SPIN Selling
Based on Neil Rackham's book SPIN Sellingby Train To Negotiate · 11 modules · 33 cases · Free
33 sparring drills across the book's 11 chapters: investigating instead of pitching, developing implied needs into explicit ones, the SPIN question sequence, giving real benefits, preventing objections before they form, opening the call, and obtaining commitment through advances.
What you'll practice
Each case is a short role-play against an opponent who wants something else. You play it out in your own words, a referee rules on every move, and a coach debriefs you after the sparring match.
Module 1 · Chapter 1, The Huthwaite Research
Why classic closing tricks fail in large sales, and why questions, not pitches, predict success.
The Close That Wasn't
Three hundred vans, a leasing contract expiring in fourteen months, and a procurement manager who tells you this is only early market scoping. The real tender is months away, and the incumbent will be bidding.
The Pitch Trap
After weeks of chasing, you have twenty minutes with the hospital's Director of Radiology about a seven-figure imaging replacement. She opens with a dare: 'Impress me, give me your best pitch.'
Objections You Never Answer
The payroll system is end-of-life and a decision is due within the year, but the group's Finance Director opens your first meeting with a broadside: 'Convince me why this meeting is any different.'
Module 2 · Chapter 2, Sales Large and Small
What changes when the decision is big: longer cycles, more risk, and a buyer who must defend the choice without you in the room.
Your Champion Can't Carry Charm
The IT manager says he's sold on your half-million-dollar communications upgrade. But the decision belongs to next month's steering committee, chaired by a famously hard-nosed CFO, and you're not in the room.
Good Enough Machinery
Replacing the packaging line would be the family plant's biggest capital decision in a decade, 800,000 euros. The Operations Director opens your meeting politely: 'The line runs. I'm not sure why we're having this conversation.'
Forty Stores of Risk
A $1.2 million refit across forty fashion stores, the most visible investment the chain will make this decade. Your head office wants all forty signed this quarter, and the quarter ends in three weeks.
Module 3 · Chapter 3, Investigating: Questions and Sales Success
The investigating stage is where large sales are won. Ask, don't tell, and forget the open/closed question myth.
Reasons Bounce Off
A 200-unit residential scheme on a tight construction schedule, and a main contractor that has always poured its frames in-situ. Facing you: a Commercial Director who has never lost an argument with a salesman.
The Man of Few Words
A sixty-branch building society is quietly exploring outside help with its security monitoring. The man you need to win over is famous for sitting through entire vendor pitches in silence, and never inviting anyone back.
Nice Noises
The law firm's People Development Director is famously charming, every training vendor leaves her office feeling wonderful, yet somehow very few ever win any business. You have one meeting to become the exception.
Module 4 · Chapter 4, Customer Needs in the Major Sale
Implied needs are not enough in a major sale: develop them into explicit needs the buyer states in their own words.
Ninety-Minute Changeovers
The retrofit you're selling is $250,000 a line; the engineering manager answers to a hard-nosed plant director for every capital dollar, and the incumbent original equipment manufacturer (OEM) already has a rival proposal on the table.
Empty Slots at the Physio Group
The clinicians are booked weeks ahead, yet reception spends all day juggling gaps in the schedule. The purchase you're proposing is beyond the practice manager's budget, that decision belongs to three partners, every Thursday.
The Grumbling Warehouse
At a trade show, the operations director of a four-warehouse logistics firm admitted 'picking has been a headache lately'. You have thirty minutes at his head office, and a headache is all you've got.
Module 5 · Chapter 5, Using Questions to Uncover Implied Needs
Situation and Problem questions: earn the right to probe, then surface difficulties the buyer half-knows they have.
Twenty Minutes with the Managing Partner
Exactly twenty minutes with the managing partner of an 85-lawyer firm, and your research file already answers every background question. In a firm that bills by the hour, wasted questions are unforgivable.
Walking the Riverside Site
Twenty-five minutes in the site office of a 14-story riverside build, where everything visible is already on the planning portal, and visits like yours usually end with 'leave your card with the gatehouse'.
Two Hundred Seasonal Hires
Two hundred seasonal hires every autumn, six new stores, recruitment run on shared inboxes and spreadsheets, you know it all from the trade press. The HR director's team is five people, and autumn is coming.
