powerful in small sales than in large, there’s one interesting exception. Masaaki Imai, president of the Cambridge Corporation, carried out some experiments with us in Japan. While it’s quite acceptable in the west for sellers to ask buyers about problems, this isn’t so easy in the Japanese culture. There’s always the risk of being insulting or offensive if you suggest that your customer—a person of status—has problems. Because of this cultural difference, Japanese salespeople ask very few Problem Questions compared with their western counterparts. But even though Problem Questions may be harder to ask, is there any evidence that they link to sales success in Japan?
Working with the Engineering Products Division of Fuji Xerox, Imai found that despite the barriers to asking them, Problem Questions were indeed higher in successful calls. When a group of salespeople was trained in probing skills that included Problem Questions, its sales rose by 74 percent compared with an untrained control group. In this case, Problem Questions were powerfully linked to success in a large sale.
Implication Questions
Most experienced salespeople, put in front of a major-account customer, are able to do an adequate job of asking Situation and Problem Questions. Unfortunately, this is where most people’s probing stops. In small sales you can be very successful if you uncover problems and then demonstrate that you can solve them—so a selling style based only on Situation and Problem Questions can be very effective. However, even though many people use this style in larger sales, it isn’t effective in the larger sales. This small example should illustrate why:
[SELLER:] (Situation Question) Do you use Contortomat machines in this division?
[BUYER:] Yes, we’ve got three of them.
[SELLER:] (Problem Question) And are they difficult for your operators to use?
[BUYER:] (Implied Need) They are rather hard, but we’ve learned how to get them working.
[SELLER:] (offering a solution) We could solve that operating difficulty for you with our new Easiflo system.
[BUYER:] What does your system cost?
[SELLER:] The basic system is about $120,000 and...
[BUYER:] (amazed) $120,000!!! Just to make a machine easier to use! You must be kidding.
What’s happened here? The buyer perceives a small Implied Need—“They are rather hard”—but certainly doesn’t see that the problem justifies a $120,000 solution. In terms of the value equation (Figure 4.5), the problem isn’t big enough to balance the high cost of solving it. But what if the price of the Easiflo system had been just $120 instead of $120,000? Would the buyer have reacted so negatively? Probably not; while $120,000 is outrageous, $120 is a small price to pay for ease of use. So if this had been a small sale—if the Easiflo product had cost a mere $120—then just uncovering the Implied Need that the existing machines were hard to use might have been enough to get the business. As we saw in Chapter 3, Implied Needs do strongly predict success in smaller sales.
Figure 4.5.
In larger sales, however, it’s clearly not sufficient to uncover problems and offer solutions. What should the seller have done? It’s here that Implication Questions become so important to success. Let’s see how a more skilled seller would have used Implication Questions to develop the seriousness of the problem before offering a solution:
[SELLER:] (Problem Question) And are they difficult for your operators to use?
[BUYER:] (Implied Need) They are rather hard, but we’ve learned how to get them working.
[SELLER:] (Implication Question) You say they’re hard to use. What effect does this have on your output?
[BUYER:] (perceiving the problem as small) Very little, because we’ve specially trained three people who know how to use them.
[SELLER:] (Implication Question) If you’ve only got three people who can use them, doesn’t that create work bottlenecks?
[BUYER:] (still seeing the problem as unimportant) No, it’s only when a Contortomat operator leaves that we have trouble while we’re waiting for a replacement to be trained.
[SELLER:] (Implication Question) It sounds like the difficulty of using these machines may be leading to a turnover problem with the operators you’ve trained. Is that right?
[BUYER:] (recognizing a bigger problem) Yes, people certainly don’t like using the Contortomat machines, and operators generally don’t stay with us for long.
[SELLER:] (Implication Question) What does this turnover mean in terms of training cost?
[BUYER:] (seeing more) It takes a couple of months before an operator gets proficient, so that’s maybe $4000 in wages and benefits for each operator. On top of that we pay Contortomat $500 to put new operators through off-site training in their Southampton plant. So add perhaps $1000 for travel costs. You know, that’s about $5000 for each operator we train—and I guess we must have trained at least five this year already.
[SELLER:] So that’s more than $25,000 in training costs in less than 6 months. (Implication Question) If you’ve trained five people in 6 months, it sounds like you’ve never had three fully competent operators at any time: how much production loss has this led to?
[BUYER:] Not much. Whenever there’s been a bottleneck, we’ve persuaded the other operators to work overtime, or we’ve sent work outside. SELLER: (Implication Question) Doesn’t the overtime add even more to your costs?
[BUYER:] (realizing the problem is quite serious) Yes, we’ve been paying overtime at two and a half times the normal job rate. Even with the additional pay, the operators aren’t very willing to work the extra hours—which I’m sure is one of the reasons we’re getting such high turnover.
[SELLER:] (Implication Question) I can see how sending the work outside must also increase your costs, but is that the only implication of sending work out? Is the quality of work affected, for example?
