Most first meetings go wrong the same way. The salesperson arrives with a deck, asks a few basic questions (“How many sites do you have?”), then pitches before the buyer has named a single problem. Buyers notice. In Adience’s 2025 to 2026 B2B Buyer Backlash survey of 350 B2B buyers, including buyers in the Middle East, 30% said they were frustrated by poor or repetitive discovery questions, the most commonly reported frustration. Gong’s 2025 analysis of 326,000 sales calls found reps still talk 60% of the time, and talk more in deals they lose (62%) than in deals they win (57%). SPIN Selling fixes the order: explore the buyer’s problems and their knock-on effects before you present anything. AI makes the preparation fast, drafting your discovery questions from public research. Below are the four SPIN stages, two copy-paste prompts for each, and a worked example on one UAE-listed company using only public sources.
Table of Contents
Why pitching in the first meeting backfires
The first meeting feels like the moment to show what you sell. To the buyer, it is the moment to find out whether you understand their business. Adience puts it plainly: “Buyers are asked questions that are already answered on their company website.” In the same survey, 29% of buyers complained of irrelevant decks, PDFs or demos, and 27% of too much focus on product features over business impact. Tack TMI’s Buyers’ View of Salespeople (2024) found that 94% of buyers value industry expertise more than price, yet “currently only 23% of interactions are rated as ‘excellent'” in demonstrating an understanding of the customer’s needs. The buyer wants proof that you’ve done your homework, and a pitch in the first ten minutes proves the opposite.
SPIN Selling questions in one minute, and the Situation-question trap
SPIN comes from Neil Rackham’s book SPIN Selling. Rackham and his team studied more than 35,000 sales calls made by 10,000 salespeople in 23 countries over 12 years, and Huthwaite International, which Rackham founded, still teaches it. It has four question types:
- Situation: gather background and context.
- Problem: explore the buyer’s dissatisfactions and concerns.
- Implication: develop a problem by examining its “knock-on effect in other areas of the customer’s business”.
- Need-payoff: invite the buyer to consider the benefits of solving the problem, so they state the need themselves.
As Rackham put it, “Success doesn’t depend on the number of questions asked, but on their type.” The trap is the first type. Huthwaite’s research found that “successful sellers limited their Situation questions”, because “the buyer may become bored, or even feel as though they’re being interrogated”. Its complete guide warns against “presenting too early, before customers have fully recognised the impact of their challenges”. Huthwaite’s own whitepaper adds that, because sellers can now research online, “certain questions don’t need to be asked anymore”, such as company size or key market data.
That is where AI fits: preparation only. AI answers the Situation questions from public filings before you walk in and drafts the Problem, Implication and Need-payoff questions. You still ask them, listen and follow up. As Rackham says in Huthwaite’s prompt guide, “A minute spent planning a call is worth ten minutes analysing why a call went wrong or a sale that was lost.” This is the method I teach in my AI sales training.
Our demo company is Aramex, the Dubai-headquartered logistics group listed on the Dubai Financial Market. It publishes shipment volumes, margins, cash and a named transformation programme, so there is something for the chief executive, the finance lead and the operations lead. Our illustrative seller supplies logistics operations technology or services. I have no relationship with Aramex. Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
Step 1: Situation questions AI can answer before you arrive
Paste the prospect’s latest results release and annual report into an AI assistant. If the prospect is listed on DFM or ADX, its results and annual report are on the exchange’s disclosures page. If it isn’t listed, use what it does publish, such as its website, press releases and LinkedIn posts. The method is the same, there is just less to work with. Claude returns account briefs “with citations linked to sources”. ChatGPT’s deep research “can work with uploaded files, search the public web or specific sites”, with citations so you can verify the information. Grok Bot researches accounts, and Apollo can “deliver research like a company deep dive or recent news & financials” before a meeting. Paste public material only, never client data or anything under NDA.
Prompt 1 (Situation pre-answer sheet): “I sell [offer] to [type of buyer]. Below are [company]’s latest public results and annual report. Build a one-page fact sheet: business lines, volumes, margins, cash and debt, named programmes, named executives. For each fact give the exact quote, page and date. Then list the Situation questions a rep would normally ask and mark each ‘answered in the filing: do not ask’ or ‘not public: may ask’. Do not invent figures. If something is not in the material, write ‘unknown’.”
Prompt 2 (Confirm, don’t ask): “From that fact sheet, pick the three facts most relevant to [offer]. Write each as a one-line confirmation I can say early in the meeting (‘I read that …, is that still the right picture?’). Under 25 words each. Then stop. No more Situation questions.”
