Qualifying a Lead / Opportunity

Qualifying a Lead / Opportunity is regarded as the second-most important activity in the entire B2B Sales process.
Can you guess the most important activity? Yes, it is the Sales closure.

Now, different people understand the meaning of a “Sales Lead” differently. In our opinion, you should consider it a Lead, when you have a high-level visibility to the following conditions:

  1. There is an area of interest or need that your offerings can address
  2. Customer has the ability and willingness to pay

Next comes the Qualification process. There are several techniques that the B2B sellers may use. One of the most popular techniques used today, is SPIN.

SPIN Selling is based on an extensive research by Neil Rackham and his company, Huthwaite.
Today sales professionals around the world incorporate the SPIN selling model into their sales process with great success.

SPIN Technique – How it works

As you may already know, SPIN selling focuses on asking questions around each of four areas—Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff—to learn more about customer needs and craft an effective solution
Personally, I have found SPIN to be a very effective Qualification and Persuasion technique in B2B sales.

At the same time, it may be supplemented with a more exhausting probing mechanism that helps the B2B sellers minimize whatever blind spots are there, even after applying SPIN. We call it “Beyond SPIN” .

It may be argued that some of the areas that we have mentioned under “Beyond SPIN” may actually be covered by “Situation” questions. However, from our practical experience, we have seen that many a time, Sellers do a superficial job in the “Beyond SPIN” areas, which sometime costs them the deal.

This blog presents a quick synopsis of the SPIN technique, which both novice and the experienced sellers will find it useful.
Towards the end of this blog, I have called out the areas under “Beyond SPIN” to ensure deservedly dedicated focus from the Sellers.

SPIN – A Practical & Proven Technique

SPIN Technique – How it works

Objectives of SPIN Questions

Examples of SPIN Questions

Focus areas Beyond SPIN: Sample Questions

For more details and implementation guidance, you may please contact the author.

Aurijit Ganguli (aurijit@bizwinconsulting.com)