[BUYER:] That’s what I’m most unhappy about. I can control the quality of everything we produce internally, but when anything goes outside I’m at the mercy of other people.
[SELLER:] (Implication Question) And presumably, being forced to send work outside also puts you at the mercy of other people’s delivery schedules?
[BUYER:] Don’t talk about it! I’ve just spent 3 hours on the phone chasing a late delivery.
[SELLER:] (summarizing) So from what you’ve said, because your Contortomat machines are so difficult to use, you’ve spent $25,000 in training costs this year and you’re getting expensive operator turnover. You’ve bottlenecks in production, and these result in expensive overtime and force you to send jobs outside. But sending jobs outside isn’t satisfactory, because you’re losing quality and getting late deliveries.
[BUYER:] When you put it that way, those Contortomat machines are creating a very serious problem indeed.
What effect has the seller had on the buyer’s value equation? A small problem has now grown so much larger—and so much more costly—that a $120,000 solution no longer seems unreasonable (Figure 4.6).
Figure 4.6. The value equation: Seriousness of problem now outweighs cost of solution.
This is the central purpose of Implication Questions in larger sales. They take a problem that the buyer perceives to be small and build it up into a problem large enough to justify action. Of course, Implication Questions can work in smaller sales too. A few months ago I was talking with a friend about cars. The conversation went like this:
[FRIEND:] How’s your car, Neil?
[NEIL:] Not too bad. It’s getting a bit old, but it still gets me around.
[FRIEND:] So you’re not thinking of a new car, then?
[NEIL:] No. I can live a little longer with the one I’ve got.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) But your car must be at least 7 years old. Doesn’t this mean that you can’t claim any depreciation on it for business use?
[NEIL:] I suppose that’s true.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) So you’re losing a couple of thousand a year in tax write-offs?
[NEIL:] I’d not worked it out—I didn’t think it would be that much—but you could be right.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) And doesn’t a 7-year-old car mean that you’re getting lousy mileage?
[NEIL:] It’s true that I always seem to be filling it up. Yes, it never gave me good mileage—and lately it seems to be getting worse.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) And that’s also leading to higher costs for you?
[NEIL:] Yes, it’s expensive to run.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) And doesn’t its age also mean a much higher oil consumption?
[NEIL:] You’re right. I’m putting in a quart of oil every time I fill it—it’s certainly more expensive to run than I’d like.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) What’s the effect of age on your car’s reliability?
[NEIL:] That is a worry. I’ve only had a couple of breakdowns, but... well, you know how it is, every time I start a journey I wonder whether I’m going to make it OK.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) And if it does break down, isn’t it going to be increasingly hard to find a garage that stocks spares for a 7-year-old car?
[NEIL:] I’ve been lucky so far, but that’s a good point.
[FRIEND:] (Implication Question) Wouldn’t it be awkward for you if you broke down somewhere and had to wait 2 months for spares to be shipped?
[NEIL:] Yes, that’s a worrying thought. You know, I’m beginning to wonder whether the time’s come for me to change. What would you recommend in terms of a new medium-size car?
A car sale is certainly tiny in comparison to the larger sales we’ve been talking about. But as you can see, Implication Questions build up the size of Implied Needs in any decision (Figure 4.7). Even in very small one-call sales, Implication Questions are a good predictor of success. However, as we’ve seen, it is possible to be successful in small sales without Implication Questions. Because of this, some people might regard Implication Questions as unnecessary overkill when the decision size is small.
Figure 4.7. Implication Questions.
Professionals Often Sell Better than They Realize
There’s another interesting thing about this car conversation. It wasn’t a sales call; my friend knows nothing about selling. He’s a consulting engineer who would run away in terror if you asked him to sell. Yet here he’s doing a better job of developing my needs than 99 percent of the people whose job is to sell cars. Many professional people, particularly those who have to ask a lot of diagnostic questions as part of their work, can quickly and easily learn to use Implication Questions to help them sell.
At Huthwaite we’ve designed sales training for many professional and consulting organizations and we’re continually surprised at how quickly many of those we train—who think of themselves as unable to sell—can become very skilled with Implication Questions. We’re currently working with audit partners from one of the big eight accounting firms. Nothing could be further from the image of a successful seller than the stereotype most of us have of auditors. As the old saying goes, “Son, if you don’t want the excitement and pressure of being an accountant, become an auditor.” Some of the auditors we’ve trained seem to share this perception of themselves and are amazed to discover that many of the questions they ask as part of their normal professional conversation will also help them be successful in a selling role.
Where Implication Questions Work Best
Implication Questions are particularly powerful in certain types of sale. Obviously, as we’ve already seen, the main power of Implication Questions is in larger sales where it’s necessary to increase the size of the problem in the customer’s mind.
