Chapter 10
Asking Questions and Listening – The SPIN
The Purpose of Asking Questions
The Salesperson as a diagnostician
Provides a roadmap for you to follow
Allows prospects to discover for themselves their
problems
Determine prospect’s buying criteria
Salesperson as a diagnostician
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Need discovery is more important than any other step in the sales cycle
Plan your questions in sequence to gain information in a logical
Research findings suggest that successful sales interactions:
Contain more requests for information than opinions
Contain fewer statements of disagreement
Closing is directly linked to questions
Specific Planning for Asking Questions
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Four key objectives of questions
To discover the prospect’s “hot button”
To establish purchase criteria
To agree on a time frame for completion of negotiations
To gain agreement on the problem before beginning the actual
presentation of benefits
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Gear questions to the benefits of your product
Asking questions in rapid-fire machine-gun fashion…