SPICED Sales Methodology: Questions + Ways to Apply It

For reps looking for a new framework for lead qualification, the SPICED sales methodology might be worth experimenting with. Knowing your client’s frustrations, needs, and concerns is key to sales success. 

In our comprehensive, beginner-friendly guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the SPICED sales methodology, including what it is, how it compares to other selling methods, ways you can apply the framework, pros and cons of using it, and how to implement it across teams. 

What Is the SPICED Sales Methodology?

The SPICED sales methodology is a framework for lead qualification. It works by helping reps and sales teams identify who could be a solid potential client. The methodology relies on the word acronym “SPICED” to remember the criteria used to qualify leads. 

Once reps are able to pick up the meaning behind SPICED and understand the criteria, they can boost their opportunities for closed deals.

What does SPICED stand for? 

SPICED is an acronym that’s similar to SPIN selling and stands for: situation, problem, impact, critical event, and decision.

The SPICED sales methodology can further be broken down like: 

• Situation, AKA knowing your client, including their concerns, needs, and current situation
• Problem, which refers to the particular pain points or issues the prospect experiences
• Impact, or the overall effect the customer’s problems have on their personal or professional life
• Critical event, AKA the particular event that triggered the prospect to realize they need a solution
• Decision, or understanding the timeline and the client’s overall decision-making process criteria 

SPICED vs. other sales methodologies

As mentioned earlier, the SPICED sales methodology is probably most similar to SPIN selling. It’s almost like an updated version of SPIN. However, SPICED is also similar to MEDDPICC, another great framework used for lead qualification. 

SPICED differs from other sales methodologies with its emphasis on a critical event — a specific situation that triggers the customer to look for a solution to solve the issues they face.

It also emphasizes the importance of knowing how the prospect’s problem affects their personal and professional lives. Having a focus on impact assessment makes SPICED stand out from other sales methodologies. 

There’s also a stress on taking a deeper dive into the decision-making process, which some frameworks tend to underestimate its importance.

SPICED Questions to Get You Started

If you’re looking to get started with the SPICED sales methodology (or if you’re just looking for some questions to improve the lead qualification process), you’re in luck. Here are some essential SPICED questions to explore with your potential clients. 

Situation questions

The first part of SPICED — which stands for “situation” — gets to the bottom of your client’s overall situation. That includes their concerns, needs, pain points, and frustrations. Some common situation questions that can help get the ball rolling include queries like: 

• “How would you describe your current situation with regard to [client issue or concern]?”
• “What kinds of sales enablement tools do you or your team use right now?”
• “What obstacles, barriers, or challenges do you plan to face regarding [client issue or concern]?”

Problem questions

With regard to problem questions, the goal is for reps to uncover specific problems, pain points, issues, or concerns as it relates to the lead’s experiences. For example, some asks you could use for this SPICED sales methodology criteria include:  

• When you think about [client issue or concern], what are the most significant pain points and problems you’ve experienced? 
• How do these issues affect your personal or professional life?

Impact questions

Next in the SPICED sales methodology comes the impact questions — questions that aim to get at the overall impact the client’s issues have on their personal or professional life. These should go beyond uncovering the pain points. 

So, for example, some impact questions include: 

• If you didn’t address [client’s issues or problems], what do you think the potential consequences would be? 
• How would you quantify the effect of [client’s issues or problems], especially as it relates to factors like time, revenue, and cost? 

Critical event questions 

The critical event — specific to the SPICED sales framework — is hugely important. These questions will shed light on the trigger event that led the prospective client to look for some kind of solution. 

For example, queries regarding the critical event could include:

• What particular trigger or event encouraged you to look for an answer to [client’s issues or problems]?
• How would you describe the situation that triggered you to seek out new opportunities? 

Decision questions

Lastly, decision questions will help reps understand a little bit more about the client’s decision-making process and criteria. For example, some questions reps can ask regarding the decision-making process include queries like: 

• What are the most essential criteria you and your team think about when making a decision? 
• How would you describe your timeline for making purchase decisions? 
• Who else is part of the decision-making process? 

Asking clients these questions can help you better tailor your pitch or presentation to their unique needs, concerns, and frustrations. 

3 Ways to Apply the SPICED Sales Methodology 

Despite being mainly used for lead qualification, the SPICED framework can actually be pretty versatile. Here are three ways your sales team can apply the SPICED sales methodology, from sales conversations to sales pipelines and, of course, lead qualification. 

