The first widely used sales model was developed in the 1920s, and it established the basic ideas of traditional selling, such as using open and closed questions, presenting product features and benefits, handling objections, and using standard closing techniques (such as creating artificial time urgency).
However, in the 1990s, the traditional sales model started becoming less effective as sales grew in price and complexity. SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham created a new model for larger sales, based on research into what top salespeople were doing differently to make major sales.
Rackham, founder of Huthwaite International, a sales research and consulting firm, found that winning major sales requires asking customers different types of questions, rather than just open and closed questions. Further, the techniques and strategies effective in small sales can be a hindrance in large sales.
Rackham developed and extensively tested a new model for major sales, SPIN Selling, which uses a questioning method capsulized by the acronym SPIN: S-Situation, P-Problem, I-Implications, and N-Need-Payoff. SPIN Selling is about how to apply this method.
Sales models have continued to evolve in the 32 years since the book was published in 1988; a variety of models are now debated, taught, and practiced. But SPIN selling principles are still core sales practices, and the book has become a classic and a template for successful selling.
Rackham’s research found that large sales require a more sophisticated conversation with the customer because they’re different from small sales in key ways:
Despite the differences between small and large sales, all sales calls have basic similarities. There are four typical stages:
1) Warming up/Opening: The opening is how you introduce yourself, establish connection, and start the conversation. Sales training often teaches that the customer’s impression in the first few minutes of the call is critical to the sale. The opening may have a bearing in a brief one-call interaction, but in large, protracted sales, your opening is less important than what you do in the next stage: the investigating stage.
2) Investigating: In this stage, you ask questions to get information. You’re trying to better understand the customer and discover her needs. Sales reps in large sales ask a greater number and type of probing questions than reps do in small sales, because the stakes are higher.
3) Demonstrating value: Once you understand the customer’s needs, the next step is to show how your product or service can help. In larger sales, where you’re often selling a broader solution, you need to show how your solution solves the customer’s specific problems in a way that makes it worth the cost.
4) Getting commitment: To be a success, a sales call must end with a customer commitment.
In small sales, the customer usually commits to buying the product, while in large sales, she may agree to another meeting or to provide access to a decision-maker. Such intermediate steps are called advances because they advance the sale by moving the customer toward a decision.
Traditional sales training emphasizes the commitment stage—the closing—as the most important, and it advocates a variety of high-pressure closing techniques. But in a major sale, investigating is the most important stage.
Huthwaite researchers found that successful reps in large sales spend the most time on the investigating stage and handle it differently from the traditional approach.
In traditional sales, reps emphasize product features and use standard techniques to address objections and close a sale. In contrast, successful reps ignore traditional techniques and instead focus on asking four different types of questions in a certain order, the SPIN sequence. Here’s how to use this process:
1) S-Situation questions: Start by asking fact-finding and background questions, such as, “What do you see as the company’s biggest growth opportunities?” Asking too many of these questions can impose on the customer’s time and patience, so use them judiciously.
2) P-Problem questions: Once you understand the customer’s situation, ask questions that explore problems or issues your product or solution can solve—for instance, “Are you concerned about meeting your clients’ quality standards with your aging equipment?” Less experienced reps don’t ask enough of these questions.
3) I-Implication questions: Asking good situation and problem questions may be enough to win a small, uncomplicated sale. However, you need to go further in large sales and ask more sophisticated questions that explore the implications or ramifications of a customer’s problem—for example, “How will this affect your fourth-quarter results?” or “What will this mean for your biggest customer?” The point is to underscore a problem’s significance, and create an urgency to address it. These are more difficult questions to frame, even for experienced salespeople.
4) N-Need-payoff questions: These questions lead the customer to articulate the benefits of your product or solution. For example, you might ask, “How useful would it be if we could increase your output by 10%?” or “How would being able to reduce errors help you?” When the customer links the value of solving a problem with the capabilities of your product, he’s more inclined to accept your product as the best solution. Need-payoff questions contribute strongly to success in large sales.
In sales, a need is defined as a want or problem identified by the customer that the seller can address. Salespeople discover, develop, and address customer needs by using SPIN questions in the investigating stage of a call. This requires both questioning skills and an understanding of how customer needs develop.
Customer needs develop differently in small and large sales, and they require different sales approaches to gain commitment.
In a small sale, asking one or two problem questions that highlight a need may be enough to motivate the customer to buy a relatively inexpensive item immediately. However, a customer's perceived need for a bigger-ticket purchase takes much longer to develop. A sales rep uncovers and “develops” the need by exploring and enlarging a customer problem that her product will address, and creating an urgency to address it.
There are two types of needs: implied and explicit. In small versus large sales, they play out differently.
In small sales, implied needs can result in sales success without further development into explicit needs. In fact, the more implied needs a rep can uncover, the greater the chances of making a sale.
But in large sales, the relationship between implied needs (customer problems) and making a sale is weaker. The number of implied needs you uncover has no bearing on sales call results.
In a large sale, implied needs are a starting point requiring further development into explicit needs.
Implied needs don’t predict success in major sales because customers make buying decisions based on a value equation, in which they weigh the seriousness of their problem against the cost of the solution.
When the solution doesn’t cost much, weaker needs can tip the scale toward buying. But when the solution is expensive, the buyer must feel a much stronger need in order to be motivated to buy. She asks herself: is the problem big enough to warrant paying this much?
In a major sale, you have to build the implied need into a bigger and more urgent need—an explicit need—so that the size of the problem, as well as the risk the customer is taking, justifies the cost of your solution.
The four question areas of the SPIN strategy—Situation, Problem, Implications, and Need-payoff—develop and convert a customer’s implied needs into explicit needs in a large sale.
Situation questions are intended to gather facts and background information about the customer’s situation. They’re the first questions asked during a sales call. Problem questions are intended to reveal implied needs. They ask customers what their problems and frustrations are.
The most important questions in this conversion process are the implication and need-payoff questions.
Implication questions are the first step in building implied needs into explicit needs big enough to require action. These questions explore the larger implications, ripple effects, or consequences of a seemingly small problem, making it bigger. Examples are:
Research indicates that:
While implication questions emphasize the magnitude of the problem, need-payoff questions emphasize the value of your solution. These are positive questions about the benefits of solving a problem using your solution. For example:
Research shows that:
Of course, your ultimate objective in a sales call is getting the customer to take a specific action—either to buy your solution or to do something else that advances the sale, such as attending a product demonstration. Traditional closing techniques that apply pressure don’t work in large sales—they create resentment and undermine the sale. Successful sales reps use several more effective ways of getting commitment in large sales:
1) They focus on investigating and demonstrating value. As noted previously, they spend more time investigating—discovering and developing customer needs—than less successful reps do. Their questions help the customer feel a pressing need to purchase the solution.
