What is the SPICED Framework?
The SPICED framework is a five-step sales process that helps salespeople determine what customers want and maximize their sales chances. SPICED stands for situation, pain, impact, critical event, and decision. Each step of the framework gives the seller important information that they can use to come up with a good answer for the prospect.
SPICED is a famous framework for solution and needs-based selling because it can be used to find problems. It aids sellers in organizing data in a planned way so they can learn more about their prospects’ backgrounds and needs and better guess what arguments they might raise. It also gets buyers to talk about their whole situation, which helps them see the risks and effects of not making a change.
Simply put, SPICED is a framework that helps prospects make the difference they need to make. The seller does an analysis, but the prospect should (ideally) decide to move.
Synonyms
- SPICED methodology
- SPICED sales framework
- SPICED sales process
How SPICED makes sales: the steps
Most of the time, the SPICED method tracks the natural flow of the sales cycle. It starts with specifics and background information about the prospect, which is what the first step of the pipeline usually does. After going through several stages of lead selection and conversion, they’ll choose in the end.
The five steps between the first contact and the choice to buy are needed to organize the process and make it work more efficiently.
Taking place
Details, conditions, and information about your client’s situation.
The situation gives you a complete picture of how things are in the customer’s life. It describes the industry, its place in the market and among competitors, the current capabilities of its goods or services, and any new events that might impact its business.
On discovery calls, the first question is a situational question. Usually, they’re neutral, non-leading questions that help you figure out what’s going on with the customer.
“How big is the sales team in your Houston office?” is an example of a relevant question.
- “What kind of CRM platform does your business use now?”
- “I saw that you’re putting out a new product soon.” Is that right?”
Sellers can sort leads into groups based on how likely each one will be a good fit for their answer by asking these questions during the first calls.
Pain
The problems or risks that brought your client to the meeting.
People who might buy something seek a new answer because they have pain points. They can be qualitative pain, which means mental problems, like being afraid of losing business or being angry about a process inside the company. Or, they can be quantitative pain, which means they are logical problems, like managing cash flow or dealing with a business that is always slow.
There’s a good chance the sales rep brought the prospect to the talk through cold calls, direct messages, or emails. This person’s job is to ask more in-depth, relevant questions that help them figure out the customer’s real problems.
“How do you currently onboard your customers?” is an example of a pain question.
- “How long does it take them to get to the first value?”
- “How often can you cross-sell or up-sell?”
When SDRs listen to the answers to these questions, they look for specific clues that point to a likely need for the product. This could mean they are still using an old product or that their current process costs them a lot of money.
What Happens
What does that pain mean for the prospect’s business?
We start to talk about personal and emotional things when we talk about impact. In this step, sellers start to figure out why their client is in pain and how that pain affects the team’s work or the bottom line.
After you answer “pain,” you’ll be asked “impact,” which can be either a financial or emotional question. Costs going down, sales going up, or the customer experience getting better are all examples of rational effects. Emotional ones include getting rid of something that makes you angry or causes stress.
“What does a slow onboarding process mean for your conversion rate?” is an example of an effect question.
How long has it been since a customer backed out after signing on the dotted line? Are you relying too much on getting new customers to make more money?
In this step, sellers show the customer how their current process works and how their service would improve it. If they haven’t already, this is where they begin to make their case for their answer.
Important Event
The deadline and what that means for making that effect better.
The critical event is what makes prospects feel like they need to make a choice quickly. Most of the time, it’s a date or goal the customer has set and wants to meet. Critical events often include due dates for making KPI goals (like a quota), releasing new products, and following rules and regulations.
Critical event questions determine what will happen if the prospect’s impact doesn’t change by a specific time. These could be lost investment chances, conversion rate drops, or loss of present customers.
“What happens when you can’t onboard new customers in 60 days?” is an example of a critical event question.
- “Why do you care about that date?”
- “What are the chances that we won’t reach that goal?”
In the SPICED system, it’s essential to remember that “I” and “CE” won’t always happen in the same order. Someone in the target group may already know they have a problem and a few ways to fix it.
If that’s the case, they’ll probably talk about these things much earlier in the sales process, like the first time they call an SDR. It doesn’t happen often, but active listening can help sales reps find hints and use more questions to find impacts and critical events.
Alternative Choice
How to close the deal, who to talk to, and what factors to use.
In this stage, salespeople need to know what the customer needs to do to close the deal. They need to know how they make decisions, who has power, who influences them, and what standards to meet before buying something.
Decision-oriented questions help sellers determine how much experience the buyer has bought a solution like the one they’re offering. They should also find out if the customer has any concerns or doubts.
“What does your internal vetting process look like for new solutions?” is an example of a decision question.
- “Should I start any conversations at the same time, like with Procurement and Legal?”
- “When choosing a new tool, what are the most and least important things you’ll look at?”
For enterprise sales, this means making a plan for the buying decision process, the committee (which usually has six or more people making decisions), and the factors used to make the decisions.
What SPICED Does to Revenue
Structure in the sales process makes it easier for new reps to get up to speed and more efficient when it’s used correctly. It also helps sellers qualify leads more accurately. In the end, this means more money coming in and easier sales.
