Conversation transcript
Tony Hughes: So Neil, SPIN Selling was discovered 50 years ago. What's its relevance been through those 50 years? Can you think of times where sales have changed but SPIN Selling has still been still relevant?
Neil Rackham: I suppose the biggest single change in selling was the information revolution. Once Internet came along, Google and other search engines were available. It totally altered selling. Before that time, probably the only way in which a customer could get up to date information on products was to talk to a salesperson. Salespeople could make quite a good living being talking brochures. Just saying; "Let me tell you about our latest product range." Customers were actually interested in that.
Neil Rackham: Well, once the Internet came along, most customers knew everything they needed to know before they even met a salesperson. The question was not "What's your product?" The question was, "How do I use it?" "Is it my best bet?"
Neil Rackham: Other questions started to come in and that meant the salesperson had to shift from being a teller to being a seeker. Questioning skills became hugely more important throughout the 1980s and 1990s as the Internet developed.
Tony Hughes: Yeah, so I guess we're talking more there about creating value for the customer in a way that was different from just the product?
Neil Rackham: Yeah, because in almost every field, products become commodities. What is differentiated increasingly is the service element of the product. That's the sales and the after sales service. That seems to be a more powerful sustainable differentiator. Products change, your product could be outdated next week if someone leapfrogs you with a new revolutionary product. But no one is going to have a revolutionary new sales force in a week or a month or a year.
Neil Rackham: I'd say on average it takes 4 to 5 years to really develop a good salesforce. And it's hard work. Once you've got it, you've got a sustainable competitive advantage in a very unstable world where you can't keep product advantages for long.