2) They check for unanswered questions and concerns. In large sales, the problems or needs and the solution can be complicated. Customers may have questions or need clarification. The reps most successful in getting a commitment ask customers whether there’s anything else they need to address, and then answer the questions.
3) They summarize the benefits. Calls involving major sales can cover a lot of ground and take considerable time. By the end, the customer will have lost track of key points. So it makes sense to summarize the key points before a decision. It also helps to drive home the benefits and urgency.
4) They propose, rather than ask for, a commitment. Reps are taught to explicitly ask for an order in the final stage of a call. But instead of asking, the most successful reps tell: they propose or suggest a next step. The proposed action meets two key criteria: it advances the sale, and it’s the most advanced step that’s reasonable for the customer—for instance, a rep might say, “Since we’ve discussed how the new system fixes your speed and reliability problems, may I suggest the next logical step would be a demonstration for your department?”
The SPIN sales model moves the customer through a naturally unfolding process of uncovering and developing implied needs, evolving them into explicit needs, and gaining the customer’s commitment to take action.
Here’s a summary showing the flow:
In a nutshell, research indicates that successful salespeople do the following:
Successful SPIN selling requires a commitment to diligently practice the skills. Here are four steps for translating the SPIN ideas and techniques into practice:
When reps plan sales calls, they tend to focus on what they will tell the customer about the product (the demonstrating value phase) instead of the questions they should ask. But it’s critical to first develop the customer’s needs by asking questions, so that she wants the value your product can deliver. Investigating is the most important stage, so focus on planning your probing questions (the SPIN questions).
Start with the easier situation and problem questions first. When you have a handle on them, move on to the more difficult types of questions.
Rather than focusing on your product or service’s features and advantages, think of the ways it solves customer problems. Write down the problems the product is intended to solve, then use the list to plan your SPIN questions.
Planning your sales call and acting on your plan help to embed new skills in your mind. But you learn even better by reviewing and analyzing your calls afterward to see what you can do better the next time.
Some helpful questions to ask yourself are:
Don’t be satisfied with just forming an overall impression of how a call went. Delve into the details—for instance, consider which questions had the greatest effect. Only understanding the details will help you improve your future performance.
The behavioral details outlined in this book are proven by research to be the building blocks of successful sales. Your attention to the details will determine your success.
The first widely used sales model was developed in the 1920s by E.K. Strong, and it was practiced with few changes for the next 60 years. Strong’s sales model established the basic ideas of traditional selling, such as using open and closed questions, presenting product features and benefits, handling objections, and using closing techniques.
However, in the 1990s, the traditional model started becoming less effective as sales grew in price and complexity. SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham created a new model for larger sales, based on research into what top salespeople were doing differently to make major sales.
Rackham, founder of Huthwaite International, a research and consulting firm, analyzed over 35,000 sales calls over 12 years. This study, the largest and most rigorous study ever done to that point, found that winning major sales requires applying different skills and asking customers different types of questions. Further, the techniques and strategies effective in small sales can be a hindrance in large sales.
Rackham developed and extensively tested a new model for major sales, SPIN Selling, which uses a questioning method capsulized by the acronym SPIN: S-Situation, P-Problem, I-Implications, and N-Need-Payoff. SPIN Selling is about how to apply this method to larger sales.
Sales models have continued to evolve in the 32 years since the book was published in 1988; a variety of models are debated, taught, and practiced. But SPIN selling principles are still core sales practices, and the book has become a classic and a template for successful selling.
For over 60 years, sales organizations preached and practiced the conventional wisdom that traditional selling methods worked in all sales. Standard techniques and skills included:
Sales training placed particular emphasis on asking appropriate open-ended and closed questions during the investigation stage and on making a forceful closing. But Rackham’s field experience and research showed that some of these traditional techniques were a bad fit for large sales because those sales had different characteristics.
Major sales require a more sophisticated interaction between sales rep and customer than is needed in small sales because they’re different from small sales in key ways:
Small sales: Sales often can be handled with one call in which the customer buys on the spot. The salesperson may push hard to refute objections and close successfully. This works if it’s a one-time interaction where establishing a good relationship isn’t critical. But if the customer delays a decision, resentment created by the pressure tactics can be difficult for the sales rep to overcome in a subsequent interaction. Further, the power of a strong sales pitch wanes in a few days.
Major sales: In contrast, a major sale often requires making many sales calls to a customer over months. Since the customer doesn’t make a decision on the first call, pressure tactics that create resentment won’t work and might kill the sale by making it impossible for the sales rep to establish an ongoing relationship. In major or multi-call sales, customer deliberations occur between calls in the rep’s absence.
Small sales: In a small sale, since the customer isn’t spending a lot of money, the rep doesn’t need to strongly emphasize the value of the product to the customer to get him to buy.
Major sales: Making a large buy is a bigger decision for the customer. The sales rep must heighten the perceived value in the product or service. In fact, increasing the perceived value is a critical selling skill in larger sales.
Small sales: In a small sale, the sales rep and customer typically interact only once; they don’t develop a longer-term relationship.
Large sales: These sales require a long-term relationship with the customer for several reasons. There will be multiple calls to close the sale, and the rep will want to generate future sales with the same customer. In addition, there are usually follow-up needs, such as installation and support. As sales get bigger, the customer’s feelings toward the salesperson become a bigger factor—the person and product become inseparable to the customer. Because the psychology of a large sale is different, the rep must employ a different selling style.
Small sales: When the purchase is small, the customer doesn’t worry much about losing money if it doesn’t work out. The loss isn’t big and others in the company aren’t likely to find out the deal was bad. Similarly, most people are willing to take a chance on buying a small gadget because the loss and embarrassment aren’t great if it turns out to be useless, unlike buying a car that turns out to be a lemon.
Large sales: In contrast, customers are extremely cautious about making large buys; caution increases as price increases, as does the fear of making a public mistake (large purchases involve more people and approvals).
