Sales Methodoligies

A sales methodology is a framework or set of principles that guides your sales reps to close clients. It takes goals and turns them into actionable steps for your reps to complete during each stage of the sales process.

Some sales organisations implement different sales methodologies to reach their prospects' pain points throughout the buyer's journey.

Sales Methodologies

1. SPIN Selling

2. N.E.A.T. Selling™

3. Conceptual Selling

4. SNAP Selling

5. Challenger Sale

6. The Sandler System

7. MEDDIC

8. Solution Selling

9. Inbound Selling

10. Target Account Selling

11. Command of the Sale

12. Gap Selling

1. SPIN Selling System

Neil Rackham popularized the SPIN sell in his book, SPIN Selling.

SPIN is an acronym for the four elements a sales rep's questions for prospects should focus on: situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff.

These subjects often reveal buyer pain points and challenges and help sellers build rapport with their buyers.

• Situation questions aim to understand a prospect’s current situation — although reps should still research a call or meeting.

• Problem questions get to the heart of the prospect’s issue.

• Implication questions probe the prospect to think about the consequences of not solving the problem.

• Need-payoff questions prompt the prospect to consider how the situation would change if their problem were solved.

Here’s an example of the SPIN sell in the context of an executive recruitment services firm.

"How does your current hiring process work?"

"Do you find that you have trouble filling your senior leadership positions with quality candidates?"

"If a leadership position goes unfilled, how does that affect the organization?"

"If you were able to get a list of quality executive candidates, how would that help the HR department and the entire organization?"

Rather than explicitly telling prospects about a product or service’s value or potential impact, the goal of SPIN selling is to guide prospects to these realizations on their own.

2. N.E.A.T Selling System

Developed by The Harris Consulting Group and Sales Hacker, this qualification framework was designed to replace standbys like BANT (budget, authority, need, and timeline) and ANUM (authority, need, urgency, and money).

• The “N” in N.E.A.T. stands for core needs. Rather than focusing on surface-level pain, this methodology's creators urge salespeople to go deeply into their prospect’s challenges. How will this product matter to them both as an individual and within the context of the organization?

• “E” represents economic impact. Don’t simply present your solution’s ROI — help the buyer understand the financial impact they’re currently on track to realize versus the impact they’ll see if they make a change.

• “A” is access to authority. You probably won’t get to speak with the CFO, but can your champion talk to the CFO on your behalf? And more importantly, will they?

• “T,” or Timeline, refers to the exciting event forcing your prospect to make a decision. If there aren’t negative consequences to missing this date, it’s not a real deadline.

3. Conceptual Selling System

Conceptual selling is founded on the idea that customers don’t buy a product or a service — they buy the concept of a solution the offering represents. With that in mind, founders Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman urge salespeople not to lead with a pitch — rather, they encourage sales reps to uncover the prospect’s concept of their product and understand their decision process.

The authors encourage salespeople to ask questions that fall into five categories:

• Confirmation questions reaffirm information.

• New information questions clarify the prospect’s concept of the product or service and explore what they’d like to achieve.

• Attitude questions seek to understand a prospect personally and discover their connection to the project.

• Commitment questions inquire after a prospect’s investment in the project.

• Basic issue questions raise potential problems.

This sales methodology emphasizes listening and divides the sales process into three stages: getting information, giving information, and getting commitment.

All transactions should be win-win for both the prospect and the salesperson. If the salesperson feels this is not the case, they should walk away from the deal.

4. SNAP Selling System

SNAP Selling is a sales methodology that aims to bring salespeople to the prospect’s level.

SNAP is an acronym that encompasses four directives for sellers:

• Keep it simple

• Be i(n)valuable

• Always align

• Raise priorities

With these principles in mind, salespeople can more effectively reach busy prospects with valuable knowledge, connect what they’re selling with what’s most important to the potential client, and make it easy for them to buy.

And while most salespeople only think there’s one decision involved in a deal — whether the prospect buys or not — author Jill Konrath identifies three critical decisions.

The first is allowing access. The second is choosing to move away from the status quo, and the third is changing resources. With these mini decision milestones in mind, salespeople can more effectively keep deals on track.

5. Challenger Sale

Co-authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson started "The Challenger Sale" by asserting that practically every B2B salesperson fits into one of five personas: relationship builders, hard workers, lone wolves, reactive problem solvers, and challengers.

According to Dixon and Adamson’s research, salespeople are almost evenly distributed among these profiles.

However, the most successful were the challengers — by a wide margin. This one group represented 40% of the top-performing reps in the authors’ study.

So what makes challengers so effective at selling? They follow a teach-tailor-take control process.

• Teach: First, they teach their prospects — not about the product or service in question, but about more significant business problems, new ideas, and astute observations.

• Tailor: Next, they tailor their communications to their prospect.

• Take Control: Finally, they control the sale by not being afraid to push back on their customer, focusing more on the end goal than being liked. The Challenger sales methodology strives to impart the wisdom of the challenger to the other four types.

This particular approach requires well-thought-through personalized lead nurturing campaigns. They slowly get prospects to warm up to the business until they reach a point where they’re most likely to make a purchase.

