This post was originally published in December 2021 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Successful salespeople know that great discovery is the foundation of any deal — and no methodology embodies this principle more than SPIN selling.
This methodology was first presented by Neil Rackham, former president and founder of Huthwaite Corporation. His 1988 sales book, “SPIN Selling,” leans into the idea that large, consultative deals can only be won when a salesperson truly understands a buyer’s problem — a depth that can only be achieved by asking specific types of questions.
What are those questions, and how can you use them effectively to achieve successful sales? In this ultimate guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about SPIN selling, including:
- What is SPIN selling?
- What are the types of SPIN selling questions?
- What are the four stages of SPIN selling?
- Does SPIN selling still work?
- Turning theory into practice
- Best practices to get SPIN selling right
- Example SPIN selling questions to ask on your next call
What Is SPIN Selling?
SPIN selling is one of the sales techniques that shifts the focus to buyer challenges rather than the product you’re selling. It allows reps to develop the consultative customer relationships that complex deals require, fostering meaningful buyer engagement.
This outcome is particularly important for businesses that sell products with long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and complicated implementation. In this scenario, buyers may often not realise that they have a problem — or, if they are aware of the problem, they assume that it can’t be solved. Neil Rackham and his team argue that using questions to uncover customer needs and create value ensures sellers create urgency for decision-makers and drive them towards purchase.
Mastering the SPIN model isn’t a straightforward process where you can simply read about it and seamlessly integrate it with other sales strategies. You need to dive deep, understand its ins and outs, and make it a natural part of how you approach sales.
What Are the Types of SPIN Selling Questions?
The acronym SPIN stands for the four categories of questions reps should use to guide customer conversations during sales calls: situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff. Each category of questions should be asked more or less in order, i.e., you would start a discovery call with situation questions before moving on to problem questions.
The table below further details the types of questions that fall into these categories.
| Situation | Problem | Implication | Need-Payoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Situation questions help reps discover the status quo. Use these questions to understand business goals, processes, and other environmental factors. | Problem questions help reps uncover the buyer’s problem. Use these questions to reveal areas of opportunity, whether stated outright or inferred. | Implication questions drive urgency around solving a problem. Use these questions to show buyers why they need to change. | Need-payoff questions guide buyers to see the benefits of solving the problem and the payoff for taking action now rather than later. Use these questions to move the buyer towards a specific next step. |
What Are the Four Stages of SPIN Selling?
Sales teams that follow the SPIN selling methodology follow the same basic approach to their calls: opening, investigating, demonstrating capability, and finally obtaining commitment. Let’s take a closer look at each of these.
1. Opening or Preliminaries
Reps should use the opening to build rapport and trust. This can be done through casual conversation – asking questions like “What did you do this weekend?” and “How’s the weather?” – and then seamlessly transitioning into situation questions. A strong opening should give the buyer breathing room to get to know you and your business without reps immediately jumping into a hard sell.
2. Investigating
Once you have a general idea of their situation, transition into the investigating stage. Use this time to probe deeper into their business to understand challenges and opportunities. As always, avoid jumping to conclusions or making assumptions — instead, guide the buyer to self-diagnose their problems.
3. Demonstrating Capability
Next, it’s time to introduce your product. Neil Rackham explains that there are three ways to do this: Speaking to either features, advantages, or benefits.
- Features are what your product can do. For example, a feature of a car is its horsepower.
- Advantages are how your product is used – in this case, the advantage of using a car over walking is speed and comfort.
- Benefits are the outcomes you receive because of the stated features and advantages. For our car example, a dealership might say, “Because of the car’s horsepower you can reach your destination faster while still enjoying a comfortable ride.”
4. Obtaining Commitment
Finally, it’s time to obtain commitment. Here, ask for a specific next step such as another call with additional stakeholders, a proof of concept, or something else. Remember that your buyer may balk at saying yes to whatever you ask them for – so be prepared to handle objections or follow up as necessary.
Does SPIN Selling Still Work?
SPIN selling is a classic selling method for a reason: it is a highly effective approach to building trusted buyer-seller relationships. As B2B products become increasingly complex, this approach positions reps to deeply embed their businesses in customer organisations, delivering the consultative selling that modern buyers crave. Studies show that SPIN selling can improve sales productivity by 17%.
The best part about SPIN selling is that it’s not an either/or methodology — many businesses use SPIN selling to augment other approaches to sales. It complements low-pressure methods like the Sandler System.
It’s important to note that, unlike SNAP selling, the SPIN approach deemphasises closing techniques. While these techniques work well for smaller accounts, it’s a different story for larger sales because they often involve pushy tactics that may create resistance or skepticism, which can be off-putting in more complex sales processes. This can impair your sales performance.
Turning Theory Into Practice
SPIN selling doesn’t follow the one-size-fits-all format. Sales organisations need to undergo trial and error to see results from this sales model. Neil Rackham explains that there are four golden rules for learning SPIN selling skills, including:
- Pick one behaviour to work on – If you want to master complex skills, practice one thing at a time, nail it, and then move on to the next. Don’t try to handle multiple behaviours simultaneously during sales conversations.
- Choose safe calls for practicing the new behaviour – Practice makes perfect, but not all opportunities are equal. Rather than using the behaviour in major sales, opt for low-stakes situations where you can experiment and refine your skills.
- Focus on using the behaviour often rather than using it well – Don’t get bogged down by perfectionism at this stage. The more you use a behaviour, the more natural it becomes. Over time, the quality will improve.
- Try at least three times before judging whether it works – First attempts are rarely flawless. This holds true for SPIN selling. Give it a fair shot by trying your chosen behaviour at least three times before passing judgment on its effectiveness.