Despite the different customer psychology and sales skills required, all sales calls have basic similarities regardless of the dollar value. Here are the four typical stages and how they apply to major sales:
1) Warming up/Opening: The opening is how you introduce yourself, establish connection, and start the conversation. Sales training often teaches that the customer’s impression in the first few minutes of the call is critical to the sale. The opening may have a bearing in a brief one-call interaction, but in large, protracted sales, your opening is less important than what you do in the next stage: the investigating stage.
2) Investigating: In this stage, you ask questions to get information. You’re trying to discover needs or to better understand the customer. Ability to ask investigating or probing questions is arguably the most important sales skill, particularly in major sales. Improving investigating skills can increase large-account sales by as much as 20%.
3) Demonstrating capability/value: Once you understand the customer’s needs, the next step is to show how your product or service can help. In larger sales, where you’re often selling a broader solution, you need to show how your solution solves the customer’s specific problems in a way that makes it worth the cost.
4) Getting commitment: To be a success, a sales call must end with a customer commitment.
In small sales, the customer usually commits to buying the product, while in large sales, she may agree to another meeting, or to provide access to a decision-maker. Such intermediate steps are called advances because they advance the sale by moving the customer toward a decision.
Sales calls typically include all of these stages, but the emphasis may vary—for instance, the warm-up stage may be extended or very brief, depending on the customer’s preferred business style.
Traditional sales training and many sales managers emphasize the commitment stage—closing the sale—as most important. But in a major sale, investigating is the most important stage. It can account for the majority of the time spent on a call. In large sales, reps ask more questions than are asked in small sales.
Questions are crucial to success in many types of interactions besides sales—for instance, negotiations, management interactions, performance interviews, and group discussions. The more questions you ask, the more likely you are to meet your objectives.
There are different types of questions, some of which are more effective than others. Sales training has emphasized two types—open and closed questions—dating back to at least the 1920s.
Closed questions are directive and usually elicit a “yes” or “no” answer—for example, “Have you purchased new equipment in the last five years?” Closed questions are less engaging, which can make them useful in dealing with long-winded customers, or when you have little time.
Open questions are non-directive and encourage an in-depth answer—for example, “Can you tell me more about your business?” or “What’s your biggest concern?” They’re effective at eliciting information because they get the customer talking. Sometimes, you learn something you didn’t expect.
However, the research on which this book is based found no correlation between using either open or closed questions and sales success. Researchers found no benefit for one type over the other in major sales calls, although sales training has long emphasized the importance of asking mostly open questions instead of closed questions.
Researchers found that successful reps handled the investigating stage differently. Rather than focusing on asking open and closed questions in large sales, they asked four different types of questions in a sequence. These successful reps’ investigating questions can be described as the SPIN sequence, which is explained in detail throughout this summary. Here’s an overview:
1) S-Situation questions: Start by asking fact-finding and background questions, such as
“What do you see as the company’s biggest growth opportunities?” Asking too many of these questions can impose on the customer’s time and patience, so use them judiciously.
2) P-Problem questions: Once you understand the customer’s situation, ask questions that explore problems or issues your product or solution can solve—for instance, “Are you concerned about meeting your clients’ quality standards with your aging equipment?” Less experienced reps may not ask enough of these questions.
3) I-Implication questions: Asking good situation and problem questions may be enough to win a small sale. However, you need to go further in large sales and ask a more sophisticated question that explores the implications or ramifications of a customer’s problem—for example, “How will this affect your fourth-quarter results?”, or “What will this mean for your biggest customer?” The point is to underscore a problem’s significance, and create a sense of urgency for solving it. These are more difficult questions to frame, even for experienced salespeople.
4) N-Need-payoff questions: These questions lead the customer to articulate the benefits of your product or solution. For example, you might ask, “How useful would it be if we could increase your output by 10%?”, or “How would being able to reduce errors help you?” Need-payoff questions contribute strongly to sales success. Top reps ask these questions 10 times more often than average reps.
Asking SPIN questions is the best way to use the investigating phase of a sales call.
Chapter 4 examines in detail how you can use them to improve your success in major sales.
Closing—seeking a commitment from the customer—has long gotten more attention than any other selling skill.
It’s obviously important—if you don't win sales, you don’t have a business. But all closing isn’t the same. It works differently in small sales than it does in large sales. Traditional closing techniques that may be effective in small sales backfire in large sales.
The adage on closing is that “The ABC of selling is Always Be Closing.” Many books and articles on selling have the word “closing” in the title. Standard techniques have included these types of closes:
Besides these standards, there are hundreds of others, many with catchy names, such as the “puppy dog close,” in which the buyer gets to use the product for a trial period.
There’s been little disagreement among experts on the importance of closing:
In summary, the conventional wisdom on closing has long been that:
However, in its research on closing success, Huthwaite’s findings went against the conventional wisdom:
The magnitude of the buying decision affects the customer’s response to hard-sell techniques.
With small sales, closing techniques can work. It’s easier for a customer to say yes to a small decision than a large one because, with the latter, the loss is greater if the purchase turns out to be a mistake. Pressure can have a positive effect in nudging the small-sale buyer to a yes. But the larger the decision, the more negatively buyers react to pressure. It’s like asking your date, “My place or yours?” versus presenting a less-consequential decision, such as, “Would you like to sit in a booth or by the windows?”
A small study of a photo store chain that sold both low- and high-priced items showed how hard closing techniques have different effects in small versus larger sales. Hoping to increase overall sales, the store trained its in-store salespeople in closing techniques. After the salespeople were trained on how to close, the store’s sales of low-priced items increased slightly. In contrast, the sales of high-priced items decreased significantly.
Another finding was that the use of closing techniques sped up the transaction for both cheap and expensive items, which is a good thing in small sales—faster sales reduce wait times for customers standing in line. But reducing transaction time undercuts sales of higher-priced items—customers want more time to decide on a larger expenditure, and if the salesperson rushes them, they just walk away and there’s no sale.
Generally speaking, closing techniques become less effective as the purchase price increases.
In another study of 47 sales reps at one company, researchers found that after training in closing, the reps employed closing strategies more often, but their sales success rate decreased by about 10%.
Besides the purchase price, two other factors may contribute to making hard closing techniques less effective in large sales: client sophistication and the ongoing client relationship:
One reason that closing techniques are so heavily emphasized in the sales world may be that many salespeople strongly believe they work, despite research to the contrary.
Psychological research shows that people often continue doing ineffective things in the erroneous belief that they’re effective. They develop that belief when they get a reward for the ineffective behavior. In sales, the only behavior for which there’s sometimes a direct reward is closing (even though other rep behaviors during the call may have led to the order). A few successful closings can imbue the seller with a strong belief in their effectiveness.