But our research also found that Implication Questions are especially powerful in selling to decision makers. It’s often possible to achieve a positive outcome from calls on users or influencers simply by asking Problem Questions, but with calls on decision makers it’s not as easy. Decision makers seem to respond most favorably to salespeople who uncover implications. Perhaps this is not surprising, for a decision maker is a person whose success depends on seeing beyond the immediate problem to the underlying effects and consequences. You could say that a decision maker deals in implications. There have been many occasions when we’ve been talking to decision makers after a call and heard them comment favorably on salespeople who asked them Implication Questions, saying things like “that person talked my language.” Implications are the language of decision makers, and if you can talk their language, you’ll influence them better.
A more curious research finding is that Implication Questions are particularly powerful in high-technology sales. It’s one of those odd research findings that I don’t know how to explain. One potential explanation is that in older, slower-moving technologies the customer may have been buying similar products for many years and so already understands the implications; consequently, Implication Questions are redundant. Somehow I don’t find this explanation entirely convincing. My colleagues, who have worked extensively in high-tech markets, offer another explanation. Many high-tech customers, they suggest, perceive decisions as very risky because of the complex and rapidly changing high-tech marketplace. Under these circumstances, the customers have to see the problems with their present equipment as very severe before they feel ready to risk buying something they perceive to be new and different. I’ve also heard it suggested that customers mistrust high-tech salespeople, so they feel more comfortable with someone who holds back and tries to understand implications than they do with someone who jumps in with premature and often inappropriate solutions. The plausibility of this explanation is strengthened by the joke: What’s the difference between people who sell used cars and people who sell high tech? Answer: People selling used cars know they are lying.
A Potential Negative
Implication Questions aren’t a new discovery. People were asking them long before we began our research. Throughout history, effective persuaders have been uncovering problems and making them bigger by exploring their implications. Socrates was a master at doing this—read any of the Platonic dialogues and you’ll see how one of the greatest persuaders of all time uses Implication Questions. However, the case of Socrates also illustrates that, despite their selling power, Implication Questions have a weakness. By definition, they make customers more uncomfortable with problems. Sellers who ask lots of Implication Questions may make their buyers feel negative or depressed. Not that many salespeople end up being forced to drink hemlock, but I do wonder whether Socrates’s questioning behaviors contributed to his downfall.
Since making problems feel worse is both the strength and the potential danger of Implication Questions, is there some way to get the benefits of making a problem more acute without risking the penalties of depressing your customer? This is where the next type of question comes in.
Need-Payoff Questions
Our research at Huthwaite showed that successful people use two types of questions to develop Implied Needs into Explicit Needs. First they use Implication Questions to build up the problem so that it’s perceived to be more serious, and then they turn to a second type of question to build up the value or usefulness of the solution. It’s the use of this second type of question to build up the positive elements of a solution that prevents any unfavorable perception from customers. We call these positive solution-centered questions Need-payoff Questions (Figure 4.8). Basically, they ask about the value or usefulness of solving a problem. Typical examples include:
Figure 4.8. Need-payoff Questions.
Is it important to you to solve this problem?
Why would you find this solution so useful?
Is there any other way this could help you?
What’s the psychology of Need-payoff Questions? They achieve two things:
They focus the customer’s attention on the solution rather than on the problem. This helps create a positive problem-solving atmosphere where attention is given to solutions and actions, not just problems and difficulties.
They get the customer telling you the benefits. For example, a Need-payoff Question like “How do you think a faster machine would help you?” might get a reply like “It would certainly take away the production bottleneck and it would also make better use of skilled operator time.”
Let’s see how these objectives are achieved by looking at an extract from a sales call where the seller, whose product is a telephone system, is using Need-payoff Questions:
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question)... so would you be interested in a way to control long-distance calls?
[BUYER:] Well... yes, of course... but that’s only one of the problems I have at the moment.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) I’d like to consider those other problems in a minute. But first, you say you would like to control long-distance calling. Why is that important to you?
[BUYER:] Well, right now I’m receiving a lot of pressure from the controller to contain my network costs. If I could reduce long-distance charges, it would sure help.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Would it help if you could restrict long-distance calling to authorized persons?
[BUYER:] Well, yes... it would certainly prevent some of the excessive long-distance usage we’re getting. Most of it’s coming from unauthorized long-distance use.
[SELLER:] Can we go back to issues you raised about preparing phone-system management reports? (Need-payoff Question) May I assume you’d like improvement there also?
[BUYER:] Yes, it would be a big help.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Is that because it would provide you with a better method for telephone cost accounting?
[BUYER:] Yes. You see, if we can identify departments that make calls, we can hold them accountable for their telephone charges.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) I see... is there any other way it might help? BUYER: Umm... No. I think accountability is the main thing.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Well that’s certainly important... but don’t you think it might also be important to know how long it takes to answer incoming calls and the total number of calls that go through each extension?
[BUYER:] That could be really useful.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Useful for cost reasons, or is there something else?
[BUYER:] No, I wasn’t thinking of costs. Where it would really help us is in improving customer service, and in this business that’s important! Can you help us there?
[SELLER:] Yes, we can. Let me explain how our equipment will help to...