Module 6 · Chapter 6, The SPIN Strategy
Implication and Need-payoff questions: make the problem cost something, then let the buyer sell themselves the solution.
Seventy-Minute Bloods
The emergency department is breaching its waiting-time targets while routine blood tests take seventy minutes at the central lab. Equipment cases reach the capital panel once a year, and the clinician, not you, presents them.
A Couple of Dodgy Emails
You got this meeting because two employees clicked a fake-invoice link last month, passwords reset, nothing happened. Over half the retailer's revenue lands between October and December; IT security is two people.
The Robot and the Order Book
A 45-person steel fabricator just declined a contract, certified welders are scarce across the region, and the co-owner has given you thirty minutes, with his brother, who runs the money, nowhere in the room.
Module 7 · Chapter 7, Giving Benefits in Major Sales
Features and advantages don't move big deals, benefits that answer an explicit need do.
The New Analyzer Launch
Your company has just launched its new analyzer, marketing has armed you with a glossy feature deck, and leadership wants launch numbers. The lab manager took the meeting with one instruction: 'Bring the brochure.'
Off the Comparison Spreadsheet
The head of people is comparing vendors this month and wants your differentiators, 'come ready to show what makes yours different.' Two of the rivals on her spreadsheet undercut you on price.
The Engineer Who Loves Specs
A trade-fair chat won you thirty minutes with a plant engineer who runs three aging compressors around the clock and loves talking machinery. The audit you need him to book costs money, his.
Module 8 · Chapter 8, Preventing Objections
Most objections are created by the seller. Build value with questions first and the objection never forms.
We've Heard That Before
A vendor once promised this accounting group 'guaranteed savings and a seamless cutover'; the migration became office legend. You sell that kind of promise, and the incumbent's contract is up for renewal this year.
An Expense, Not an Investment
Twenty-five minutes before the shop opens, with a friendly chain owner whose shelving hasn't changed in a decade, and whose standard line for reps like you is: 'Fixtures are an expense, not an investment.'
Four Times the Price of Plywood
Three phone calls bought you thirty minutes with a construction director famous for one line: 'Fancy formwork is quadruple the money for the same concrete.' The awkward part, he's not wrong about the price.
Module 9 · Chapter 9, Preliminaries: Opening the Call
Open without pitching: establish who you are and why you're there, then get to questions fast.
Fifteen Minutes with the CFO
A board-member referral bought you exactly fifteen minutes with a CFO wedged between board-preparation sessions. Behind his desk, a rowing photograph; behind you, a favor you cannot afford to burn.
Eight A.M. at the Loading Bay
Eight a.m., a portacabin beside the loading bay, forklifts beeping and the phone already ringing. The export manager greets you the way he greets every supplier: 'Right, who are you and what do you want?'
You Have the Floor
Four suppliers are auditioning before the tender is drafted, and you're the third. The procurement head's notepad is open: 'You've got the floor, tell me about your company and what you'd charge.'
Module 10 · Chapter 10, Obtaining Commitment: Closing the Sale
Win an advance, a concrete next step the buyer commits to, instead of settling for a continuation: a friendly meeting that ends with no commitment.
Sign Them Today
It's Wednesday, your quarter ends Friday, and your sales director has messaged twice this morning: 'Get the signature.' The talent chief across the table has half an hour, and she's bought software before.
The Radiology Committee
Two good meetings with the Director of Radiology, real problems agreed, but she cannot sign anything herself; software goes through the hospital's IT steering committee. You have twenty minutes to agree what happens next.
The Sortation Retrofit
Three meetings in, the Operations Director has agreed every number: picking errors near three percent, overtime blowing the budget, a sorter that jams weekly. Your quarter ends in three weeks, and your manager keeps asking.
Module 11 · Chapter 11, Turning Theory into Practice
Build the habits: one skill at a time, on low-stakes calls first, quantity before quality.
One Thing at a Time
Fresh from sales training with the whole toolkit buzzing in your head, your coach's orders are brutally simple: practice one behavior only, on the friendliest renewal call in your calendar.
Six Questions Before You Sell
A routine monthly visit to a cafe-group owner who has bought from you for six years, the safest call you have. Today's drill: six problem questions before a single word of product talk.
Third Time Lucky
A friendly accounting firm you've supported for years: aging server, crawling logins, a backup with 'moods'. Your drill is three implication questions, and the first one is guaranteed to land flat.