Sales Intelligentsia

Big Ticket, Long Sales Cycle: SPIN Selling

If you sell big ticket products and services with a long sales cycle then you know that these types of sales bear little or no resemblance to sales that close in one, two or three presentations. Unfortunately making the transition often can be a painful experience as everything you know about qualifying, objections-handling, presenting and closing techniques are turned upside-down.

The Bible for this type of sale is Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling series of books and audio courses which focus on the incremental process of building mutual value for both sides of the transaction, resulting in not a single sale but an on-going business partnership. While the SPIN acronym has an unfortunate political meaning to many Americans (putting a Karl Rovian ’spin’ on a story for PR purposes), in Rackham’s case it is an acronym for Situation, Problem, Implication, Need/payoff; his formula for handling these sales.

Rackham’s book is worth reading because it is not a sales gimmick cooked up to sell books. It is based on actually researching 35,000 sales calls over a ten year period, including observing sales pros on the road and in client meetings. The fascinating result of this research is that classic sales processes derived from one call selling not only have no relevance to these large sales, they can actually hurt the potential of completing each sale.

Value selling involves becoming truly knowledgeable about the customer’s business from both a macro and micro-perspective. This requires research, information gathering on a personal basis and entering into a mutual exploration of the benefits of doing business together. A case is built, by both parties, that either justifies the value or does not. Once the value is agreed upon, a relationship is mapped out that will include more than simple delivery and set-up of the product or service. This type of relationship selling has revolutionized the way many businesses do business with companies like IBM, Xerox, Kodak and others building significant service businesses around their core products.

Many of us read sales books for a kernel or two of knowledge we can use for a little extra edge. SPIN Selling offers a complete paradigm shift in the way major sales are handled. Recommended.