In this extract, Need-payoff Questions have succeeded in focusing customer attention on solutions rather than problems. Even more important, the customer begins to give benefits to the seller, saying things like “Where it would really help us is in improving customer service.” It’s no wonder our research found that calls with a high number of Need-payoff Questions were rated by customers as:
Positive
Constructive
Helpful
Need-payoff questions create a positive effect. This is one reason why we found that Need-payoff Questions are particularly linked to success in sales that depend on maintaining a good relationship—such as sales to existing customers.
Need-Payoff Questions Reduce Objections
In a simple sale there’s usually a straightforward relationship between your product and the problem it solves. It’s possible for a solution to match the problem exactly. So, for example, a person worried about fire risks for important company papers might have a problem that could be solved perfectly by the purchase of a fireproof filing cabinet.
But as the sale grows larger, the fit between problem and solution generally becomes less straightforward. Problems in larger sales may have many parts, and the solution you offer the customer will deal with some of these parts better than with others. A problem such as low productivity, for example, may be caused by dozens of factors. When you present your solution, you run the risk that the customer will focus on the areas you don’t solve rather than on those you do. When that happens, the customer may challenge your whole solution, as this example shows:
[SELLER:] So your main problem is a high reject rate on the material you use for technical tests. Our new material is so easy to use that your technicians’ reject rate would be reduced by approximately 20 percent.
[BUYER:] (raising objection) Wait a minute. It’s not only the test material that creates the reject rate. There are lots of other factors, such as processor temperature and developer oxidation. No. Don’t give me all this stuff about easy-to-use material.
What’s happening here? The buyer is raising an objection because the seller’s solution deals only with one facet of a complicated problem. By making claims for the product, the seller has prompted the customer to raise some of these other facets and to reject the point the seller is trying to make.
In larger sales, the problems you’re trying to solve will almost always be made up of many components and causes. Therefore, because it’s most unlikely that you (or any of your competitors) can provide the perfect solution that solves every part of a complex problem, it can be dangerous for you to point out how well you can solve the problem. By doing so you invite the customer to make an issue of all the parts that you can’t solve. What’s more, sophisticated business customers rarely expect your solution to be perfect. Rather, they want to know if you can deal with the most important elements of a problem at a reasonable cost.
So how can you gain the customer’s acceptance that your solution is worthwhile, even though it may not solve every part of the problem? This is an area where you can use Need-payoff Questions. If you can get the customer to tell you the ways in which your solution will help, then you don’t invite objections. Nobody likes being told what’s good for his or her department or business—especially by an outsider. Customers react more positively if they are treated as the experts. By using Need-payoff Questions, you can get the customer to explain to you which elements of the problem your solution can solve. This approach reduces objections and makes your solution more acceptable, as the next example shows:
[SELLER:] So your main problem is a high reject rate on the material you use for technical tests. (Need-payoff Question) And from what you’ve said, you’d be interested in anything that can cut this reject rate down?
[BUYER:] Oh yes. It’s a big problem and we’ve got to take action.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Suppose you had a material that was easier for your technicians to use, would this help?
[BUYER:] It would be one factor. But remember that there are lots of other factors, such as processor temperature and developer oxidation.
[SELLER:] Yes, I understand that there are several factors, and as you say, an easier material is one of them. (Need-payoff Question) Would you explain how having an easier material would help you?
[BUYER:] Well, it would certainly cut some of the rejects we’re getting during the exposure stage.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) And that would be worth doing?
[BUYER:] Probably. I don’t know precisely how much is lost there. It might be enough to make some difference.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Is there any other way that an easier material could help?
[BUYER:] Those neat cassettes of yours don’t need an experienced technician to set them up. Maybe that would help. Yes ... if we had a material that was so easy to handle that an assistant could set it up, then the technician could spend more time on the processing stages, which could make a big impact on some of the processor problems we’re getting. Hey, I like it.
In this example, the seller’s use of Need-payoff Questions has allowed the buyer to explain the payoff and, as a result, to find the solution more acceptable.
Need-Payoff Questions Rehearse the Customer for Internal Selling
In smaller sales your success rests on how effectively you can convince the person you sell to, but this is not always the case in larger sales. As the size of the decision grows, more people become involved. Your success may often depend not just on how you sell, but on how well the people in the account sell to each other. In the small sale you’re usually there during the whole sales process. But in larger sales there are likely to be many “sales calls” where influencers and users sell internally on your behalf and where there’s no opportunity for you to be present.
A very experienced and successful sales manager in the process control industry was once asked to explain at a company conference how he had succeeded in selling a multimillion-dollar system to a major oil company. He said, “The most important thing to remember about really big sales is that you only play a small part in the selling. The real selling goes on in the account when you’re not there—when the people you sold to go back and try to convince the others. I’m certain that the reason I succeeded was because I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that the people I talked to knew how to sell for me. I was like the director of a play. My work was during rehearsals: I wasn’t on stage during the performance. Too many people in selling want to be great actors. My advice is that if you want to make really big sales, you’ve got to realize that even if you’re a great performer, you won’t be on stage for more than a fraction of the selling time. Unless you rehearse the rest of the cast, the show will be a flop.”
