Spin Selling - sales advice thread

Mike, I think your second question is better than your first.

The first question is accidentally worded in a leading way that is more likely to have your prospect shut down ("We're satisfied, thank you") because they don't know any better. They don't know what's out there, what else is possible. Unless they are totally out of their comfort zone with current results, why should they change? This is what you're trying to agitate with SPIN, if the opportunity is there.

I almost always start at the end of the line for inquiries. Are they making enough revenue? (Then) How hard are sales to make? (And then) How are they qualifying? (And finally) Where are the leads coming from?

As they describe their own process, it will become clear if there is any "fuzzy thinking" or bad process--and the prospect will do the work themselves. They will have an "Oh no!" moment and that is your opening. Now they have realized there's a problem, on their own without you pushing, and now they are ready to listen. Before you can talk about any sort of alternative solutions, the prospect has to be receptive.

And the best way to have them be receptive is for the prospect to come to the conclusion themselves that something is wrong with their process.

Leads are an early component in the sales process. Attention by executives is usually on the late part, the quota revenue figure for the period. Often they do not even know what their front line salespeople are doing. There's a huge disconnect. So you may have a longer period than you think while the prospect winds their way down the road of illuminating their process before they get to lead generation. But they won't value leadgen and talking about leads until they do that...unless they have already come to the conclusion that leads are a problem before you got there. And how often is that going to happen in a world of complacency?

Remember what you're offering is not immediately apparent to them as a solution to a problem. It may sound strange but that's a fact. "More leads" do not help if your qualifying process is broken or non-existent (ie. the sales team is not able to process the leads they're getting now properly.)

Thanks for a good question...one of the very few in the forum of late.

I would ask the second question first.
'What results have you achieved?" and then "Are you satisfied?"

Because if you ask "Are you satisfied?" first, they may just say "Yes".
And now you are forcing them to back track.

I know that wasn't your question, but I like to think I'm really contributing.

cheers Gents. I see the logic in both replies for sure

The question "how satisfied are you with the number and quality of the leads generated by/for your business" isn't either a problem or implication question. It's an investigative question. The good thing about asking an investigative question first is it naturally sets the stage for problem questions to be asked next.

Even if they respond with "I'm fine, thanks" nothing stops you from prodding with another question. "OK. When you say you're fine, are you finding that [common problems]?"

I think that the question:

"how satisfied are you with the number and quality of the leads generated by/for your business"

is too long.

Generally when I ask questions that are that long I get weird answers and doesn't serve me in where I want to go.

Of course this question could be in a certain context.

but generally, I ask shorter, open ended questions.

Step
.
by
.
step.

This can be really hard sometimes but I get better results with it overall.