Helps more Motion to Go to Market
It takes a lot of planning to get a new product out there. The sales and product teams can work together to list the most critical problems and events customers need to know about. Then, sales can use the SPICED framework to quickly find out what the customer wants and make a sales story that makes sense.
Product teams can also use SPICED to make detailed buyer personas that help sales reps choose suitable leads and sell the right features. It’s easier for sellers to make and use go-to-market strategies focusing on particular target markets when they know the product’s features and benefits.
The Same Buying Experience Every Time
Sales tools can be expanded because they are uniform. Even though each sales talk is different, if you work with many of the same customers, the conversations will usually go in the same direction. When sellers can’t figure out how to handle even the most basic scenarios, it seems unprofessional and adds extra stress to the buying process.
SPICED gives salespeople the structure they need to determine what customers want consistently. During sales screening, it also helps avoid personal biases, sales rep assumptions, and misunderstandings.
The same way to make money every time
There are several ways that revenue teams can gain from using SPICED. It’s easier for sales reps to focus on deals that are most likely to close when they can determine what the customer wants and how they make decisions. This is important for essential accounts where sales take months or even years.
Companies that use the SPICED framework can sell to target groups in a stable way, which makes forecasting more accurate. The revenue teams make sales plans that are more reliable and set attainable revenue goals for the business.
Coaching the sales team
The biggest problem for sales managers, when they bring on new reps, is usually the time frame. Most teams follow the 30- to 60- to 90-day hiring process, but the results aren’t always great.
With SPICED, sales managers can quickly teach their reps how to talk to customers in a way that makes sense and asks the right questions. This makes the sales sign-up process go much faster. And if it’s a way that has been used successfully by top-performing reps, new hires will be sure that it works.
SPICED also helps sales managers train customers in a way that is more focused on their needs rather than the features and benefits of the product. This makes it easier to find problems in how reps talk to clients and suggest ways to improve things.
Productivity in Sales
In sales, teams usually measure output by how fast they work and how well their results are. More accurate qualifications, faster deal cycles, and leads that convert better are all results of good sales talks.
SPICED helps salespeople quickly discover what customers want by asking the right questions. This cuts down on the time it takes to find out about a company, helps sales reps better qualify leads, and gives them enough data to make a firm value offer. They spend less time on pointless talks and more on the deals most important to their companies.
When SPICED is Used in Sales
The SPICED approach is one of the most valuable sales methods for anyone, and it’s beneficial for new reps who don’t know what questions to ask. This happens a lot with complicated solutions like SaaS or business software.
Here are some ways that SPICED can be used in different sales situations and industries:
Going to Market (GTM)
Introducing a fresh product, feature, or price range to the market is a well-planned process that needs sales workers to explain their products’ benefits and unique features. You have to guess at first when you do this.
When new businesses bring new goods to the market, time doesn’t always work in their favor. With SPICED, the product, marketing, and sales teams can develop go-to-market plans that focus on solving customers’ problems, making money, and going after specific groups of people. In an agile sales process, SPICED also allows for freedom and room for experimentation because it’s not always used in a straight line, and each step can be done again.
To learn more about using SPICED for GTM sales, read our chat with Alan Wright, VP of Strategy and Operations at Rocket. Chat.
Getting Leads
In the same way that SPICED helps with GTM sales, it also shows possible customers tried-and-true solutions all the time. Sales teams get better at finding new leads over time using SPICED because it focuses on finding solutions.
Sales teams can use SPICED to score leads. They can quickly decide if they’re worth pursuing because they know the prospect’s position and pains. Giving that information to the marketing team will help them target better leads with their ads, text, and other marketing methods.
Improving the sales process
SPICED can be an excellent way for companies that have been around for a while to improve their sales process. You can use it for customer service and tech support teams that deal with customer questions every day. When reps agree on a method, they can quickly find out what customers want and find ways to meet those needs that fit with the products they already sell.
Salespeople for more prominent companies must be able to work with a wide range of goods, so they need to be flexible and accurate. They can do that with SPICED without overthinking or starting from scratch every time they talk to a customer.
Customer Happiness
The sales and customer success teams use the SPICED framework to gather information during calls, make it easier for teams to switch roles (like prospecting to sales or sales to customer success), or give deal summaries in internal planning meetings.
Customer success isn’t part of the sales process at the start. They want to keep customers. They depend a lot on the sales team’s ability to listen carefully and find out what’s going on with the customer.
During the talks and events leading up to the sale, the SPICED system ensures that everything is clear. That’s why customer success teams have a lot to work with when they work with present customers.
The customer success team also uses its form of SPICED to find chances to cross-sell and up-sell.
How to Use the SPICED Framework Tools
The great thing about the SPICED structure is that it can be used for any sales. The customer-focused but flexible method helps sales teams of all sizes and fields.
But it would be best if you had software to implement in a way that can be scaled. Each department has to share the same info and work together, even using different systems. The key is to match sales, marketing, and products.
These tools are used by companies that use the SPICED method well:
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Configure, price, quote (CPQ)
- Customer relationship management (CRM)
- Platforms for sales contact
These tools need to work with platforms for marketing automation, helpdesks, chatbots, and data management. However, those are seen as less important than the SPICED sales process, which is mostly the sales team’s job.
