The international bestseller that revolutionized high-end selling!

Written by Neil Rackham, former president and founder of Huthwaite corporation, SPIN Selling is essential reading for anyone involved in selling or managing a sales force. Unquestionably the best-documented account of sales success ever collected and the result of the Huthwaite corporation's massive 12-year, $1-million dollar research into effective sales performance, this groundbreaking resource details the revolutionary SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff) strategy.

In SPIN Selling, Rackham, who has advised leading companies such as IBM and Honeywell delivers the first book to specifically examine selling high-value product and services. By following the simple, practical, and easy-to-apply techniques of SPIN, readers will be able to dramatically increase their sales volume from major accounts. Rackham answers key questions such as “What makes success in major sales” and “Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger ones?”

You will learn why traditional sales methods which were developed for small consumer sales, just won't work for large sales and why conventional selling methods are doomed to fail in major sales. Packed with real-world examples, illuminating graphics, and informative case studies - and backed by hard research data - SPIN Selling is the million-dollar key to understanding and producing record-breaking high-end sales performance.

...I had no idea how to sell professionally.

I had already read a few books by Tom Hopkins, but felt he was targeting used-car salesmen types. It seems as though Hopkins' techniques relied on "closing" gimmicks when it came down to it. (I must say I did learn some good principles from Hopkins, but his gimmicky style is not for me.)

I was instantly attracted to SPIN SELLING when I saw that (1) it was based on extensive research, and (2) it dealt primarily with the large sale. Since I want to start my own corporation after my MBA, and want to have Fortune-500 companies as my customers, I realized SPIN SELLING was for me.

SPIN SELLING is simply a great handbook on large-sale tactics. Rackham shows how the "closing techniques" used in smaller sales severely damage the success of large sales. He then introduces the SPIN model (Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff).

Although before reading the book I never considered myself a "salesman", I realized afterwards that I was already using Rackham's techniques in other areas of my life -- and having a great deal of success. For example, as a professional IT consultant, I was using (unbeknownst to me) these tactics to legitimately perpetuate my client billings.

Selling is essentially obtaining another person's commitment. Commitments that deal with the purchase of good or services is only one type of commitment. Thus, you can use these tactics/techniques any time you're wanting to obtain another person's commitment.

If your desire is to sell large-value goods or services to sophisticated and intelligent buyers then SPIN SELLING is the tactical handbook you need. This book isn't about gimmicks to trick or pressure the customer into buying. This is professional, high-class selling.

After I read SPIN SELLING I immediately bought Rackham's "MAJOR ACCOUNT SALES STRATEGY". Thus, I now have a tactical handbook and a strategy handbook that are based on the same principles and extensive research.

I've found the SPIN model to be highly effective in my life.


The Ultimate Tactical Selling Handbook   November 8, 1997
 132 out of 144 found this review helpful

I am a corporate sales professional. That means that I don't do "hit and run," one-time sales. Tom Hopkins and Zig Ziglar offer great tactics for those kind of salespeople, but they don't work for me. Neil Rackham has hit one out of the park with Spin Selling. Turning everything I "thought" I knew about closing on its head, he provides the power tools for making the most of a sales call. The most important concept here is that you, as a sales rep. are not there when the real decisions get made. Therefore, you must arm your prospects with the tools to represent your company well in your absence.Rackham does not disappoint. You will get all the tools you need to prepare your prospect to close the sale for you from this book. I give all of my salespeople Strategic Selling by Miller, Heiman, et. al. and Spin Selling as the ultimate combination of strategic and tactical approaches to corporate selling.Stop throwing commissions away. If you consider yourself a true corporate sales professional, you have no business ignoring this book.


A convincing Model on how to handle the Mjor-Account Sale   September 7, 2000
 58 out of 60 found this review helpful

Neil Rackham writes a book that summarizes the ground-shaking discoveries of his Company, Huthwaite. The Whole purpose of their research which lasted for a good Number of years was to discover what certain behaviors on the salesman's part helped In creating a successful purchase in the Major-Account sale, in which the item for Sale was usually expensive and requires a long after-sales relationship between buyer And seller.

Mr. Rackham turns the conventional sales knowledge upside-down and he does so very convincingly. He divides the sale into 4 phases; The Preliminaries, Investigating, Demonstrating Capability and Obtaining Commitment. He lays great emphasis in The Investigation phase, and it is in this phase that the SPIN Model comes into action.

SPIN is an acronym for the different types of questions that a seller must use in order to properly establish the last two phases of the sales call. Situation questions are simple straightforward questions about the buyer's company and current situation they are general questions that basically aim to establish context for the next questions. Problem questions are those which aim to pinpoint the exact problems of the buyer so that it becomes easier to uncover his implied needs. Implication questions take us a step further into examining the consequences of the buyers problem more closely and trying to make him more acutely aware of their ramifications so that we can start asking Need-Payoff questions which basically deal with the value and utility that the buyer perceives in a solution. The Need-Payoff questions lead to the development of Explicit need in which the buyer Has been led to clearly understand the context of his exact need to fix a particular Problem. Only after the SPIN questions have been successfully used to define Those explicit needs can a seller start demonstrating capability. With knowledge Of the needs of the buyer the seller can therefore more easily demonstrate solutions Which satisfy those explicit needs, i.e. the benefits of the product or service.

Mr. Rackham describes the different phase in the different chapters of his book and provides very useful information to discredit many misconceptions that have long Been held holy by salesmen, such as the importance of closing, the true meaning of Benefit as opposed to advantage and feature, the relative value of openings and first Impressions and most of all the value of the investigating phase.

An Essential book if you have anything to do with Sales.


From A Professional Sales Rep, Get This Book!   August 5, 2001
 33 out of 37 found this review helpful

This book was an optional text for a college level course on "Personal Professional Selling".

Rackham does a fine job of dispelling the myth of the 1920's straw hat tactics used by the lounge-lizard sales forces.

I am in direct, in-home consumer sales and this book has helped me refocus my questioning technique to a finer art. Now my qualified customers are more likely to go with me simply because I've uncovered their Problems and used Implication questions and finally gave them a few Need-Payoff questions.

Along with Rackham's book, I think you'll enjoy _The Confidence Course_ which is a book that helps you overcome your anxieties and this has helped me in selling. A sales person who cannot prospect is not much of a sales rep at all!

Finally I highly recommend this book and it's compaion volume _SPIN Selling Fieldbook_ by Rackham as it will help you develop the questions you need to be asking your customers and prospects.

Put down the Ziglar and Hopkins books and pick up the NEW generation of Sales books!


A sales book a techie type can stomach   September 9, 2001
 22 out of 26 found this review helpful

I'm a geek, but, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to create some sales training. I had this book recommended to me, and it saved my sanity.

The title is very unfortunate. "SPIN" in this book doesn't refer to the stuff that White House flunkies and PR flacks do...it's an acronym for the components of Rackham's sales methodology.

If you're not a sales type, you may have been grossed out by the high B.S. level of most books about selling. This book, on the other hand, is very factual and direct, and it's free of hoopla, glittering generalizations, and vacuous, trivial "case studies." Most amazingly, it presents sales in a way that makes it seem not so morally repellent. If it's humanly possible for sales to be a customer-service function, it's by following the practices in "Spin Selling."