Best Practices to Get SPIN Strategy Right
It’s up to each rep to make situational decisions on which questions they use. This means there are endless ways you can “SPIN” a sales call – but a few best practices you’ll want to get right, regardless of which questions you ultimately ask.
1. Ask open-ended questions
The last thing you want as a sales rep is for a customer conversation to be reduced to a series of blunt “yes” or “no” answers. Without detailed answers, it will be difficult to dive deeper or fully understand a business’s challenges and opportunities.
To avoid that, it’s important to ask open-ended questions. As you pose these queries, remember you don’t have to jump in with a follow-up question right away – sometimes a simple “Oh?” is the best open-ended question you can ask. Buyers naturally follow up with more clarifying information, often with the details you need to effectively position your product.
2. Don’t dominate the conversation
When people respond to our questions, the natural tendency is to affirm what they just said with an anecdote or opinion of our own. In personal relationships, this is a great way to build depth. But if you’re not careful, this tendency can easily waste precious customer time.
Avoid dominating the customer conversation by validating what the buyer just said by paraphrasing their response. This demonstrates that you were listening – which is all the buyer really needs from you. Then, simply move the conversation forward.
3. Don’t cram too many questions into one call
At first glance, the SPIN methodology seems simple and straightforward. Its brevity may imply that you can and should try to get through all four stages in one call. This may be possible for some products and services — especially if the buyer is raring to purchase.
But for most businesses, especially ones with complex buyers, it’s likely that your SPIN conversation will happen over a series of calls. A buyer may have challenging problems to explain or need additional education at a particular SPIN stage. So don’t rush – take your cues from your buyer and be prepared to move at their pace, even if you don’t get through all your questions.
4. Practice before your engage
Finally, as with any sales method, the key to flawless execution is practice. For revenue leaders implementing SPIN selling or any other methodology, building practice into your sales processes and programmes is essential.
This means reps should build confidence and drive to master SPIN questions long before they try them out on a customer. This should take the form of self-guided learning, reinforcement through sales coaching and sales training, and opportunities for practical application such as roleplaying. Additionally, don’t forget the power of just-in-time learning: with open-ended questions, no two customer conversations will likely look the same. If you empower reps with sales plays they can access in real time, they’ll have no trouble navigating any objections that come their way.
Example SPIN Selling Questions to Ask on Your Next Call
Situation Questions
More often than not, many sales reps rush into a sales pitch without grasping the client’s situation. They immediately center the conversation on their product. The chances are high that this approach will only fail.
Ask situation questions to find out where your customers are coming from. What are they dealing with, what pain points do they have, and how are they doing compared to others? Having a clear picture of their current situation and explicit needs will help you adjust your follow-up questions and effectively position your product or service within that context.
Here are some examples:
- Can you tell me about your role at your company?
- Walk me through an average day at your job.
- What is your approach to [use case]?
- Can you tell me about your current processes?
- What tools do you currently use?
- Why did you invest in these tools?
- How effective do you find these tools?
- How often do you use them?
- Who is responsible for [use case]?
- How much budget is assigned to [problem]?
- What is your top priority for the year?
- Why is this priority important to your business?
- Who owns the strategy for [priority]?
Note that while situation questions are important, they shouldn’t replace your prior research. Before you hop on a sales call, you should know the company’s size and understand its products or services. Otherwise, this might only annoy buyers and waste time.
Problem Questions
Problem questions play a crucial role in highlighting the issues your product or service can address for your customer. They guide the conversation by helping your customer recognise their problems rather than telling them what those are. Neil Rackham emphasises that if they don’t acknowledge a problem, there isn’t one.
It’s important not to directly mention your product during this phase yet; that’s reserved for later in the conversation.
- How important is [priority] to your business?
- What challenges do you anticipate?
- What is your biggest day-to-day challenge?
- How easy is it to make progress against [priority]?
- Why does this approach work/not work for you?
- Does your current approach to [priority] ever fail?
- What happens if you’re not successful with [priority]?
- In a perfect world, what would your approach look like?
- Do you think [problem] can be solved?
- What’s stopping you from solving it?
Implication Questions
Not all problems carry the same weight; initially, your customers might only see them as minor inconveniences. This is where implication questions come in. They help explore the consequences of your customer’s problems. By emphasising why these issues need to be addressed, you reinforce the urgency established earlier. At this phase, you should still keep the focus on customer needs and refrain from bringing up your product.
Examples include:
- Has the business ever missed a KPI due to your current approach? Why?
- How much does your current approach cost?
- How much time does your current approach utilise?
- How would you distribute these resources differently if you didn’t have to use them on [problem]?
- What goal would you like to achieve that you currently can’t because of [problem]?
- How is [problem] impacting your work?
- How is [problem] impacting your team’s work?
- How is [problem] impacting your customers’ experience?
- Would resolving [problem] allow you to advance your career?
Need-Payoff Questions
Need-payoff questions rely on how well the earlier questions showed how your product can solve your customer’s problems. Instead of just telling them how your product helps, these questions help the customers see the benefits themselves.
If you asked the right questions beforehand, the next thing you should do is to ensure they opt for your solution. But instead of being direct, ask questions that show them the value of choosing your product to guide them in making a purchasing decision.
- What would change if you did [approach] differently?
- How would it be easier to achieve [priority] with [solution]?
- Would your team get value from [solution]?
- How do you think solving [problem] would help you?
- What would achieving [priority] unlock for your business?
SPIN Your Way to Sales Success
With the best practices above in place, your sales force will be able to develop the last customer relationships your business needs to grow.
Take this sales methodology one step further by embedding it in the sales enablement tool your reps know and love. Book a Highspot demo today to discover how.