Sales software can help reps manage and identify prospects who are most likely to convert at any given time, as well as send out personalized emails or schedule meetings to close deals just at the right moment. 

6. The Sandler Selling System

The Sandler Selling System flips the script of the traditional sales process — to a certain extent.

While sales has historically revolved around the idea that potential buyers should be pursued and convinced by sellers, the Sandler methodology states that both parties should be equally invested.

It prioritizes building mutual trust between both sides. Instead of acting like a typical salesperson, the rep serves as an advisor and asks questions to identify challenges in the qualification process.

Objections such as time or budget restraints often derail deals after a considerable amount of work has already been invested by both prospect and salesperson. But Sandler-trained reps strive to raise and assess the majority of obstacles in the qualification process.

If the rep discovers that their solution won’t truly address the potential client's concerns, they won’t waste time convincing them that it does — they’ll simply abandon the process. Rather than the seller convincing the buyer to buy, the buyer is almost convincing the seller to sell.

7. MEDDIC

MEDDIC is a qualification process for complex and enterprise sales. The acronym stands for metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain, and champion.

To find the answers, ask yourself and your prospect:

• Metrics: What's the economic impact of the situation?

• Economic buyer: Who controls the appropriate budget?

• Decision criteria: What are the formal evaluation criteria the organization is using to pick a vendor?

• Decision process: How will the organization pick a vendor? What are the specific stages?

• Identify pain: What are the trigger events and financial consequences of the problem?

• Champion: Who is selling on your behalf?

8. Solution Selling

Rather than selling specific products, salespeople leverage solution selling leads with the benefits a custom solution can provide for the prospect.

For example, a sales rep for a printing and design company could create a custom package of design services, signage, and business cards to fit the buyer’s needs.

This approach acknowledges buyers today are more informed and allows reps to meet prospects where they are. After all, it’s likely prospects have already researched your products and have a solid understanding of the offerings that suit them best.

With solution selling, sales reps identify prospect pain points and offer a customized mix of products to meet their needs.

9. Inbound Selling

Sales and marketing goals have become increasingly intertwined.

Sales and marketing goals have become increasingly intertwined. Potential buyers interact with content the marketing team creates and often research products on their own before contacting the sales team.

The inbound sales methodology allows sales professionals to meet prospects where they are — whether that’s on Twitter or their company’s product pricing page.

Inbound sales analyze page views, conversions, and social media interactions to personalize the buying process. By following an inbound approach, sales reps can focus on selling using a flywheel model instead of a traditional sales funnel.

As prospects make their way through the awareness, consideration, and decision stages of the buyer’s journey, inbound sales reps take four actions:

Identify — Inbound sales reps prioritize active buyers rather than passive ones. Active buyers have visited the company site, started a live chat, filled out a form, or reached out on Twitter.

Connect — Inbound reps connect by reaching out to prospects with a personalized message through their blog, social media accounts, or in-person events. This personalization is based on the buyer’s role, interests, industry, or connections you have in common.

Explore — In the exploratory phase, reps focus on rapport building and recap previous prospect conversations. At this stage, reps dive deeper into the prospect’s challenges and goals, introduce products or services that might fit these goals, and create plans that accommodate buyer timelines and budgets.

Advise — Finally, reps create and deliver a personalized sales presentation covering what they’ve learned about the prospect’s needs and the value and assistance your product or service can provide.

10. Target Account Selling

Target account selling is the idea that picking the right prospects to engage with is the most crucial aspect of a sales process — that means paying careful attention to and conducting more extensive research during lead qualification, mapping out organizations, and creating buyer personas.

This particular methodology can lean heavily on sales automation — resources that can help your sales organization identify traits that characterize prospects who will be most receptive to your solution and broader sales process.

The critical point with this methodology is to prioritize quality over quantity significantly when it comes to pursuing leads and targeting accounts. It involves putting in extra legwork at the beginning of a sales process, hoping that it will lend itself to higher close rates and more efficient sales efforts down the line.

11. Command of the Sale

The Command of the Sale methodology involves selling with urgency, some degree of bravado, extensive product knowledge, and exceptional situational awareness — all aspects of sales that could be described as commanding in their own right.

The success of the methodology rests on a salesperson's understanding of what a prospect hopes to achieve, the ways a prospect wants to create value for their business, how the rep's solution — specifically — can make good on those elements, how the prospect measures success, and why the rep's business stands out from its competition.

With those bases covered, a salesperson operating within this methodology needs to be able to explicitly define how their solution suits their prospects’ problems, needs, and interests in a way their competition can't. And that pitch has to be enough to warrant charging a premium for their company's product or service.

12. Gap Selling

Gap Selling is a methodology rooted in highlighting the gap between where a prospect's business currently stands and where they would like it to be. Its underlying premise rests on addressing problems as opposed to touting products.

With gap selling, reps put prospects first. They develop a deep, fundamental understanding of a potential customer's business, issues, and — perhaps most importantly — goals. Then, they determine the best possible way to position their product or service as the most effective means of filling those gaps.

Developing that understanding means digging deep — pinning down the root causes for any trouble a prospect might be having. As you may assume, that kind of intense examination can be time-consuming, so this methodology best suits sales teams that have the time and flexibility to take a holistic look at a prospect's situation.