A Different Kind of Spin - SPIN Selling, by Neil Rackham

In the past, sales training emphasized creating good first impressions, handling objections, and mastering closing techniques. However, SPIN Selling, a sales approach developed by the Huthwaite Corporation, changed this by basing its strategies on the systematic observation of 35,000 sales calls. These observations helped determine that successful sales was the result of asking questions with specific intent and customer focus, rather than just focusing on objections and closing techniques. The use of Situation Questions, Problem Questions, Implication Questions, and Need-Payoff Questions became the focus of this research, which was the basis of the S, P, I, and N in SPIN. This method has been widely adopted and its findings still hold true today.