Most people with experience in major-account selling would agree with this analysis. It’s obvious that a lot of selling goes on when you’re not around, so the better you prepare your internal sponsors, the easier it will be for them to convince others in the account. The problem is how: what’s the best way to rehearse customers so that they sell effectively for you? Here’s an extract from a typical call on a buyer who, if convinced, will afterward be “selling” internally:
[SELLER:] ... and another way the system will help you is in reduction of inventory levels.
[BUYER:] Good. That’s something we need to do. I’ll be talking to the V.P. of Finance tomorrow and I’ll mention this to him.
[SELLER:] Be sure you tell him that we have automatic audit tagging. BUYER: Audit what?
[SELLER:] It’s a powerful new way to document and retrieve inventory records.
[BUYER:] Uh ... OK. I’ll mention it.
[SELLER:] Tell him that we cut inventory costs in Snitch Ltd. by 12 percent.
[BUYER:] Because of this automatic audit thing?
[SELLER:] Yes. And by controlling your seasonal peaks, we could do even better here. You’ll let him know this, won’t you?
[BUYER:] Um... tomorrow may be a bad day for him... the meeting’s about a downtown property issue. I’ll see what I can do.
Even if this buyer does talk with the V.P. of Finance, how effective a piece of selling will it be? It will probably fail because the buyer clearly doesn’t understand the product well enough to explain it.
Such insufficient understanding is not unusual. It’s hard enough for salespeople to acquire all the technical and applications knowledge required to sell a sophisticated product or service. You can’t expect the customer to understand in an hour something it’s taken you months to learn yourself.
But if the customer isn’t going to understand your product well enough to sell it effectively, what should you do? In an ideal world, of course, you would persuade the customer to take you along to every meeting. But in real life this just isn’t practical. For one thing, the customer may be reluctant to lose control of the situation by giving you direct contact with top people. For another, it would be physically impossible for you to be present in every “sales” conversation that goes on inside an account. In a complex purchase, there may be dozens of conversations where your product is discussed between different people in the account. Even if the customer would let you, you couldn’t possibly find time to attend every one of these discussions.
So there’s no escaping the fact that in larger sales, a major part of the selling—perhaps most of it—will be done by your internal supporters while you’re not there. This brings us back to the question of how you best prepare a customer to sell on your behalf, which is another area where Need-payoff Questions have a special use. In the next example, the seller uses Need-payoff Questions in a way that will help the buyer sell internally after the call is over:
[SELLER:] ...and another way the system will help you is in reduction of inventory levels.
[BUYER:] Good. That’s something we need to do. I’ll be talking to the V.P. of Finance tomorrow and I’ll mention this to him.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) You say it’s something you need to do. What benefits would you get from lower inventory levels?
[BUYER:] Obviously the main one is cost.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) Would cost be the most important benefit for your Finance V.P.?
[BUYER:] Yes. Well...not necessarily. Now that I think about it, there could be another one that’s more urgent. At tomorrow’s meeting we’re reviewing our downtown warehousing. We’re using an expensive site, and our V.P. would like to close it and consolidate the inventory here. But we don’t have quite enough warehousing space at this location. If your system could reduce levels at this site by just 5 percent, then we could close the downtown building.
[SELLER:] (Need-payoff Question) And this would save you money?
[BUYER:] About $250,000 a year. If you’ve got a way to help us do this, I’ll try to get 15 minutes with our V.P. before the meeting.
Notice that in this example the seller uses Need-payoff Questions to get the buyer to describe Benefits. In doing this, the seller achieves several things:
The buyer’s attention is now focused on how the solution would help, not on product details as in the earlier example. I’ve said that buyers can’t be expected to learn about your product in enough depth to explain it convincingly to others. But buyers can be expected to have an understanding of their own problems and needs. Need-payoff Questions concentrate on the area that buyers understand best: their own business—and how it would be helped by the solution you’re proposing. When buyers talk to others in the account, it’s in the area of needs, not of products, that they will be most convincing and will contribute most to your sales effort.
The buyer is explaining the benefits to the seller, not vice versa. If you can get buyers to explain to you the value of your solution, it’s good practice for when they come to give the same explanation to other people in the account. It’s a much better rehearsal to get the buyer actively describing benefits to you than it would be for the buyer to listen passively while you describe the same benefits.
When buyers feel that their ideas are part of the solution, they gain increased confidence in your product and feel an enthusiasm for it—the very qualities needed to sell the product for you when you’re not present during the discussions.
In summary, Need-payoff Questions are important because they focus attention on solutions, not problems. And they make customers tell you the benefits. Need-payoff Questions are particularly powerful selling tools in the larger sale because they also increase the acceptability of your solution. Equally important, success in large sales depends on internal selling by customers on your behalf, and Need-payoff Questions are one of the best ways to rehearse the customer in presenting your solutions convincingly to others.
