All About the SIMAC Method and How to Use It

There are many methods that highlight the importance of sales training. To be more effective and ensure deal closure, salespeople often use these sales techniques. The SIMAC method is one of the best-known and most widely used, but why is that?

The SIMAC Method: What Does It Mean?

The SIMAC method helps you build your sales pitch in five successive steps. It originated from Procter & Gamble’s Persuasive Selling Format. This method is universal and works in many situations: advertising, investor presentations, and even personal life. It’s highly recommended in the most recognized sales trainings.

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1. Situation

The first step of the SIMAC method is to state the key elements of your prospect’s context. By asking the right questions during the sales diagnosis phase, you should be able to clearly and precisely express their situation.

SIMAC recommends summarizing what they’re looking for, emphasizing its importance, and—as a specialist—presenting the available options, along with the pros and cons of each. The client will see you as someone who fully understands their situation and the stakes involved in their decision.

2. Idea

At this stage, you provide the solution to the problem identified previously. The goal is to spark the client’s interest with a central idea based on their context, needs, and motivations.

Following SIMAC, you should be able to present your strategy and summarize your idea in one or two sentences. The simpler, the better. The idea itself should answer the questions raised in the Situation part.

3. Mechanism

In this step, explain how you will implement your idea. Justify the feasibility and credibility of your product.

Explain how you plan to achieve your objectives. If you already have an action plan, now’s the time to reveal it. Otherwise, detail how and with what resources you’ll carry out your idea. Be realistic about feasibility, or your idea will lack credibility. SIMAC suggests using quantitative data, such as timelines, resources, or costs, to add weight to your plan and boost credibility.

4. Advantages

This step is about highlighting all the benefits for the client and what they’ll gain from your product. Detail the positive impact your idea will have on the problems identified in the first step.

If possible, show the exclusive benefits of your solution—what the prospect can’t find elsewhere and absolutely needs to solve their problem, meet their needs, or reach their goals. Again, present quantitative data, as this will make your advantages more convincing and help decision-making.

5. Conclusion

This is the decision-making step. After your pitch, invite the prospect to act or respond to your sales arguments, or to express what they want to do through direct questions, encouraging them to close the sale.

Clearly define the next steps so your prospect knows what to do to move forward. You’ve shared your assumptions, stated your idea, explained its mechanism, and assessed its impact. Now it’s time to ask for the prospect’s decision. In this part of SIMAC, clearly state the type of response you expect, whether it’s acceptance or refusal. It’s also important to present a medium-term vision for deploying your strategy.

An Example of Applying the SIMAC Method

To help you better understand and easily grasp the SIMAC method, here’s a scenario that perfectly demonstrates the usefulness of this sales technique.

SITUATION: Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy, and NGOs struggle to raise funds.

IDEA: Create a platform that only sells eco-friendly products and distributes a percentage of sales to relevant NGOs.

MECHANISM: The platform would operate like any B2C sales platform. There would be a selection process for NGOs, and the business model would be revenue sharing.

ADVANTAGES: The social value should help with media coverage and virality, while the project requires only a small investment.

CONCLUSION: Let’s invest €500 to create a test platform.

Did you enjoy learning about the SIMAC method? Feel free to read similar articles on the Soncas method or the Spin Selling method