But the mixed effectiveness of closing techniques doesn’t mean sales reps shouldn’t try to close, or should wait for the sale to close naturally with the customer deciding to buy without pressure. Calls without closings are failures; however, calls with just one closing—one that gains the right kind of customer commitment without the downside of pressure techniques—are successes. The key is identifying the kind of commitment you need before making the sales call.
As part of the call planning process for a major sale, the seller needs to set objectives for the call. Objectives may include intangibles like relationship building, but also must specify what level of commitment the customer must make for the call to be a success.
In a small sale, success is easy to define—it’s a customer order. But in a major sale, fewer than 10% of calls result in an order. Your ultimate goal is a sale at some point down the road; in the short term, you’re looking for an indication of progress in each call, which can be tricky to define.
Just meeting vague objectives isn’t a sufficient standard for success. Further, it’s easy to rationalize that you’ve met your objectives—for instance, if you leave feeling good about the meeting, you may count it as a successful closing.
Sales reps need a clear understanding of what constitutes successful and unsuccessful calls, so they can set objectives leading to success. Here are the typical measures of call outcomes:
Research shows that when reps are clear about successful and unsuccessful outcomes, they have greater success in converting continuations to advances.
Objectives should focus on getting the customer to take a specific action—for instance, to attend a product demonstration. In contrast, a less specific objective to gather information or build a relationship leads to an indefinite continuation of the sales process rather than to an advance.
Beyond setting action-oriented objectives, you need to get the customer’s commitment.
Researchers found that successful sales reps use several ways of getting commitment:
1) They focus on investigating and demonstrating value, the second and third stages of a sales call. They take more time investigating—discovering and developing customer needs— than less successful reps do. You have to fully understand the customer’s needs in order to build on them and show that you have the right solution. The rep’s investigating questions help the customer feel a pressing need to purchase the solution—and when the customer wants to buy, there’s no need for closing techniques.
2) They check for unanswered questions and concerns. In large sales, the problems or needs and the solution can be complicated. Customers may have questions or need clarification. The reps most successful in getting a commitment ask customers whether there’s anything else they need to address, and then answer the questions.
Sales training sometimes teaches reps to push for commitment despite possible questions or doubts because doing so will surface any remaining questions. However, the concerns customers cite in reaction to a closing technique tend to be hostile—for instance, “I still don’t understand how the lease agreement works; are you trying to hide something by making it so complicated?” When the seller takes the initiative to check for questions, customers respond with simple queries rather than challenges.
3) They summarize the benefits. Calls involving major sales can cover a lot of ground and take considerable time. By the end, the customer will have lost track of key points. So it makes sense to summarize the key points before a decision. In a small sale, a summary probably isn’t needed, but in a major sale, it helps to drive home the benefits and urgency.
4) They propose, rather than ask for, a commitment. Most reps are taught to explicitly ask for an order in the final stage of a call. But instead of asking, the most successful reps tell: they propose or suggest a next step. The proposed action meets two key criteria: it advances the sale, and it’s the most advanced step that’s reasonable for the customer. For instance, a rep might say, “Since we’ve discussed how the new system fixes your speed and reliability problems, may I suggest the next logical step would be a demonstration for your department?”
In sales, a need is defined as a want or problem stated by the customer that the seller can address. Salespeople discover, develop, and address customer needs in the investigating stage of a call. This requires both questioning skills and an understanding of how customer needs develop.
Customer needs develop differently in small and large sales, and they require different sales approaches to gain commitment.
A customer’s need to buy a relatively inexpensive item can develop quickly, with little or no input from a salesperson. For example, you might be walking through an airport, and a $15 gadget in a store display catches your eye. Within a few seconds of looking at it, you feel a need to buy it. There’s very little time between the development of the need and your commitment to buy the gadget. Similarly, in a small sale, asking one or two problem questions that highlight a need may be enough to motivate the customer to buy a relatively inexpensive item immediately.
However, a customer's perceived need for a bigger-ticket purchase takes much longer to develop. A sales rep uncovers and “develops” the need by exploring a problem the product will address, and creating an urgency to address it.
Often, sales reps who are deemed “weak closers” are actually poor investigators—they fail to get commitments because they haven’t sufficiently developed the customer’s needs in the investigating stage.
Sales reps in major sales need special skills to help customers develop needs; the key is using SPIN questions.
The differences between small and large sales underscore why reps in major sales need a unique skill set. Consider the example of the $15 gadget purchase at the airport compared to a large purchase:
In summary, as sales get larger:
Needs develop through a series of stages. Here’s how they evolve.
When you’re 100% satisfied with something—for instance, your laptop computer—you don’t feel a need for change. But when your satisfaction begins to erode, even to 99.9%, you have the beginning of a need.
When updating your software slows your computer down, you experience a glimmer of dissatisfaction that begins to grow. The limitations of your laptop start becoming apparent; in your mind, they develop into problems. You notice that the laptop loses its charge more quickly, and it definitely seems to be losing speed. But your belief that you have a problem doesn’t mean you’re ready to buy a replacement quite yet. Your problem has to evolve into a want and a drive to act. When you decide you want something—a faster, sleeker computer—you’re ready to buy.
So the stages of need development are:
In small sales, your mind can run through these stages quickly, or even instantaneously. In major sales, the process of developing a need that becomes a want can take months or years.
There are two types of needs: implied and explicit. In small versus large sales, they play out differently.
In small sales, implied needs can result in sales success without further development into explicit needs. In fact, the more implied needs a rep can uncover, the greater the chances of making a sale. In these sales, implied needs are “buying signals,” or behavioral cues that the customer wants to buy; however, in large sales, this isn’t the case.
In large sales, the relationship between implied needs (customer problems) and making a sale is weaker. The number of implied needs you uncover has no bearing on sales call results.
In a large sale, implied needs are a starting point requiring further development into explicit needs. The quantity of needs you uncover isn’t important; it’s how you develop them.
Implied needs don’t predict success in major sales because customers make buying decisions based on a value equation, in which they weigh the seriousness of their problem against the cost of the solution.
When the solution doesn’t cost much, weaker needs can tip the scale toward buying. But when the solution is expensive, the buyer must feel a much stronger need in order to be motivated to buy. She asks herself: is the problem big enough to warrant paying this much?