The Difference between Implication and Need-Payoff Questions
Both Implication and Need-payoff Questions develop Implied Needs into Explicit Needs, and because they have a similar purpose, it’s easy to confuse them. Check whether you’re clear about the difference between them by deciding which is which in this brief extract from a sales call:
The Implication Questions are examples 1, 3, and 4. Examples 2, 5, and 6 are Need-payoff Questions. Don’t be too dismayed if you found it difficult to decide which was which. At first, even the Huthwaite team found it hard. In the early stages of our research, we would often come across examples of questions where we weren’t sure which category fitted best. We’d write these examples up on a large white board in the office. From time to time we’d meet to discuss these tough categorization problems—boundary issues is the technical term—to make sure we had the closely standardized agreement between us that’s needed for this kind of research.
During one of these discussions, the 8-year-old son of a team member came into the office to collect his father from work. We were in the middle of a lengthy argument about the examples on the board, trying to agree which were Implication and which were Need-payoff Questions. The kid looked at the board for a moment and said, “That one, that one, and that one are Implication Questions and all the others are Need-payoff Questions.” We were taken aback—we’d come to the same conclusion but we’d needed half an hour to do it.
“How can you tell?” we asked.
“Easy,” he said. “Implication Questions are always sad. Need-payoff Questions are always happy.”
He’s right, and since then we’ve called it Quincy’s Rule, after its 8-year-old discoverer. Put in a more adult way, Implication Questions are problem-centered—they make the problem more serious—and that’s why they are “sad.” Need-payoff Questions, in contrast, are solution-centered (Figure 4.9). They ask about the usefulness or value of solving a problem, and that’s why they seem “happy.”
Figure 4.9. Implication Questions are problem-centered; Need-payoff Questions are solution-centered.
The senior management of our major clients might get the wrong impression if they knew that we’d been teaching their sales forces first to ask the sad questions, then to ask the happy questions—particularly if they knew an 8-year-old suggested the distinction. Consequently, we’ve never made Quincy’s Rule public. But if you had trouble with the last examples, then try them again using Quincy’s Rule. I think you’ll agree that the Implication Questions (examples 1, 3, and 4) are sadder than the others.
Back to Open and Closed Questions
Near the end of Chapter 1, in the section “Questions and Success,” I described the Huthwaite team’s finding that the traditional open-and-closed model of questioning isn’t related to effectiveness in larger sales. I’m sure that many readers, brought up on the sensible-sounding distinction between open and closed questions, must have found our conclusions hard to believe. I can now tell you a story that illustrates why the old open-and-closed distinction is less useful than it seems.
I was carrying out a study of sales management coaching in a large high-technology company. As part of this study, I traveled with sales-people and watched how they put coaching lessons into practice. One day I was traveling with an enthusiastic but inexperienced seller. During the call I recorded how often she used the different types of SPIN questions. My results, from our first call together, were:
Situation Questions 35
Problem Questions 0
Implication Questions 0
Need-payoff Questions 0
As we know, Situation Questions can become negatively related to success. The more you ask, the less likely it is that the call will succeed. Predictably, as the call progressed, the buyer first became bored, then became impatient, and finally asked us to leave. Afterward, as we rode down in the elevator, the seller asked me for advice. “I was trying to ask more open questions during this call,” she explained. “Do you think I succeeded?” I was forced to reply that unless she asked about an area that had an impact on the customer—such as problems and their implications—it probably didn’t make any difference whether her questions were open or closed. The sad truth is that a call which goes no further than Situation Questions is most unlikely to succeed. I imagine that there are tens of thousands of salespeople like her, struggling valiantly to understand unproductive distinctions between open and closed questions. If only she, and all those others, understood that the power of a question lies in whether it’s asking about an area psychologically important to the customer—not whether it’s open or closed.
The SPIN Model
Asking questions that are important to the customer is what makes the SPIN model so powerful. Its questioning sequence taps directly into the psychology of the buying process. As we’ve seen, buyers’ needs move through a clear progression from Implied to Explicit. The SPIN questions provide a road map for the seller, guiding the call through the steps of need development until Explicit Needs have been reached (Figure 4.10). And the more Explicit Needs you can obtain from buyers, the more likely the call is to succeed.
Figure 4.10. The SPIN Model.
Let’s briefly review the whole SPIN Model and make a few observations about its use. Most importantly, please don’t see SPIN as a rigid formula. It’s not. Selling by a fixed formula is a sure recipe for failure in larger sales. Instead, see the model as a broad description of how successful salespeople probe. Treat it as a guideline, not a formula.
In summary, our research on questioning skills shows that successful salespeople use the following sequence:
- Initially, they ask Situation Questions to establish background facts. But they don’t ask too many, because Situation Questions can bore or irritate the buyer.
