Neil Rackham’s Spin Selling was written back in 1988. Does it still make sense? A group of people I work with decided to re-read it together and see if it still makes sense. The basics of the overall selling model and the SPIN approach to the “investigation phase” as discussed in the book are a helpful review, but that isn’t where I want to focus today (my review from 2010).
The obvious thing for me in re-reading and discussing the book is that the concepts apply more broadly, which is why some of that other work might strike a chord for other people. “Selling” is not only about getting people to buy your latest offering, but more so about understanding what they are up against and whether you can help them through changes. In any large change project, the change agents are always selling - working to make the change happen and make that change become an embedded way of operating.
The core SPIN Selling (Situation, Problem, Implications, Needs-Payoff) process is all about developing understanding of the customer through conversation - likely many conversations over the course of an engagement. Even when I think I “know” the customer, there are always new people and situations that need to be checked against that pre-existing knowledge. This reminds me of the classic aphorism, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
And while an academic understanding of this method is important, it is even more important to actually DO this. The book gives some guidance along these lines as well. As with any new capability, one does not become an expert overnight by reading a book or attending a few lectures. It is the Practice of those skills that is critical. Practice often. Practice with a partner. Practice in safe situations - don’t try it the first time in front of your most important customer. And practice some more.
Guess what I’m going to be doing? And guess how comfortable it is!
The home company of Neil Rackham, Huthwaite International, has a Complete Guide to Spin Selling with courses and videos about SPIN. One video from Neil Rackham about “is SPIN still relevant” that provides some additional context. In that, he clarifies that selling is still about creating value for customers. That hasn’t changed. But he does suggest that the way people approach the questions inside the SPIN model has changed. Critically, the implication questions are even more important - possibly because the kinds of implementations today are getting more and more complicated.