Here’s an example of how the value equation works. When pocket calculators were first introduced at a trade show, the manufacturer sold out in just a few hours. The manufacturer created an immediate implied need by generating dissatisfaction with large, clunky adding machines. Further, the calculator was a fifth of the cost of the desktop machine. The implied need or problem—a cumbersome machine—was bigger than the cost of fixing it by buying a pocket calculator. But if the pocket calculator had cost more than an adding machine, the need would have to be perceived as bigger to justify spending more money on it.
Thus in small sales where the price is lower (as with the first pocket calculator), implied needs are often enough to nudge the customer to buy—and the more implied needs you can uncover, the better your chances of selling.
But in a major sale, you have to build the implied need into something bigger and more urgent—an explicit need—so that the size of the problem, as well as the risk the customer is taking, justifies the cost of your solution.
In small sales, both implicit and explicit needs predict sales success. A questioning approach that uncovers problems (implied needs) and provides an answer makes the sale.
However, in large sales, only explicit needs predict success. Reps need to use a more advanced questioning strategy to both uncover implied needs and convert them to explicit needs.
As previously noted, in small sales, implied needs are reliable buying signals (indications the customer wants to buy or advance the sale). The more often a customer agrees that he has a need/problem, the greater the probability of a sale.
But in large sales, explicit needs are the buying signals. In assessing whether a call has been successful, experienced sales reps want to see explicit needs, while less experienced reps may count implied needs as indicating success.
Needs development—making the customer’s problem so big that he has to act on it—is the critical selling skill in major sales.
For many purchases, it takes a while to make up your mind to act. You go through a process of need development that starts with a hint of dissatisfaction with the way things are. The steps after that are:
Think of a time when you went through this process recently. What did you become dissatisfied with? What first caused you to be dissatisfied?
Once you realized a need/problem, how did it grow bigger in your mind? What were the factors that made it seem bigger than the way it started out?
Were you happy with the result (either acting or not acting)? Why?
What aspects of your personal experience in developing a need could apply to your next sales call?
The four question areas of the SPIN strategy—Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff—are the key to converting a customer’s implied needs into explicit needs in a large sale.
Situation questions are intended to gather facts and background information about the customer’s situation. They’re the first questions asked during a sales call. They’re aimed at getting to know the customer personally and learning about the business and how it operates.
Examples are:
Situation questions are the easiest and most straightforward questions to ask, so they tend to be overused by inexperienced sales reps.
Situation questions are necessary in most sales, especially early on, because you need to understand the customer’s business. But research indicates their value is limited:
Situation questions can irritate because they benefit the seller, but do nothing for the customer, who gets tired of answering them and may see them as a waste of time. This is especially true for professional buyers, who are constantly asked the same questions by multiple sales reps—for instance, “Tell me about your company,” or “How does your purchasing process work?”
Some of the questions are necessary, but you can minimize the number by doing research ahead of time, so you don’t ask questions you could have answered yourself.
As they gain experience, sales reps spend more time during a call asking the questions that go beyond fact-finding and influence call success.
Problem questions are intended to reveal implied needs. They ask customers what their problems and frustrations are.
Examples include:
Research indicates that:
It makes sense that problem questions would contribute more to sales success than fact-finding or situation questions do—because when you uncover problems you can address, you have something relevant to offer the customer.
Further, problem questions engage customers because you’re talking about something they’re interested in, as opposed to taking up their time with routine and possibly repetitive situation questions.
While problem questions contribute strongly to success in small sales, they’re just a starting point for building needs in large sales. Remember, in larger sales, once you uncover implied needs, you need to build them up into explicit needs, because the customer must perceive the need to be greater when the cost of solving it is greater.
In larger sales, problem questions are an important building block, although they don’t create success in and of themselves the way they do in smaller sales.
Implication questions are a tool for building implied needs into explicit needs big enough to require action. These questions explore the larger implications, ripple effects, or consequences of a seemingly small problem, making it bigger.
Examples are:
Research indicates that:
Most sales reps stop probing after they’ve asked situation and problem questions. In small sales, after they’ve uncovered problems or implied needs, reps typically move on to offering a solution—which may be sufficient to make a sale. However, problem questions aren’t enough in large sales where your solution is expensive.
You have to ask implication questions to underscore the magnitude of problems before offering your solution.
Imagine the customer saying, “So what?” in response to a problem, and think about how to answer that by making the problem bigger. Then phrase your arguments as questions.
For example, if you’re trying to sell a new machine costing $120,000, you could ask implication questions that emphasize the workaround costs of continuing to use the old system over time. It may be that because the old system is difficult to use, the customer has more turnover in operators. This leads to overtime, outsourcing, recruiting, and training costs, plus a loss of quality. When the customer factors in these costs, the problems of the older equipment appear much bigger—and a $120,000 solution starts to seem reasonable.
Problem questions are often enough to get a commitment when you’re dealing with users of your product or influencers who will advocate for you, but implication questions are more effective when dealing with decision-makers. These questions are a natural fit because a decision-maker’s job depends on trouble-shooting or anticipating the ways things can go wrong. When you explore implications, you’re speaking their language.
Asking a lot of implication questions can leave the customer feeling negative or gloomy. The next type of question—the need-payoff question—counters that feeling by moving the conversation toward solutions.
While implication questions emphasize the magnitude of the problem, need-payoff questions emphasize the value of your solution.
These are positive questions about the benefits of solving a problem using your solution. For example:
Research shows that:
Need-payoff questions have two psychological effects:
In small sales, it’s usually easy for the customer to see how a product will solve her problem. For example, if her concern is protecting important company documents, a secure, fireproof cabinet is an obvious solution.
But in larger sales, the problems—for instance, poor productivity— are more complex. There may be multiple aspects, and your solution may address only one key aspect. You’ll have trouble making a sale if the customer focuses on the aspects your solution doesn’t address, and dismisses it altogether.
Asking need-payoff questions is the best way to avoid this problem. When you ask questions that get the customer to tell you the ways your solution will help, you forestall objections. Also, when you treat the customer as an expert, he’ll respond positively.
In large sales, where multiple people are involved in a buying decision, you have to depend on influencers to sell your solution to top management in your absence.
Asking the influencer need-payoff questions will help him remember and advocate for the benefits of your solution. When the influencer identifies the benefits to his company in a conversation with you, he’s rehearsing for presenting them to his bosses. By participating in identifying the benefits, he’ll feel more confident and enthusiastic about your solution.