2. Next, they quickly move to Problem Questions to explore problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions. By asking Problem Questions, they uncover the customer’s Implied Needs.
3. In smaller sales it could be appropriate to offer solutions at this point, but in successful larger sales the seller holds back and asks Implication Questions to make the Implied Needs larger and more urgent.
4. Then, once the buyer agrees that the problem is serious enough to justify action, successful salespeople ask Need-payoff Questions to encourage the buyer to focus on solutions and to describe the benefits that the solution would bring.
In a nutshell, this is the SPIN Model. Of course, it doesn’t always work in quite this sequence. For example, if a customer begins a call by giving you an Explicit Need, you might go straight to Need-payoff Questions to get the buyer talking about how the benefits you could offer would help meet this need. Or sometimes, when you’re exploring a problem or its implications, you may have to ask Situation Questions to give you more background facts. But in most calls the questioning naturally follows the SPIN sequence.
Many experienced salespeople, when introduced to the four simple questions, say, “I could have told you that without needing a million dollars of research. It’s just obvious common sense.” And, of course, they are right. We found this model by watching thousands of successful people sell. So it’s not surprising that SPIN should make immediate and obvious sense to successful people. I don’t like to describe the SPIN Model as some revolutionary discovery about how to sell. It’s much better to think of it as the way most successful people sell on a good day when the call is going well.
Let me invite you to think of one of your most successful calls. Didn’t it broadly follow the SPIN Model? Didn’t you begin by finding out something about the customer’s situation? So presumably you started out with Situation Questions. But fairly quickly you moved into discussion of a problem the customer had. How did you do this? By asking Problem Questions. Then, if you think of your most successful calls, you’ll recall that as the customer talked, the problem seemed to get bigger and more urgent. Why did this happen? Presumably because you were developing the problem with Implication Questions. Finally, in your very best calls, were you telling the customer the benefits? Or was the customer getting excited and telling you, saying things like “Hey, another way you could help me would be...”? In most of my successful sales it’s been the customer who was giving Benefits. And how did this happen? Because I used Need-payoff Questions—and I’m sure this is exactly what you’ve done in your successful calls too.
So you’re probably using the SPIN Model already in your, most effective sales. SPIN isn’t new and unexpected. Its strength comes from putting a simple and precise description to a complex process. Consequently, it helps you see what you’re doing well and helps you pinpoint areas where you need more practice.
How to Use SPIN Questions
To ask SPIN questions effectively, begin by recognizing that your role in a sales call is that of problem solver. Customer problems, or Implied Needs, are at the heart of every sale. Over the years I’ve helped my own selling enormously by clearly recognizing this simple fact. Before I go into a call, I ask myself, “What problems can I solve for this customer?” The clearer I can be about the problems I can solve, the easier it is to ask effective questions during the discussion.
Here is a simple technique to help you plan your call strategy and questions:
Before the call, write down at least three potential problems which the buyer may have and which your products or services can solve.
Then write down some examples of actual Problem Questions that you could ask to uncover each of the potential problems you’ve identified.
I’m not alone in finding it useful to list problem areas before each call. An experienced seller from a division of Kodak wrote me, “I’ve been selling for more than 20 years, and when you suggested making a list of problem areas before each visit, I thought the idea was too simple to be worth the effort. But I tried it and it’s proved a very useful way to clarify my thinking and speed me successfully through the early stages of the sale.” Many other people have found this simple suggestion helpful. Try it. In this way you’ll uncover Implied Needs more quickly, and it will also help keep you from spending too much time asking unnecessary Situation Questions.
Most salespeople find Implication Questions harder to ask than either Situation or Problem Questions. In the average sales call we studied, only 1 out of every 20 questions asked was an Implication Question. It seems that, powerful though Implication Questions are, people have difficulty using them. Yet there’s good evidence (see Appendix A if you’re a doubter) that if you ask more Implication Questions, your calls will be more successful. What practical advice can we offer to help you use Implication Questions more often and more effectively? From our experience, the main reason why people ask so few of these important questions is that they don’t plan them in advance. Here’s a simple way to help you plan Implication Questions.
How to Plan Implication Questions
1. Write down a potential problem the customer is likely to have.
2. Then ask yourself what related difficulties this problem might lead to, and write these down. Think of these difficulties as the implications of the problem—and be especially alert for those implications which reveal the problem to be more severe than it may originally have seemed.
As shown in Figure 4.11, for example, a seller planning a call has identified “Existing machine is hard to use” as a potential problem and has then thought of four related difficulties, one of which is that there may be a shortage of qualified people to operate the machine.
Figure 4.11. Planning Implication Questions.
3. For each difficulty, write down the questions it suggests. For instance, in Figure 4.11 the seller has noted that the shortage of qualified people suggests Implication Questions about overtime costs and recruitment difficulties.
This is a very simple method, but it works well. Even the smartest people we’ve studied find it hard to ask Implication Questions unless they’ve planned them in advance. Whether you use our simple method or a more elaborate one of your own, the basic principle is the same. Good questions won’t just spring into your mind while you’re talking with a customer. Unless you plan your questions in advance, you won’t think of them during the call.