For Aramex, the Q3 2026 results release and the 2025 annual report already answer most of the questions a rep would normally ask. Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
- Q3 2026 revenue of AED 1,981.4 million, up 24%, the second record quarter in a row.
- Gross margin of 21.0% in Q3, against 23.2% a year earlier, which the release puts down to “a change in the Group’s business mix, with a higher contribution from Freight Forwarding”.
- A “cash balance of AED 445 million” and debt-to-EBITDA of 2.7 at 30 September 2026.
- In 2025, International Express shipments fell 16% to 23.6 million, while Domestic Express grew 8% to 119.8 million.
- Accelerate28: “more than 300 initiatives across nine workstreams”, with the EBIT uplift “expected to be realised progressively through 2028”.
- Plans to “accelerate automation and AI adoption across the network” in 2026 and to electrify more than 50% of the road fleet.
So “Tell me about your network” and “How big is your domestic business?” are off the list. One confirmation is enough: “I read that Domestic Express handled almost 120 million shipments last year. Is that still the right picture?” Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
Step 2: Problem questions built from filing lines
Next, ask the AI to read the fact sheet as a list of possible difficulties, labelled as guesses. The buyer decides which are real.
Prompt 3 (Problem hypotheses): “Using only the quoted facts, list five difficulties [company] might have that [offer] could address. For each: the quote it rests on; why it might be a problem; your confidence (low/medium/high); and the evidence that would prove it wrong. Label every item ‘hypothesis’. Then write one open Problem question per hypothesis. Do not mention our product.”
Prompt 4 (By role): “Rewrite the Problem questions for three people: the commercial lead, the finance lead and the operations lead. Each question must quote one figure from the filing and ask for something only that person would know. Label each S, P, I or N.”
Two Aramex Problem questions. For the COO (Express): “Domestic Express handled almost 120 million shipments last year, up 8%. Where is that growth hurting first: pickup, sortation or last-mile delivery?” For the Group CEO: “Freight forwarding has now set a revenue record two quarters running, with the Europe-to-Middle East land routes still in use. Which of the customers now using those routes would you most worry about losing if the old routes reopen?” (Q3 release, Q2 release, annual report.) If the buyer rejects a hypothesis, drop it and move on. Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
Step 3: Implication questions that let the buyer size the problem
Implication questions are where the meeting is won. Ask them only after the buyer has confirmed a problem in Step 2. If they haven’t, an Implication question is a pitch in disguise. Huthwaite notes that “people will live with problems” until they see the knock-on effects. Your job is not to tell the buyer what the problem costs. It is to help them size it in their own numbers, across money, time, plans, process and people, the categories in Huthwaite’s prompt guide.
Prompt 5 (Implication ladder): “For the problem ‘[problem]’, write three Implication questions that help the buyer describe the knock-on effects on money, time, plans, process or people. I must not state the cost for them. Each question under 30 words, spoken English, no jargon.”
Prompt 6 (Number discipline): “For any number in these questions, show where it came from: ‘from filing’ (with page) or ‘our calculation’ (with the sum). If a number is the buyer’s private figure (budget, target, cost per unit), turn it into a question instead of a guess.”
One Implication question for each of three Aramex stakeholders. Compare each with the Situation question it replaces, “Tell me about your network.” Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
Group CEO (Implication): “International Express shipments fell 16% last year, in 2025, to 23.6 million, while domestic grew 8% to almost 120 million. International volumes have steadied this year. If long-haul volumes don’t come back to where they were, which parts of the international network will you have to rethink first?” (annual report, Q2 release) Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
CFO & Corporate Development (Implication): “Gross margin was 21.0% in Q3, down from 23.2% a year earlier, and your results put that down to a business mix with more freight forwarding. If that mix holds into next year, what does it do to the plan you’ve committed to, and which margin line do you watch first?” (Q3 release) Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
COO (Express) (Implication): “This year you plan to accelerate automation and AI, and you also plan to electrify more than half the road fleet. If domestic volume keeps growing 8% a year before those projects land, what happens to cost per shipment and on-time delivery in your busiest market?” (annual report) Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
Each question quotes a published figure and asks for something only that person knows: a priority, a margin line, an internal cost. Written out, each runs past Prompt 5’s 30 words because it carries its source. In the meeting, say the figure, pause, then ask the question. Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
Step 4: Need-payoff questions that let the buyer state the value
Huthwaite’s rule is that before you present, “the customer should have expressed an Explicit Need”. Need-payoff questions get the buyer to say what solving the problem would be worth, in their words, so you present only what matches it, and later.
Prompt 7 (Value in their words): “Write three Need-payoff questions that invite [role] to say what solving [problem] would be worth to them: a number, a date or a decision it would unlock. No leading questions such as ‘wouldn’t it be great if …’. No product names.”
