SPIN Selling: Situation Problem Implication Need-payoff

When it was published, SPIN Selling had to prove that over 60 years of sales knowledge and advice needed to be corrected. Because traditional sales techniques had a proven track record and millions of dedicated followers, the book cautiously approaches the problem, continuously reaffirming that traditional methods are effective—but only in smaller sales. The book relies on data to prove the ineffectiveness of conventional methods in major sales, all while repeating that the project’s initial goal was to demonstrate their effectiveness. This allows the text to strike a balance between asserting its own methods and critiquing traditional ones.

The most significant argument against traditional sales methods is Chapter 10 on closing, or obtaining commitment. When SPIN Selling was published, most works on sales techniques were dedicated to closing alone. However, Huthwaite’s research found closing was detrimental to larger sales. They also tested another variable, the size of the transaction, and discovered that increasing closing techniques in small sales raised success rates by 5%. They also shaved 30 seconds off the average transaction time. However, when the same salespeople moved to larger sales, transaction time dropped, and the success rate dropped by nearly 10%. This led to the conclusion that traditional closing techniques led to success in small sales but hindered larger sales.

Closing was one of many traditional methods that Huthwaite proved to be ineffective in larger sales. In conventional sales, sellers are trained to respond to clients’ implied needs, which indicate problems or dissatisfactions the buyer has with their current system. In small sales, addressing implied needs is effective. In a study of smaller sales transactions, successful calls saw buyers mention an average of 4.8 implied needs, whereas unsuccessful calls averaged only 2.1 implied needs per call. In larger sales, the number of implied needs in successful versus unsuccessful calls was 0.3. This difference is so low as to be statistically insignificant.

In contrast, explicit needs are a better indicator of success in larger sales. Explicit needs are directly stated customer wants or needs. In small sales, both implied and explicit needs indicate the possibility of success. Only explicit needs have a proven link to sales success in larger sales.

The trouble is that traditional methods instruct sellers to respond to both implied and explicit needs. While successful in smaller sales, this behavior is detrimental to larger ones because making a change is not always worth the money, time, and effort needed to address a problem in larger companies. Therefore, when sellers respond to buyer problems with their product’s solutions, the buyer is bound to object. The seller must build the problem into something worth acting upon—that is, an explicit need—before offering solutions. Otherwise, the buyer does not see the value in changing their current system.

Traditional sales methods train sellers in objection handling to manage these inevitable client objections. However, this method is also frequently unsuccessful in larger sales. Again, Huthwaite’s data show the ineffectiveness of this traditional technique. On average, successful calls only see 6.5% of objections as a percentage of client behavior. Unsuccessful calls see a much higher rate of 11.35%. Rather than objection prevention, sellers need to prevent buyer objections in the first place, once again contradicting the established sales wisdom of the time. The SPIN method of questioning serves to build implied needs into explicit needs and raises the perceived value of the seller’s product. In traditional sales methods, increasing product value is typically done by offering features or addressing implied needs. Both methods are ineffective in larger sales.

The SPIN method’s final push against traditional methods focuses on the importance of preliminaries. Traditional training pushes sellers to bond with clients over their interests. Huthwaite’s data show that this type of opening, at best, has no impact on a sale and, at worst, can irritate buyers. Similarly, traditional sales training stresses the importance of an opening benefit statement. Once again, the data indicate that these statements are effective in smaller sales. In larger ones, they have no noticeable effect on sales. In short, while conventional sales wisdom stresses the importance of making a good first impression, Huthwaite’s data show that first impressions matter very little in major sales.