Spin Selling -- Neil Rackham -- ?

- It would be hard to rate this book, since it's the first one I've read regarding sales. It seems solid to me, though. -

-- Just a note: the graphs in this book don't demonstrate causation well. It's impossible to objectively classify the effectiveness of any particular method when no two sales situations are equivalent.
-- in Appendix A, this is actually addressed

Low-value cycle (old model):
1. Generic sell
2. Investigate needs
3. List benefits
4. Overcome objections
5. Close sale

What works in one-time sales is different than what works in sales that require numerous interactions.

A good product pitch can have a temporary effect on a customer, but a few days later it's largely gone.

People are more willing to take mistakes when theirs is the only pair of eyes that will scrutinize these mistakes.

Preliminaries - research and preparation, especially in regards to the customer
Investigation - asking questions
Demonstrating capability - proving your solution
Obtaining commitment - getting the customer to commit to something

SPIN cycle:
Situation Questions: data gathering
Problem Questions: explore problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions
Implication Questions: questions that get the customer thinking about the urgency and seriousness of these problems
Need-payoff Questions: questions that get the customer interested in pursuing your solutions

Closing -- inviting or implying a commitment, and making the buyer's next statement accept or deny commitment.

Closing techniques have reduced effectiveness when the commitment required is larger.
The bigger the decision, the more negatively people react to pressure.

"It's not closing itself I object to," a senior buyer at BP said, "it's the arrogant assumption that I'm stupid enough to be manipulated into buying through the use of tricks."
If a professional buyer recognizes your technique as such, he won't like it - an incentive to avoid the more manipulative closes.

Orders: The customer makes a firm commitment to buy.
Advances: The customer advances the sale forward towards a decision.
Continuations: No action is agreed upon by the customer.
No-sales: The customer actively refuses a commitment.

A continuation is not an advance. Make sure you're getting somewhere definite with the customer.
When planning, always include objectives that result in specific action from the customer.
Keep the commitments you're trying to extract reasonable.

"Some writers have made great play of the distinction between a need and a want. A need, they say, is an objective requirement. A want is something with personal emotional appeal. We found this distinction unhelpful. . ."
-- hahaha, I bet.

Categories of needs: implied and explicit
The more implied needs you can uncover, the greater your chances of success.
Implied needs should be converted into explicit needs in larger sales.

Uncovering needs doesn't make a sale. The customer that's aware of their needs may buy from someone else, which is why closing is so important.
The quicker you can uncover needs, the better. Move from situation questions to problem questions as soon as possible.
Problem questions are most effective on small sales.
The larger the sale, the more implication questions are required before you offer solutions.

Implication questions work particularly well on decision makers, who are accustomed to considering the implications of their actions.
-- presumably, problem questions would work better on followers

Keep an upbeat tone when asking implication questions, because they tend to depress people.

Need-payoff question: How do you think you could be helped by me?
-- From No Logo: The question is not "Where do you want to go today?", but "How can I best steer you into my synergized maze of choices?"

The buyer knows his needs best. Once he's focused on finding solutions to his problems with your tools, you are golden.

Need-payoff questions assist the buyer in selling his decision to others around him.
The real selling of a product in a large sale goes on behind your back.

Implication questions are sad, need-payoff questions are happy.
-- I caught that one before I read it

Write down at least three potential problems the buyer may have which your products or services can solve.
Write down examples of actual Problem questions you could ask to uncover each of the problems you've identified.

Avoid early need-payoff questions.
Avoid need-payoff questions where you don't have answers: don't strengthen needs you can't meet.

Features: The basic features of a product. More features increase price sensitivity - which is good for low-cost items.
Advantages: How your product can help the customer
Benefits: How your product can meet the customer's explicit needs

As excited as you may be about a feature, the customer's motivations are infinitely more important.

"The students all had that unnatural attentive cleanliness that goes with being new to sales."
-- I definitely, definitely had this at Walker Group. I think it helped.

The best way to handle objections is to prevent them.
-- presumably through directing conversations towards the positive and always allowing the customer to speak freely

Objections early in the call means you're offering too many solutions and not asking enough questions.
Objections about value means you haven't done a good enough job developing needs.

How often have you been introduced to someone and, 10 seconds later, forgotten his or her name? Why should you forget something as important as a name? Your mind is full of other things, such as what you're going to say next.
-- the main reason I forget names is because I don't see the person as important. Either way is totally disrespectful.

On the wall of his office, one of the buyers had a picture of a racing yacht. "I keep it there because it improves my efficency."
"Why?"
"New sales reps visit me for the first time and say 'What a beautiful picture. You must really enjoy sailing.' I reply, 'I hate sailing. That picture's there to remind me how much time it wastes. Now what did you want to talk to me about?'"

The more busy someone is, the less time they have to waste with you. Get to the point when dealing with productive people.
Buyers asking questions messes up sellers' games. Don't let this happen to you.

Establish:
Who you are
Why you're there (but not by giving details)
Your right to ask questions

Entelechy: the actualization of something that was just potential
Why do people find it so difficult to learn skills? They don't go out and practice them.
"If you had to put forward just one principle for successfully learning a skill, what would it be?"
"Work on one thing at a time and get it right."

Never judge something's effectiveness until you've tried it at least three times.
Quantity before quality.
-- this one surprised me for a second, but when I realized what noobs people are when I first start things, I can see why that would work
Practice in safe situations.

The Hawthorne effect: People do better when you give them attention.

"If you cannot measure your knowledge or express it in quantitative terms, your knowledge is of a meagre and insignificant kind."
-- I was feeling that the sort of speed-learning approach I'd taken to a lot of these books, going for subconscious integration over memorization and retention of principles, wasn't good enough.