A New Spin on SPIN

One of my customers many moons ago paid to join the Huthwaite ‘spin selling’ programme.  Then later, they left the fold.  Wanting to keep some of the best bits on-board, they evolved their use of the concept.  They now call it NPINS.

The idea is that the initials still stand for the same questioning categories, but this prompts two key events when a rep is in front of a prospect:

Boredom Trap – A danger with Situation questions is that these can grab the lion’s share of any conversation.   Ultimately, too many situation questions that are largely irrelevant bores buyers beyond belief.  So this technique leaves them to the end.

Nub Of Issue – It can pay to dive straight in with a Needs/Pay-off routine.  Who cares if the prospect isn’t ready to open up quite fully yet, at least they know from the start you mean business.

The fella that explained this tweak to me, used an example he’d encountered the night before with his teenage nipper after he’d come in from school and chucked his bag on the floor in the hallway.  He kicked off by asking his son “how important is it to move your satchell?” to which the response was “okay, very” leading to “and why is that?” that drew a mumbled “because someone will probably trip over it…”