Implication questions and need-payoff questions are similar in that they’re both used to transform implied needs into explicit needs. It can be difficult to tell the two types apart.
It may help to think of implication questions as sad and need-payoff questions as happy:
Here are some examples of each:
Implication questions:
Need-payoff questions:
The SPIN sales model is effective because it guides reps to ask questions that are important and relevant to the customer, as opposed to focusing on whether questions are open or closed. It moves the customer through a naturally unfolding process of uncovering and developing implied needs, and then evolving them into explicit needs.
Here’s a summary showing the flow:
The sequence may vary at times. For instance:
But most of the time, sales calls follow the SPIN sequence.
In a nutshell, research indicates that successful salespeople:
Using SPIN questions effectively requires planning:
Implication questions are difficult, if not impossible, to formulate on the fly, so plan them in advance. Remember, these questions contribute strongly to sales success. To plan implication questions:
Need-payoff questions are difficult for reps to get used to asking, despite the fact that, of all the SPIN questions, customers react to them most positively. Here are a few tips:
You can improve your skills with practice and effort. Here’s a simple practice exercise:
1) Ask a friend or colleague to help you (he doesn’t need to know anything about selling).
2) Think of a need your friend has—for instance, choosing a new car or vacation destination, or changing jobs.
3) Ask need-payoff questions to get the person talking about the benefits of addressing the need. For example, ask, “Why do you think it would be a good idea to get a new car?” “What features do you need that you don’t have now?”
You may be surprised to find that just practicing this exercise with someone can build the other person’s enthusiasm to the point of action. Need-payoff questions are that powerful.
Need-payoff questions are more generic than implication questions, which are focused on a customer’s business, so it’s useful to have a supply of need-payoff questions ready. Some examples are:
When considering purchases, people typically use a value equation: they weigh the magnitude of their need or problem against the cost of the solution. Put another way, they ask themselves, “Is my problem or need big enough to warrant paying this much?”
Think of a situation where you considered replacing something, but decided the cost was greater than your need or desire to have a new version. What factors did you consider in deciding against the purchase?
Describe the problem that the purchase would have solved.
What implications (effects, consequences) of not making the purchase did you consider? What implications can you see in retrospect?
List the ways the purchase/solution could have benefited you.
Now weigh the purchase versus the cost again. Have you moved any closer to making this purchase or a similar one? Why or why not?
After the investigating stage of a sale where you ask SPIN questions, the next stage is demonstrating value. This stage, also referred to as demonstrating capability, is where you present your solution. In a major sale, some ways are more effective than others.
For the last 60 years, sales training has advocated using features and benefits to demonstrate value, or describe your products and services. The conventional wisdom has been that features are facts or characteristics about a product; they aren’t persuasive. Benefits are the ways features help the customer, and they’re a compelling way to present your solution’s value.
But research indicates that:
Conventional wisdom has held that facts/features are neutral, neither helping nor hurting sales success. Examples are: “The cost is $20,000,” “We have two models, basic and enhanced,” or “This computer has X amount of memory.” Facts play out a bit differently in small and large sales—research has shown facts may help slightly in small sales, but their impact is neutral in larger sales. Specifically:
Overall though, the longstanding belief that features generally don’t help a sale much, if at all, is correct.
While the definition of features is straightforward, there are numerous definitions of benefits. For example, a benefit:
Researchers tested the effectiveness of various benefit assertions in sales calls, and narrowed them to two main types:
Researchers found that:
The book hereafter refers to type-A benefits (how it can help) as “advantages,” and type-B benefits (how it addresses explicit needs) simply as “benefits.”
There are three ways a seller can demonstrate value: by describing features, advantages, or benefits. Here’s how they compare:
| Seller demonstrates value by focusing on: | Seller’s statement: | Effect on small / large sales |
| 1) Features | Describes facts | Somewhat positive/neutral or slightly negative |
| 2) Advantages | Shows how features can help the customer | Positive/somewhat positive |
| 3) Benefits | Shows how the solution meets the customer’s explicit needs | Very positive on both |
Advantages show, in general, how a solution functions or can help the customer. Examples are: “This feature means our machine costs less to operate,” or “It saves time.” Research indicates that advantages:
Benefits show how a solution meets an explicit need of the customer. Examples are: “We have this in stock, so we can meet your need for immediate delivery,” “This machine will give you the greater speed you’re looking for,” “This feature saves energy, which gives you the cost savings you need.”
Research indicates that benefits:
Advantages have a greater positive impact on small sales than large ones because they address implied needs rather than explicit needs, which you have to develop in a large sale to justify the high price. Offering solutions to implied needs isn't enough in larger sales.
In contrast, benefits are much more powerful in large sales because they address explicit needs (but you have to do the work of developing these needs first in the investigating stage, to the point where customers say they want something).
A Motorola Canada productivity study showed that salespeople who used benefits rather than advantages increased their sales success (revenue) by 27 percent
A study of 5,000 technology companies in Europe and North America found that:
Researchers found that in one company where the selling cycle was long (averaging 7.8 calls), the effects of focusing on features, advantages, and benefits varied at different points in the cycle.
The study found that:
Researchers theorized that the impact of advantages is greater at first because customers naturally expect to hear more about the seller’s product or solution earlier in the sale. However, at later stages, the customer expects a response to his needs. If the seller keeps talking about advantages at that point, they’ll have less of a positive effect.
Another possibility is that advantages tend to be forgotten between calls, while benefits are remembered because they relate directly to the customer’s unique needs.
An example of how advantages wane is the forceful sales rep who pushes his product on the customer in a first meeting and comes away feeling he’s been successful—but orders don’t materialize later, either because the customer is put off by the approach, or he has forgotten the advantages since they weren’t personalized.
When it comes to selling new products, salespeople often do a poor job of demonstrating value, which mystifies and frustrates top management. As a result, new products often fall short of initial sales projections.
The reason is that when a product is new, marketing staff train sellers in the “bells and whistles,” or features and advantages. Excited about selling something new, sales reps focus on features and advantages. They focus on the product rather than the customer, but focusing on general advantages is an ineffective strategy for large sales.
Researchers found that new product sales are far more successful when reps focus on benefits–the problems (explicit needs) the product can solve for specific customers.
Often, when the excitement over a new product launch dies down and sales reps begin losing their initial enthusiasm for it, sales start picking up. The reason is that the reps have shifted their focus back to developing the customer’s explicit needs, and showing how the product can meet them.
