Neil Rackham: SPIN.

When the pragmatist finally met the complete academic (and agreed with what he said!): Mark Savinson talks to Professor Neil Rackham.

One of my many endearing faults is my constant desire to get one over on an academic. It’s something which has helped me remain focused on steering a pragmatic route through problems, but which can occasionally leave me closed off to thinking based upon rigorous research (as opposed to gut instinct). But I have finally learned that this may not always be the best approach.

As someone who works in the ‘sales effectiveness’ arena and also advises SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) on their sales strategies, I have always been wary of falling into the consultant’s trap of over-complicating things. My regular introduction is ‘I need you to keep everything simple because the more complicated it gets, the more confused I become, and so do you’.

This has resulted in a healthy scepticism of sales methodologies, as too often they become a victim of their own complexity. However, there was always one methodology that I could relate to – SPIN. It had everything going for it; only a four-letter acronym, it could be described on one page, and was not overly contrived. So it was with interest I met its creator, Professor Neil Rackham.

Science

My immediate surprise was that Professor Rackham is a softly spoken man, who clearly revels in the ‘science’ behind selling, people, and how to create effective salespeople. Immediately I was concerned. How would I manage my instinct to get one over on the academic?

I should not have worried, because I had met my first ‘pragademic’ (not sure if you can combine pragmatist and academic in a single word.) Professor Rackham is the ideal intellectual; he relies on the academic rigour to substantiate his instincts. This was highlighted in our discussions as you will see….

Can you assess sales people’s capabilities via a simulation?

I explained Accredit’s approach to assessment, where we use either accompanied calls or simulations. Professor Racvkham immediately picked up on the phrase ‘simulation’ and explained that in research it had been shown that people can utilise the desired methodologies in tests, whereas in real-life they will not do so.

I explained that we are not assessing the ‘approach, techniques or methodologies’; instead we focus on the outcomes of the required activities ie ‘did they achieve the target objectives of the call?’. For example, did they have a clear objective and validate that this was in line with the customer’s expectation, did they uncover the issues the client was facing, did they match these against their offering, did they validate that the customer agreed with their interpretation and did they agree next steps?

Professor Rackham, paused, thought and then repeated back to me, ‘you are assessing the outcomes, the outputs and not the process’. Then agreed that it was valid to use a simulation in these circumstances, and that it made sense, as long as we were assessing ‘the achievement of the objectives of the sales engagement’.

But shouldn’t sales managers be doing the assessment?

Our conversation moved onto a basic philosophy that I have, namely that what Accredit does via simulations, sales managers should be doing by observing real calls. Professor Rackham agreed that one of the key issues today was the failure of sales management to manage.

In fact we both remarked that sales is one of the few disciplines where we take someone who is successful in their role, promote them to a role that requires a completely different set of attributes and behaviours, and then stand back in wonderment when it fails!

So what is failing?

We discussed why salespeople and their managers are not achieving what we had hoped for. I suggested that some of this is because the sales effectiveness world has made things too difficult, we have moved from simple methodologies to complex multi-layered approaches and the net result is that people see them as form-filling exercises; they fail to see the value the methodology brings to the sales cycle.

I asked Professor Rackham why, for all the focus on ‘solution selling’, too many salespeople focused on features and did a pitch. Neil highlighted that one of the reasons for this was the mismatch between sales and marketing.

He then proceeded to give me one of the best descriptions of the challenge sales and marketing face. It was not a new approach, but the clarity which he gave the issue was impressive.

He clearly highlighted how the mismatch was in expectations: the customer knows exactly how they go about making a decision, and between sales and marketing everyone knows what is required to ensure they are in a strong position to influence the customer, but unfortunately no-one can agree how to do it.

Buying process: sales v marketing.

As both Professor Rackham and I commented we are constantly frustrated (not to say amazed) that marketing produces literature that is inward-focused (here are our features) and then tells the customer what the benefits are, whilst sales scrambles around trying to work out why anyone would buy their solution and resorts to ‘pitching’. It is no wonder that the bright salesperson shines.

Professor Rackham and I could have spent hours trying to figure out why sales and marketing fail to work together and what a positive impact it would be if they truly aligned to the needs of the customer, but time was against us. (I imagine part of the problem is that benefits these days are harder to define than features because individual buyers my perceive different benefits from the same product or service; that’s why we need good salespeople to act as ‘interpreters’ – Ed.)

I have met the arch ‘pragademic’

Professor Rackham has undoubtedly reinforced my belief in keeping things simple, but he has also re-invigorated my desire to encourage sales management to take responsibility for coaching their people and making objective (not subjective) judgements on their ability to manage the sales cycle.

He has made me realise the value of an academic rigour to solving the problem of identifying the best behaviours of a salesperson and sales manager whilst making it clear that, in the world of tight budgets and limited time, we have to keep it simple to translate these ideal behaviours into actual behaviours.

Attention

Professor Rackham has also made me realise the value of speaking quietly; it makes the audience really listen to every word and it keeps him in control of the conversation (it is truly impressive to see him in action).

I am not claiming that the professor has validated anything I am trying to do (it would be great if he would) but in listening to him it is clear to me that the principles of what I am trying to do align with his approach to selling.

To discuss this article, you can contact the author, Mark Savinson on: 07782 162300. (Please mention ModernSelling.com.)

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