1. Applying the SPICED framework in sales conversations 

One easy way you can start applying SPICED is in sales conversations. For example, reps can use SPICED questions to unearth insights that can help them personalize their presentation or pitch to the client’s frustrations, concerns, situation, and criteria for decision-making.

You can also tap into SPICED to predict and then handle any objections from the customer. 

2. Sales pipelines and SPICED

Reps can also benefit from SPICED when it comes to your sales pipeline. For example, teams can pinpoint areas for improvement and track the progression of any leads by integrating the SPICED methodology into the sales pipeline. 

Plus, you can easily use this framework to help inform not only where resources should be allocated, but also sales forecasts. 

3. SPICED for lead qualification 

Of course, SPICED is great for qualifying leads, too. The SPICED criteria is perfect for evaluating whether or not a lead might be a good fit and what value they might bring to the table. 

It can also help reps better recognize other players in the game, like potential influencers or champions within the company. 

How to Use the SPICED Framework With Yoodli 

At its core, the SPICED sales methodology is pretty straightforward. That’s one of its advantages: that there’s a specific, easy-to-remember criteria to follow. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement at scale, especially when you’re considering a large organization. That’s where Yoodli comes in. 

Yoodli — a virtual sales coach that uses AI technology — is an expert when it comes to at-scale sales training and implementation. Brands like Korn Ferry, Dale Carnegie, and Google have all tapped into Yoodli to decrease ramp and increase seller attainment.

Sales leaders can have their teams practice the SPICED sales methodology using simulated (but realistic) sales roleplays, including cold calls and inbound and outbound discovery. These scenarios are completely free of risk in that reps don’t have to worry about losing prospects or deals.

Plus, since Yoodli excels in sales coaching, this AI coach provides data-backed feedback personalized for each sales rep who participates. That way, sales teams can skip the guesswork of what skills they might need to work on and go directly to picking up new skills and building on existing ones. 

Here’s a more specific example. Recently, Google Cloud trusted Yoodli’s expertise to train more than 15,000 sales reps to get their skills up to par. As it turns out, the case study was so  successful that Google expanded its use of Yoodli to other programs. 

No matter what sales methodology you want to improve on, you can use Yoodli to practice and implement new frameworks at https://yoodli.ai/. 

Pros and Cons of the SPICED Sales Methodology 

Any sales methodology will have its advantages and disadvantages, and SPICED is no different. Here are the most notable pros and cons to using the SPICED sales methodology for lead qualification.

SPICED framework benefits

Perhaps the biggest benefit of using the SPICED sales methodology is the improvement in lead quality. Similar to other lead qualification methods like BANT or MEDDIC, the SPICED framework helps reps better understand the client’s circumstances, including problems, impact, critical event, and decision process (as per the criteria). By using this criteria, sales teams can better prioritize leads and resource allocation. 

As you can imagine, adhering to the SPICED criteria yields improved client relationships. When reps understand a prospect’s unique issues and needs, they can build stronger relationships, trust, and credibility. That’s in part due to the tailored sales pitches that are key to a SPICED framework.

Because SPICED uses data-driven techniques, it also helps inform sales forecasting and any future strategies for efficient sales.

At the end of the day, using SPICED can also lead to an overall increase in sales and sales efficiency. This can help sales teams optimize the sales process and streamline closed deals.

Cons of the SPICED sales methodology 

Of course, a framework like the SPICED sales methodology isn’t always perfect. In fact, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

For example, even though it uses a simple, straightforward criteria for lead qualification, it can be considered a complicated methodology to implement. That’s because SPICED usually requires some real effort when it comes to gathering and evaluating data. For the methodology to work well, reps need to collect data to address each of the SPICED criteria. 

This can prove to be rather challenging in complicated sales cycles or in large companies. As such, SPICED isn’t always effective across every sales environment or in all industries.

Another common pitfall among reps who use this framework is that they over-rely on its criteria. This can lead to missed opportunities because sales folks are so focused on hitting that criteria. 

When it comes down to it, the SPICED sales methodology is also pretty limited to just the initial lead qualification. The majority of salespeople that use this framework use it mostly to better qualify leads and prioritize resource allocation.

The Bottom Line

Regardless, there’s no doubt about it: the SPICED sales methodology is a worthwhile tool for lead qualification, better client relationships, and improved sales efficiency.  Although it can be tricky to implement at scale — especially for large organizations — using a sales enablement tool like Yoodli can facilitate that process tenfold.

Sources

• Winning by Design: “The SPICED Framework.”
• WeFlow: “How to Close More Deals With the SPICED Sales Framework (Free Checklist Included).”