Have you ever heard the phrase: “A good salesman can sell a fridge to an Eskimo”? Unless you’ve been living under a rock since birth, you certainly have. The image of the manipulative salesman, the scammer, and the fraudster is embedded in the myths of our society.
But it’s all in our heads. In reality, a good salesman is the one who sells them snowshoes and heating blankets.
His role is not to convince a person to act against his interests for his personal gain, but to discover people’s problems, aspirations, and frustrations and then propose a solution.
In what I just said, the first step is not to talk, but to listen. Often, people don’t even know they have a problem, let alone that they need a solution!
It’s okay to be excited about your product or project. It’s normal to want to impress people with features and functionality that outshine the competition. Many people make this mistake, me first.
But people don’t care if a phone has an eight-core SnapDragon processor running at 2 GHz with 4 gigabytes of RAM and a 12-megapixel front camera! Only geeks may be interested in this type of offer.
When Apple launched the iPod for the first time in 2001, the only message in their advertising was: “iPod, 1,000 songs in your pocket”. We know the rest of the story.
It’s possible to sell and be of service at the same time. The two are not incompatible, in fact, they go hand in hand. Selling is human.
If the last three sentences made you raise an eyebrow, then you’re going to like what follows.
I’m going to offer you a reflection on what it means to “sell” and then talk about the attitude and mindset needed to be naturally persuasive.
Then I’ll tell you about the SPIN method: a way of approaching sales developed by Huthwaite, one of the most prestigious coaching and training agencies in sales, negotiation, and communication.
This method was developed by analyzing the impact of 116 factors on 35,000 transactions collected and analyzed over 10 years. It has redefined the way I approach any communication problem, whether in a professional or personal setting, on a small or large scale.
1. The Bruce Lee method.
Whether you’re pitching a project to your boss, a vacation destination to your partner, or a movie choice to your friends, your mission is the same: get a “yes”.
No matter what obstacles you have to overcome, you must not lose sight of this goal.
All too often, our emotions intrude and spoil the party for everyone. Their sole purpose is to get our attention and take our eyes off the ball. Suddenly, an opportunity becomes a conflict. In the right corner, is your identity. What’s at stake? A real farce: the winner gains nothing, and the other loses face.
To avoid disaster, you have to establish your ultimate goal: what “yes” do you want to get?
As soon as the discussion starts, our ego, the resistance – call it what you want – will do everything to distract us, nuance the issues and make us deviate from our goal.
When you sell, the only thing that really matters is the goal. Everything else is secondary.
Am I suggesting that you engage in a war of coercion where anything goes: pressure, lies, and insults? No, just the opposite.
Communication is about the other.
The goal is to get the person from point “A” to point “Z” and “Z” is where you are. Yes, you can wait at the finish line. But if that’s your strategy, I recommend subscribing to Netflix, it might take a while. Go join the person where they are, and be their invisible guide through the process.
A relevant question to ask yourself would be, “In order to be able to accept my proposal, what other question must they first answer ‘yes’?” What objections await the person along the way?
Mortify your idea, start with the basics and work your way towards your goal one small “yes” at a time.
It’s possible the other person will resist your suggestions. Listen to Bruce Lee and be “like water through the cracks. Don’t try to impose yourself, but adjust to the object.”
The other person can be ungrateful, rejecting your idea and then making it their own. Resist the temptation to remind him that you gave it to him. Keep the goal in mind, and ignore your ego.
We need to believe that we are self-determined, that our thoughts are original, and that we are in control of our destiny. Doing something because you choose to do it is extremely motivating (remember the movie Inception?)
Reminding the other person that you are the architect of his or her decision-making is incredibly counterproductive: it seriously undermines commitment.
The last few lines may have made you cringe. Doesn’t that sound a little… dishonest? Manipulative? Wasn’t selling supposed to be a human experience? Ethical?
It is, rest assured.
But when you’re selling, it’s not about who’s right, it’s about getting results. You want to convince the other person. His ego is important, yours is not.
Exchanges can sometimes become hostile. Every insult is just baited and switches to force your hairy ego out of its den.
A professional keeps a cool head, like Morgan Freeman at the end of the movie Ted 2.
In that scene, Mark Wahlberg tells Morgan Freeman (a prestigious lawyer who refused to take Ted’s case earlier in the film) to go f**k himself, whereupon he replies, “I will, and as soon as I’m done f***ing myself, I’d like to take your case.”
Selling is an exercise in empathy. No matter what the stakes are, it’s our job to look at the world through the other person’s eyes. It won’t return the courtesy, but that’s not important. Don’t take anything personal, it’s not about you.
To get your way, to get an honest and sincere “Yes!”, you often have to step aside to give the other person all the importance. This is why I say that selling is human and ethical, you approach the process with an altruistic, optimistic, and caring eye.
It’s easy to do when you’re selling to a consumer you don’t know, but when the person at the other end of the table is a boss, a colleague, a friend, or a spouse, things quickly become personal.
But the rules don’t change. Be like water.
2. The Spin Method
When you go to buy a coffee, you don’t necessarily want the bartender to try to be empathetic with you. You just want a good cappuccino as cheaply and quickly as possible so you can get on with your day.
But the higher the commitment and price, the longer the sales cycle and the more useful the mindset I just shared with you and the SPIN method become.
Enough of the foreplay!
What is this famous method?
It’s very simple. It divides the sales cycle into 4 steps and each of them requires you to ask certain questions. It’s not about asking open or closed questions, we don’t care about that. It’s not the type of question that’s important, it’s the objective behind the questions.
