MSP sales—What is SPIN selling and why it works for MSPs

In 1988, Neil Rackham wrote SPIN Selling, a book designed to teach a sales method revolving around problem-solving rather than following a script. 

What is SPIN selling?

To provide a high-level SPIN selling summary, it involves asking a series of questions that will lead your prospects to realize why they need your services as an MSP. It’s a low friction, easy-to-learn sales method that I used in the real world time and again to gain clients. I like this method because it allows me to quickly empathize with my prospects and sell through education and problem-solving rather than competition-bashing or just touting why I am the best.

Neil and his team studied over 35,000 sales conversations—which disproved many widespread sales practices—to land on the methods of SPIN selling. What Neil found is that timing is more important than anything when asking the “right questions” and hyperfocused scripts/questions prevent a more natural sale.

The categories of SPIN selling questions are designed to be a little ambiguous, allowing for a more natural conversation and flexibility while following a set cadence. The process is also designed to always end with a soft-ish close, allowing your prospect to “sell themselves.” The categories are:

1.  Situation questions
2.  Problem questions
3.  Implication questions
4.  Need-payoff questions

Before jumping into the questions themselves, it should be noted that this process is designed to work after you have made it past the gatekeeper. This sales tactic is not used to get your foot in the door but to close once you are in, because if you are talking to the buyer we’re assuming they’re open to shopping.

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Step 1: Situation questions

This is the portion of the process designed for you, the MSP, to learn more about your prospect and how they operate today. Remember, the best sale is not about you and your product/services but about what your customer needs—and diving into their operations is the best start. This also allows you to start to frame where your next set of questions is going. Some examples are:

• Who are you using for Endpoint Detection and Response today?
• How often do you feel that you use X tool?
• What are the mission-critical pieces of software that you utilize on a day-to-day basis?

IMPORTANT NOTE: This does not replace background research. You should know who your prospect is, what they produce, how large a company they are, etc. This step is designed to further that background research and frame the rest of your conversation.

Step 2: Problem questions

Here we start to learn why we are needed as MSPs or why the prospect is shopping. We are not selling our services but solving a problem for the end user. We as MSPs know that the underlying problem most of the time boils down to productivity, but the prospect may not realize that. We will use this step to learn how we can apply our services to their problem. The other point of this step is to get the prospect to admit that there is a problem they need to be solved, since if the prospect does not think there is a problem, they do not have one (even if we know as MSPs there are red flags). So based off our situation questions, we can poke and prod to get to the problems the prospect is having. Some examples are:

• Oh, you are using this Endpoint Detection and Response tool; have you felt that your machines are well-protected, or have you seen a breach?
• Do you feel that you are using X tool as efficiently as possible?
• How do you feel those pieces of software go together? Are they making your day easier?

IMPORTANT NOTE: This step is designed to build empathy with the prospect and direct you on how your services/products can solve their problems. Do not restrict yourself to just asking one to two questions here; the sense of urgency to close a sale should not prevent you from gaining more ammo to win over the prospect. On the flip side, do not drag this portion out too long. I have found that three to five problems were the sweet spot. This gave me enough ammo to win the deal, while keeping the conversation to a reasonable length.

Step 3: Implication questions

All right, now we get into the meat of the sale with implication and need-payoff questions. Implication questions are designed to get your prospect to admit there is a problem, no matter how small, and that they need to be addressed. All the listening and prepping that we have done in the first two steps now comes to a head. Implication questions are designed to get your prospect to think about the pain points they brought up and how they affect the underlying issue of low productivity. We still are not mentioning our services or products here but are forcing the prospect to realize what problems their pain points are causing. For example:

• How much downtime was there due to research into that breach?
• What do you think that X tool could bring to the table that you are not utilizing?
• Have the integration issues with your mission-critical tools caused delays in sales or production?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Not all problems are equal. It is our job as the salesperson to make the prospect realize the extent of their issues without flat-out saying them. The point of this is to get the prospect to sell themselves, and it’s much easier to do this with a prospect that is “solving” their own problems than for you to tell them what they are.

Step 4: Need-payoff questions

Here it is, folks—the pay off! If done properly, this portion of the process will bring all the previous sections together, and you will have sold your services/products without ever being [insert negative sales experience here]. Effective situation, problem, and implication questions have brought your prospect to the point that they know they need a solution. It is now your time to educate them on why they need your MSP business. However, don’t forget we are asking questions, not straight-up telling them. Wait for the prospect to answer and then give them a quick 2- to 3-sentence response on how you can solve that problem, but remember you are solving the problem not the tool you would use. The beauty of this method is that the prospect answers for you. This is probably the hardest part of SPIN selling. Examples of what we should see here:

• What could you have done with the downtime caused by that breach?
Example answer: My team uses a EDR tool that not only maps the effect of the breach but also has an automatic rollback feature that could cut this downtime in half. In the situation that you found yourself in, I can make sure to isolate the threat as well, preventing multiple devices from going down and making sure you and your business remain productive.

• If you had access to that custom report pulling from all the information that X tool provides, how would you increase your sales?
Example answer: On-demand reporting is something that we can work to provide so that you can quickly and easily manage your sales funnel. This would allow you to target where your sales team focuses their efforts, and talking to the right prospects brings more sales, right? Setting up a database in your office will make this quick and easy with the proper training. I would be happy to help with implementation and training.

• If we were able to get all your production orders from your CRM into your manufacturing queue automatically, what could you do with the time saved?
Example answer: I love the idea of using the saved time to create more customizable products. We can look at utilizing the information that can be pulled from the CRM via API to create importable orders that are pumped directly into the manufacturing queue upon creation. Plus, the customizable products you are creating can then be easily accessed from both systems.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure that you continue to listen through this step. The education and answers you provide must be on target and understandable. This is a step that needs to be taken rather than jumping to the close. If the prospect realizes there is a problem but you do not solve it, they will just go to their current provider and get them to fix it. The close comes when the prospect realizes from your need questions and payoff answers that they are not only getting the payoff but having the problem solved as well. If you jump from the implication questions to a close, you are just showing the prospect an item that they will need to get their current provider to fix.

Final note

This process is designed to be a conversation with give-and-take. You must listen to your prospect. A one-sided conversation using this method will not succeed. You must listen first and answer last.

Finally, if you would like more detail, I have found that Neil Rackham’s Spin Selling is generally accepted in sales circles to be one of the best books on the subject. It is the best purchase I ever made as a salesperson, and I recommend that you buy it and go learn more about this process too.

Joseph Ferla is one of our Head Nerds. You can follow him on Twitter @headnerjoe or on  LinkedIn.