In summary, there are three main points to remember about demonstrating value effectively in a large sale:
1) Don’t try to demonstrate the value of your solution before you’ve developed the customer’s explicit needs by asking implication and need-payoff questions.
2) Don’t confuse advantages with benefits. Sales models for smaller sales urge you to focus on general advantages (the word may be used interchangeably with benefits)—but remember, to succeed in large sales, you must develop a customer’s explicit needs and answer them with benefits specific to those needs.
3) Don’t get caught up in the hype surrounding new products. When presented with a new product to sell, ask yourself what problems it solves, then formulate SPIN questions to develop explicit needs the product can meet.
Typical sales training in handling objections contends that reps should welcome objections as a sign of customer interest, and the more objections a rep gets, the more successful she’ll be. Hence, most sales training focuses on teaching reps techniques for handling objections. (This sales training focus is second only to teaching closing techniques.)
But research on objections tells a different story. It shows that:
Using features, advantages, or benefits prompt different customer responses. Here’s a summary of the typical customer responses:
| Seller’s focus | Seller’s statement | Customer response |
| 1) Features | Describes facts | Raises concerns about price |
| 2) Advantages | Shows how features can help the customer | Raises objections |
| 3) Benefits | Shows how the solution meets the customer’s explicit needs | Supports or approves seller statements |
When the salesperson presents a lot of product features, customers often respond with concerns or objections to the price. In other words, emphasizing features increases price sensitivity.
This works if you’re selling a cheap product with a lot of features like a $10 watch. In fact, features have long been used to sell inexpensive merchandise because of their link to price sensitivity. The way it works is that when you list a lot of “amazing” features, the customer expects a high price and is pleasantly surprised and more inclined to buy when the price turns out to be low.
However, with high-end products, the price sensitivity created by listing features makes people less likely to buy; seeing the features makes them question whether it’s worth the price. That’s why an ad for a cheap watch lists dozens of features, while an ad for an expensive one omits features and instead creates an impression of style.
When you’re presenting a lot of product features but the product isn’t selling, you don’t need training in handling objections—you need to stop emphasizing so many features.
As previously noted, citing advantages—or showing how product features can help the customer—has a positive effect on small sales, but the effect diminishes as sales grow larger. The fact that advantages often generate objections may partly explain this.
It’s a matter of putting the cart before the horse. Research indicates that emphasizing advantages at the wrong time triggers customer objections.
Here’s how the sequence goes: the sales rep asks a problem question, the customer responds with an implied need, the seller cites an advantage—and the customer objects to the cost. From the customer’s perspective, his problem is minor compared to the seller's proposed solution.
That's because the sales rep tried to show how her product’s features could help without first magnifying the customer’s implied need. The customer, using the value equation, didn’t feel his problem was worth the cost of the solution, and therefore he objected to the price. Had the sales rep first built up value of solving the problem, she’d have prevented the objection.
By contrast, in small sales, where the cost of meeting an implied need is low, the seller doesn't need to build up the need, or value of the problem, to get a sale.
The answer to objections in large sales isn’t learning techniques to handle them. It’s using SPIN questions to build up the problem, and thus the value of solving it with your solution. When the size of the problem aligns with the cost of the solution, objections are less likely to come up.
Objections can never be eliminated entirely. Customers may have needs your product can’t meet or a competitor may offer a better product. No technique from a training class will prevent objections stemming from these issues.
The key is to avoid triggering unnecessary objections because research indicates that the higher the percentage of objections in the customer’s response, the less likely your call will succeed.
Research indicates that the more benefits sellers present—that is, the more they demonstrate how the solution addresses the customer’s explicit need—the more positively customers respond. This isn’t especially surprising. The customer has expressed an explicit need or want. When you show how your product can give him what he wants (present a benefit), he’s naturally going to be happy.
Developing needs and value before you offer the benefits of your product forestalls objections, but even better, it inclines the customer to support or approve of your solution.
Here’s the sequence: The sales rep develops the customer’s need with implication and payoff questions, the customer states an explicit need, the rep responds with benefits—and the customer reacts with agreement or approval.
By improving your probing skills, you can prevent more objections, which will help you sell more successfully.
If you’re receiving more objections than you’d like, first determine whether they’re unavoidable (the customer has needs you can’t meet) or avoidable objections.
Most likely, they’re the avoidable kind, which means they can be addressed. Here are two indicators that you’re getting avoidable objections that can be prevented by improving your questioning skills:
1) You get objections early in the sales call. This means that instead of asking questions as you should be, you’re probably jumping the gun by offering solutions and advantages. You need to ask enough implication and need-payoff questions to develop strong needs before you bring up solutions.
2) You get objections regarding value. If the customer is raising doubts about the value of your solution, you haven’t developed the problem or need enough to justify the solution. In this situation, the customer might say things like: “It’s too expensive,” “I don’t think a new system is worth the trouble,” or “We’re happy with the equipment we have.” You need to talk less about features, and focus on asking probing questions.
In the SPIN sales method, reps ask four types of questions during the investigating stage of a call: Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff questions. Practice the sequence by thinking through a previous sales meeting or one you're planning for soon.
Picture a customer you've met with or will meet with. What problem questions are most appropriate for this customer?
How would you build these problems into implication questions?
How would you develop the biggest problem into an explicit need?
Now discuss the benefits of your solution, avoiding just features or advantages.
How you should open a sales call—that is, how to introduce yourself and start the conversation—depends on whether it’s a small sale or large sale. They take different approaches to get the call off on the right foot.
In discussing openings, this chapter focuses on how to approach initial meetings with new customers, as opposed to opening calls in an ongoing sales process.
Most older sales training asserted that first impressions could make or break a new customer interaction. But research indicates first impressions carry less weight than once thought. Of course, a professional overall appearance is important, but small details matter less. The impression you make in the investigating stage is far more crucial to sales success than your initial interaction is.
The reason first interactions matter less than people think is that in the early stages of meeting someone, you’re getting so much information that you immediately forget some things—sometimes even the person’s name.
Certain details, such as dress, may matter more in small sales, but a great outfit and opening line aren’t going to significantly boost your chances of success in a large sale.
Dating back to the 1920s, sales training taught two ways to open a call:
1) Connect with the buyer’s personal interests. This will help you establish a relationship quickly and increase your chances of success. So try to find something personal to talk about—for instance, if you see a golf trophy in the customer’s office, or a photo suggesting another hobby, comment on that.