As you may have guessed, SPIN is an acronym to describe each of these steps: Situation, Problem, Implications, and Need-Payoff.
The Situation
The first step is to collect the information you need to be able to make a proposal relevant to the person’s context.
If you want to implement a project in your company, you will ask questions about the people in charge, logistics, methods, software used, etc.
In a sales call or meeting, you should ask as few questions as possible. You are the only person who gains anything by asking these kinds of questions, the other person is wasting his time.
If possible, do your research ahead of time.
The Problem
It’s always a better sell when the other person admits they have a problem.
The second step in the sales process is to dig for an inventory of people’s frustrations.
For example:
- Are you satisfied with the equipment you are using?
- What are the disadvantages caused by the method/tools you are using?
- If I had a magic wand and could fix ONE problem related to X, what would it be?
- How hard is it to do X, Y, and Z?
So far, there is nothing revolutionary. Questions about the situation and the problem are completely natural and the basis of any sales process. It is the introduction of the other two steps that makes this method magical!
The Implications
Once the problem is discovered, most people will jump at the chance to offer their solution. This works when the solution is affordable and the commitment behind the sale is low, but when it’s not, “pitching” a solution at this stage will most likely kill the sale.
In your head as a salesperson, you immediately see the link between the problem and the solution. But for the customer, it’s not yet clear why they need your product/service.
You have to make the prospect aware of the implications of the problem!
Your management system is slow? What are the negative consequences of this? How many hours do your employees waste each week doing simple tasks? Does the use of this system create a turnover problem? How much does it cost to train an employee to use this system? Does the problem affect the quality of the product? Do you think you are losing sales because of it?
The idea is to make the person aware of the real extent of the problem you want to solve. The greater the implications, the greater the desire and urgency to find a solution.
Need Pay-Off
Once a problem has been identified and an inventory of its negative impacts has been taken, the next step is to shift the focus of the conversation to the positive. We transform the momentum established during the implication questions to ask what the benefits are of fixing this problem.
Example:
- Is it really important to you to fix this problem?
- Why do you think this solution is useful?
- If I find a solution to this problem, what other benefits could it bring?
This type of question accomplishes two things:
- It focuses the person’s attention on the solution instead of the problem. It puts people in a positive problem-solving mindset.
- It gets the prospect to tell themselves the benefits of your solution.
Would you be interested in a solution to simplify the appointment process for consultations? Why is this important to you? Would you like a system that takes care of the follow-ups automatically? What other problems would it solve? Do you think it will reduce last-minute cancellations? What impact do you think this system would have on your customers?
When a prospect lists the benefits himself, then his objections (such as price or a defect in the service or product offered) seem more acceptable.
This type of question also has a second important effect: it trains the prospect to sell the solution.
When you sell something in a company, it is very rare that you go directly to the decision maker. Usually, you go through an intermediary who has to get approval from someone above him. Even the CEO has to answer to a board of directors.
That means your prospect will have to turn around and tell his superiors about your solution. If you get them to tell you the benefits and advantages and they mentally “buy” your solution, you turn them into a small salesman who will work for you in the other organization.
Characteristics and Benefits
Finally, the SPIN method proposes a very particular way of talking about your product. Traditionally, we distinguish between features (3GB of memory) and benefits (1,000 songs in your pocket).
That being said, the SPIN method goes one step further…
When asking questions about problems, the goal is to take inventory of implicit needs. That is, if I say my website is slow, then that implies that I could benefit from a faster server (with more RAM or a better processor).
In Need-Payoff questions, the goal is to get the prospect to make their needs explicit by saying “it would really help our sales to have a faster website”.
So when we offer the solution and talk about the product, we can tie the benefits to what the person said earlier in the call!
For example:
- Our iPod has 2GB of memory, which can accommodate over 1,000 songs! That’s more than enough for the Bob Dylan collection you want to listen to.
- Our servers use a 4 core processor, which allows complex scripts to load much faster. This would make your site load at least twice as fast, more than enough to have the impact you are looking for on your sales!
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Conclusion
When you go to the psychologist, your problems are almost immediately apparent to him. However, he cannot simply tell you after two sessions that you have an attachment problem caused by a traumatic childhood and that the only way to save your marriage is to make peace with Tony who bullied you in second grade.
To make progress, he needs to get you to see your problems for yourself, and if he’s too obvious in his questions, you suspect he’s trying to manipulate you, and that puts you on guard.
The SPIN method follows a similar principle. Although our intention is obvious (to sell), we must do so by leading the other person to a reflection that will convince them of the necessity of your product!
People don’t buy from a salesman because he knows his products well, but because they feel that he understands their problems.
This is exactly what the SPIN method accomplishes by asking the right situational questions and taking the time to define the problem.
Not only that, but people buy when the frustration caused by the problem is greater than the cost associated with its solution.
This is where the implication issues come in. We get the person to realize the magnitude of the problem to increase their motivation to take action.
Then, we guide the prospect to verbalize the advantages of a solution to his problem to reduce objections.
The purpose of this article was to show a different side of selling, to break the stereotype of the guy with a fake gold watch trying to recruit you into a pyramid scheme. Selling is about the other person.
That means stop bragging about your product (or yourself), ask the right questions, and listen. Only once the person has convinced themselves of the importance of a problem and the benefits of its solution should we do what has to be done. Present our product or service as the solution.