Using Need-Payoff Questions Effectively
Need-payoff Questions are so simple and so powerful that you’d expect them to be part of every sales call. No other type of question has so consistently positive an effect on the customer. Consequently, it’s still a surprise to me that in almost half the calls we studied the sellers didn’t use any Need-payoff Questions at all. It seems that, as with Implication Questions, people find them hard to ask. Even worse, when the average seller does use a Need-payoff Question it’s often at the wrong point in the call. So let’s look first at when not to ask Need-payoff Questions and then at how to increase our skills in asking them at the right point in the call.
Avoid Need-Payoff Questions Early in the Call. Some people make the mistake of using Need-payoff Questions too early in the call, before they’ve identified the customer’s problems. Paul Landauer of Abbott Laboratories tells the story of watching one of his salespeople open a call with the Need-payoff Question, “Mr. Customer, if I could show you something interesting, would you be interested?” In a less bizarre form, calls are often opened with questions like “If I could show you a way to increase productivity here, would you put my company on your bid list?” or “Would you be interested in a faster way to process your accounts?” These are Need-payoff Questions, but asked so early in the call, they are likely to put the customer on the defensive and thus be ineffective. The top performers we studied first built up needs before asking Need-payoff Questions. I’d advise you to do the same.
Avoid Need-Payoff Questions Where You Don’t Have Answers. Unfortunately, the only time when less effective salespeople will unfailingly ask Need-payoff Questions is at the worst possible point in the call. Take this example:
[CUSTOMER:] (Explicit Need) I must have a machine that can give me double-sided copies.
[SELLER:] (whose machine can’t copy on both sides) Why do you need double-sided copies?
[CUSTOMER:] (explaining the need) Because it will reduce my paper cost. And also, if we send double-sided copies through the mail, they’re lighter, which cuts postage costs. There’s another plus to double-sided copying too. It means we don’t need so much filing space—and that’s really important here.
The seller has asked a Need-payoff Question: “Why do you need double-sided copies?” It would be an excellent question if the seller were able to meet the need, because it encourages the customer to explain the benefits of double-sided copying. But for this seller, who can only offer single-sided copying, it’s the worst possible question to ask. As a result of the Need-payoff Question, the customer’s need grows stronger—and the seller can’t meet it.
Most of us fall into this trap from time to time. We ask Need-payoff Questions for the needs we can’t meet rather than for the needs we can. I’m sure you’ve asked the obvious question—“Why do you want to do that?”—when one of your customers has requested a capability you don’t offer. The customer then responds to your question by telling you why the capability is important and, in so doing, strengthens the need for it.
The worst point to ask a Need-payoff Question is when the customer raises a need you can’t meet. Conversely, the best point is when you can meet the need. Yet, ironically, this is when most people seem least likely to ask a Need-payoff Question. If the seller in the example above had a machine that offered double-sided copies, do you think she’d have asked the Need-payoff Question? Probably not. In our studies we found that when customers raised needs that the seller could meet, the most likely response from the seller was not to ask Need-payoff Questions but to begin talking about solutions.
Practicing Effective Need-Payoff Questions. Implication Questions require careful planning. You can’t improve your skills with them unless you’re prepared to invest a lot of patience and effort. At the same time, we’ve seen people dramatically increase their skills with Need-payoff Questions just by consolidating the idea with some straightforward practice exercises. Here’s an example of a simple exercise that helps you practice Need-payoff Questions:
1. Get a friend or colleague to help you. The person you choose needn’t know anything at all about selling. My son has been my “victim” for this exercise.
2. Choose a topic about a need that you believe the other person has. You might, for example, choose to talk about a new car, a vacation, a change of job, or—as in my son’s case—a video camera.
3. Ask Need-payoff Questions to get the other person talking about the benefits of the topic under discussion. In my case, for example, I asked my son questions like these:
Why do you think it would be good to have a video camera?
What would it let us do that we can’t do right now?
Would anyone else in the family be pleased if we bought one?
Do you think it would have any cost advantages compared with Super 8 film?
When you try this exercise, notice two things about it:
1. As in real life, it builds up noticeable enthusiasm in your “customer.” A major-account seller from Xerox once told me that he tried out the exercise with a friend, using a new car as the topic. A week later she actually bought a new car, explaining to him, “Your questions really convinced me I should.” The power of Need-payoff Questions is often visible in these simple practice demonstrations. Watch for it.
2. Unlike Implication Questions, which tend to be specific to a particular customer problem, Need-payoff Questions have wide generality. Many of the questions you’ll use in this practice exercise are the same ones you can use in real calls. There are many generic Need-payoff Questions, such as these:
Why is that important?
How would that help?
Would it be useful if...?
Is there any other way this could help you?
Practice these first in safe situations like this exercise. Then try them in real calls. I think you’ll be surprised at their effectiveness.