2) Introduce a product benefit. The idea is to get the customer’s attention and interest with an emphatic benefit statement—for instance, “We understand that productivity is a big issue for managers like you—our product will dramatically increase your output.”
While connecting with personal interests could work in small sales, it isn’t likely to help you in large sales. Researchers found that in small sales to rural stores, the most successful sales reps made more personal references than less successful reps. But in larger sales to urban stores, connecting with a customer’s personal interests had no bearing on sales success.
Further, whether you have a personal connection with a seller is probably less of a factor in doing business today than it was in the 1920s. Today, price or other factors may be more important than personal loyalty.
Another reason that establishing a personal connection may be less important today is that many customers, especially professional procurement officers who deal with multiple sales reps, have little time or patience with chit chat. They prefer that salespeople get to the point.
The practice of opening a sales call with a benefit statement has also been around for many decades. Getting the buyer’s attention by starting with a benefit might be useful in small sales where calls may last only a few minutes. But a high-impact opening seems likely to be less useful in large sales, in which the call length could be 40 minutes or more.
Researchers found no link between sales success and opening with a benefit statement. In fact, the most successful sales reps used a variety of opening methods, while less successful reps opened every call the same way.
Of course, in larger sales involving multiple calls, you can’t open follow-up calls with a person the way you did the previous time.
Also, using an opening benefit statement can get the rep into trouble, for instance by generating early objections. As previously noted, talking about benefits or solutions early in the call, before you’ve built explicit needs, undermines your chances of success.
Instead of traditional methods of call opening, researchers came up with an opening framework based on strategies used by successful salespeople.
The first step is understanding your objectives in the warm-up or opening stage of a call. Basically, you want the customer to agree to give you a hearing and answer your questions, so you can move into the investigating stage.
To win consent, you need to specify:
As previously noted, openings don’t play a critical role in large sales. You don’t need to come across as polished or rehearsed, but there are three important elements to an effective opening:
1) Get to the point of your visit quickly. Don’t spend too much time on a long wind-up. You don’t want to run out of time in the more important stages because you spent time making a lot of small talk at the beginning. You also don’t want to waste your customer’s time. In large sales, you’re not likely to offend busy customers by jumping into your topic with few preliminaries.
2) Don’t talk about solutions prematurely. As noted in the previous chapter, talking about solutions too soon can trigger objections and undermine your success. Discussing your solution early in the call also puts you in the position of answering questions about your product or services, when you need to quickly assume the role of questioner so you can develop needs.
3) Focus on asking questions. Remember that the opening isn’t the important part of the call; you want to move on to the investigating stage as soon as possible. Instead of worrying about how to open a call, spend your pre-call planning time working on questions to uncover and build needs.
Successful SPIN selling requires a commitment to diligently practice the skills. This chapter is not only about what skills to practice, but also how to practice.
Everyone has the ability to learn new skills by following four principles.
People who are seeking to improve their skills often try to change too much at one time. For instance, after reading this book, you might resolve to eliminate closing techniques, ask more problem questions, ask implication questions instead of jumping into offering solutions, avoid presenting too many features, and so on.
But to learn difficult new skills, you need practice one new behavior at a time, not a half-dozen. So choose one new behavior from the book, and keep practicing it until you’re comfortable with it.
Expect new behaviors to be awkward when you first try to implement them. For instance, if you’re trying to learn to ask implication questions, they’re going to sound contrived when you first start asking them. You might even be tempted to give up and try another new skill. But you have to “break in” a new behavior like a pair of shoes—wear it or practice it multiple times until it’s comfortable. Practice a new behavior at least three times before moving on to something else.
Foreign language used to be taught in a way that put quality first. Students were taught multiple things at once—words, pronunciation, tense, word order—and had to get everything right, for instance in reciting a sentence for the teacher. The focus was on crafting a perfect sentence.
Today, language training focuses on quantity as opposed to quality—instead of worrying about getting every detail right, students are urged to use many words and speak the language as much as possible. This has proven to be a faster, more effective way of becoming fluent.
Similarly, researchers found that the quickest way to learn a new selling skill is by focusing on quantity—don’t worry about asking perfectly framed problem or implication questions: just ask these types of questions a lot, and you’ll soon get the hang of it. Practice as much as you can—and you’ll implement new ideas more quickly while your quality improves over time.
Don’t start practicing new skills in high-stakes situations—for instance, with major-account clients. They’re going to be awkward at first, and the customer may react negatively. Instead, practice new behaviors in low-risk or safe situations—for instance, with customers you know well, or on calls where you have little to lose if you fall flat.
The best sequence for learning a new sales skill is:
Here are four steps for translating the SPIN ideas and techniques into practice:
When sales reps plan calls, they tend to focus on what they will tell the customer about the product (the demonstrating value phase), instead of the questions they should ask. But it’s critical to first develop the customer’s needs by asking questions, so that she wants the value your product can deliver. Investigating is the most important selling skill.
Start with the easier situation and problem questions first. When you have a handle on them, move on to the more difficult types of questions.
Rather than focusing on your product or service’s features and advantages, think of the ways it solves customer problems. Write down the problems the product is intended to solve, then use the list to plan your SPIN questions.
Planning your sales call and acting on your plan help to embed new skills in your mind. But you learn even better by reviewing and analyzing your calls afterward to see what you can do better the next time.
Some helpful questions to ask yourself are:
Don’t settle for just forming an overall impression of how a call went. Delve into the details—for instance, consider which questions had the greatest effect. Only understanding the details will help you improve your future performance.
Ultimately, the key to success in large sales is implementing the details of the SPIN model rather than relying on overall factors like personality, personal connection with the client, attitude, or account strategy.
The behavioral details outlined in this book are proven by research to be the building blocks of successful sales. Your attention to the details will determine your success.
(Shortform note: This book includes two appendices that we’ve chosen not to cover here.
Appendix A focuses on follow-up research validating the SPIN model. Appendix B is a tool that sales reps can use to assess their attitudes about closing sales.)
The best sequence for learning a new sales skill is: pick one skill to work on, choose a low-risk call where you can practice it, and try it at least three times.
What new selling skill from this book would you like to implement and why?
What low-risk sales call do you have coming up in which you can practice this skill?
How/when can you practice this skill three times?
One way to improve your selling skills is to review your sales calls after the fact to determine what worked and what you can do better the next time.
Try this with a recent sales call. Did you accomplish your objectives? How so?
What would you do differently if you could do the call over?
What did you learn that you can use to improve your performance in future calls?