Prompt 8 (Rehearsal): “Play a sceptical [role] at [company] in a first meeting. I’ll ask my questions one at a time. Answer realistically, using only the public facts above. Afterwards, tell me which questions got you talking, which I could cut, and where I started pitching.” (Adapted from authority.md.)
Two Aramex Need-payoff questions. For the Group CEO: “Your board expects the EBIT uplift from Accelerate28 to arrive gradually through 2028. If one workstream delivered a year early, which would matter most to you, and how would you know it had worked?” For the CFO: “Leverage came down from 3.2 to 2.7 times between December and September, and capex is focused on warehousing and technology. If a technology project paid back within your hurdle, what would you most want it to free up, and what is that hurdle?” (annual report, Q3 release.) Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
A question can carry a number without inventing the buyer’s numbers. Illustrative model: every input is an assumption, not an Aramex figure. If Domestic Express volume grew 8% again in 2026, the same rate as 2025, that would be about 129.4 million shipments (our calculation). If a supplier’s fix saved AED 0.10 on each one, that would be about AED 12.9 million a year (our calculation). You don’t say that number. You ask: “If a fix took even ten fils off each domestic shipment, what would that be worth to you, and is cost per shipment the number you would judge it on?” The buyer supplies the real cost and the real measure. Public sources only. No relationship with Aramex. Illustration only.
To practise, Huthwaite’s own SPIN AI Mentor lets sellers “prepare for critical customer meetings, craft compelling SPIN questions, analyse conversation outcomes”, inside its training. After the call, Gong says it “makes it easy to measure and correct your talk-to-listen ratio”.
Excuses, answered
“The buyer asked for a demo, so I have to pitch.” Give the demo, but ask two or three questions first so you show the right parts. Huthwaite says to present once the customer has stated an explicit need, and 29% of Adience’s buyers are frustrated by irrelevant decks, PDFs or demos.
“Asking questions shows I didn’t prepare.” Only Situation questions do that. A question that quotes the buyer’s own figure proves you did your homework.
“Implication questions feel negative or pushy.” You aren’t telling the buyer their business is broken. You’re asking them to size a problem they’ve already named. Asking is softer than asserting a cost.
“SPIN is outdated. It’s from 1988.” The book is old; the finding isn’t. Gong’s 2025 data still shows reps in lost deals talk more (62% against 57%). Huthwaite’s own whitepaper updates SPIN for the internet: do the Situation research online and skip those questions. AI makes that faster.
“Senior buyers don’t want to be questioned.” They don’t want basic questions. Ask fewer, sharper ones built on their filings. Gong found lost deals averaged about 20 questions per call against 15 to 16 in won deals. My own recommendation is five to seven prepared questions, with follow-ups that come from what the buyer has just said.
“If AI writes the questions, they’ll sound robotic.” They will if you read them out. Adience found 26% of buyers are put off by vendors misusing AI. Use AI to prepare your thinking, rewrite each question in your own words, and test it aloud.
What to check before you trust AI output
AI tools can state wrong figures with confidence. Check every number against the filing, page by page, and delete anything you can’t find. Tag each number “from filing” or “our calculation”, and turn the buyer’s private figures into questions rather than guesses. Paste public material only, and keep client data and anything under NDA out of public AI tools unless your company has approved them. Keep stakeholder notes to published roles.
Meeting plan prompt: “Build my first-meeting plan: five to seven questions in total (one Situation confirmation, one or two Problem, two or three Implication, one Need-payoff), plus the commitment I’ll ask for at the end. Put the evidence and the unknowns in separate columns.” Sales managers can start this week: in each one-to-one, ask the rep to bring this plan for one real first meeting and check two things. Does it skip every Situation question the filings already answer? Does it hold the pitch until the buyer has named a problem?
Your takeaway: no pitch in the first meeting until the buyer has named a problem, and its cost, in their own words. Let AI build the Situation fact sheet and draft the Problem, Implication and Need-payoff questions, then cut them to five to seven. Agree one set of prompts per stage across the team, and train your sales managers first; my sales manager training in Dubai covers this.
Book a free 30-minute call
Book a free 30-minute call with me, and we’ll talk through your team’s sales goals. No cost, no obligation.
Related: Corporate sales training · AI sales training
About the author — Philip Mazloumian is a revenue, sales and marketing consultant based in the UAE. He helps owners and CEOs of B2B businesses fix what’s slowing sales growth. Across his engagements, clients have seen around AED 13 of new revenue for every AED 1 invested. Connect on LinkedIn, or book a discovery call.
Book a discovery call and we’ll work out where your revenue is actually leaking.