Sales Funnel… Inverted

What if you turned the typical sales funnel upside down?

In the usual way of selling, prospects are dropped into the top of the sales funnel. The salesperson, with the help of gravity, pushes them down into a narrowing path.

The upside down funnel is more like a mountain, a mountain that some people want to climb. Prospects are outside of the mountain, and free to go where they want to go without constraints.

The salesperson is more like a climbing guide, showing various ways up the mountain for anyone who wants to climb and who wants a guide. Prospects move up the mountain under their own power, against gravity, with no pushing from the guide.

It’s a different metaphor, for a different way of selling.

Music… Inverted

A current HPS student remarked that High Prob is an inversion of traditional sales. And I was surfing YouTube shorts this morning and learned about another inversion that I found fascinating; Smoke On the Water by…wait for it…Beethoven?

Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AlSB7PCU2tM

What’s your metaphor for High Prob?

Some New Short Course Ideas for Learning High Probability Selling

Suppose you learned how to do High Probability Selling (HPS) and it didn’t work like you thought it would.

And suppose you decided you wanted to learn how to make it work better.

Here are some short course ideas. We will probably offer each of them for less than $100 USD. Right now, we want to find out who wants what.

  • How well do you really know what you’re selling – what does a customer really get when they do business with you?
  • My prospecting script describes what I sell, but no one says Yes.
  • I love asking the Conditional Commitment Question, but could it be preventing sales?
  • What about the Trust and Respect Inquiry – what’s its purpose and how necessary is it?
  • IT Sales – how does the demo fit in?
  • I learned HPS for Outbound Prospecting. What about Inbound Prospecting?
  • What if all of my business comes from referrals?
  • What if I don’t have enough prospects to disqualify any?
  • I need immediate results, and can’t afford to wait.

If you want any of these, or can suggest something else, please send an email to Ingalls@HighProbSell.com and/or paul.bunn.hpc@gmail.com

Or, you can reach Carl Ingalls by phone, +1 610-627-9030 (landline).

Relationship is Key, Right?

Ok, we can all agree on that one.

However, we might not all agree on the why, when, and how regarding building a relationship.

Here are some of my thoughts.

Why. If our purpose for creating a relationship is to get the prospect to buy from us, then we end up with a synthetic relationship. Too many prospects will see it as fake, which limits trust.

When. Same problem if we push for a relationship too early, while we are still strangers. Start with business, and let the relationship unfold over time. Don’t be in a rush.

How. Let the relationship be built on listening and acceptance, not talking and pushing.

We would all love to hear your thoughts and experiences regarding relationships and selling. Please put your thoughts in comments on this blog post.

Seminar Selling and High Probability Selling – An Open Discussion on Zoom, Wed 1 Mar 2023

Seminar Selling is when you make a presentation to an audience about what you offer, with the hope that some people will buy from you.

We will talk about what happens when you combine High Probability Selling with Seminar Selling.

We will use Zoom video conferencing.  The discussions will be led by Paul Bunn and Carl Ingalls. Recordings will be made available to participants only.

We are offering this meeting twice, on Wednesday 1 March 2023, at 10am and again at 4pm (USA Eastern Time). No charge.

If you want to attend, please send us your email address, and let us know which time. 

High Probability Selling Versus Human Nature

High Probability Selling demands that we stop trying to control others, and this goes against some parts of our human nature. 

We begin life as babies who manipulate people in order to get the care that we need.  It’s a natural survival tactic that works. 

As we mature, we gradually learn alternative ways of interacting, ways that are less manipulative and more cooperative, but we never completely let go of trying to control other people. 

And this can get in the way of being successful with High Probability Selling.  Even the most proficient practitioners occasionally find themselves drifting into old habits. 

The trick is to learn to recognize when we are drifting, and to have a way of getting back into the High Probability way of being.

Different people have different ways of doing that.

How do you manage it?

Rediscovering High Probability Selling – An Open Discussion

Let’s talk about Rediscovering High Probability Selling.  There are new developments in areas like Inbound Prospecting and Social Media, plus a new way of teaching. 

We also want to hear about people’s experiences with High Probability Selling. 

We will use Zoom video conferencing.  The meeting will be led by Paul Bunn and Carl Ingalls, and will be recorded. 

We are offering this meeting on the following dates and times (USA Eastern Time): 

  1. Wed 15 Feb at 2pm
  2. Thu 16 Feb at 7pm
  3. Fri 17 Feb at 9am

If you want to attend, please reply to this email, and let us know which date. 

What a High Probability Appointment Looks Like

by Jacques Werth, edited

We were in a large meeting room in a nice hotel, in a suburb of Seattle.  Twelve successful Realtors were attending a Real Estate Sales Mastery workshop.  They were an unusually well-dressed group for a two-day offsite workshop.

At our request, one of the participants had borrowed a sample front door and door frame from a builder.  It was in the front of the meeting room and it was braced to stand on its own.  The outside of the door was to the right, and to the left of the inside of the door we had a kitchen table and some chairs.  Those were the props that we needed to begin the first exercise.

One of the workshop participants was asked to role-play how she approaches a visit to a homeowner who wants to sell his house.  The instructor played the part of the home owner.

The first Realtor walked up to the outside of the door and knocked.  The instructor opened the door and said “Hello.”

The Realtor flashed a big smile, held out her hand and said, very cordially, “Mr. Smith, it is so good to meet you.  I am Pam Jackson with XYZ Real Estate.  How are you today?”

The instructor invited her in and offered her a chair in the “kitchen.”

“Your home is very lovely.  I really like what you did with the kitchen,” said Pam with delight, while looking all around.

The instructor stopped the role-play at that point and thanked Pam.  He asked her to switch roles.  She would now play the homeowner and the next participant would play the Realtor.  That participant was even more effusive than Pam.  Each successive Realtor tried to out-do those what went before them in their attempts to impress the prospect with their enthusiasm, charm and likeability.

During those role-plays, the other Realtors watched intently and remained very quiet.  Several preened their clothing and hair before it was their turn.

For the second part of the role-play the instructor played the part of the Realtor, with Pam playing the homeowner.  The instructor knocked on the door, and the Pam opened it.  “Yes?’ she said.

“I’m Joe Instructor with HPS Realty.  Are you Pam Jackson?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, reaching to shake his hand.  “Come in. I suppose you want to look over the house.”

“Before we do that, we need to get to know each other and determine whether we have a mutually acceptable basis for doing business.”

Homeowner: “Okay, we can sit in the kitchen, here.”

Realtor: “When we spoke on the phone we agreed this meeting would take about ninety minutes of uninterrupted time.  Have you arranged for that?”

Homeowner: “Yes, I turned off my phone and put the dog out in the back yard.”

Realtor: “We agreed that the purpose of our meeting is to determine whether we have a mutually acceptable basis for selling your home.  Is that your intention?”

Homeowner: “Yes.”

Realtor: “And, we agreed that if we can meet your conditions of satisfaction for the sale of your home, we will make a decision about that today.  Is that still your intention?”

Homeowner: “Yes, it is.”

The instructor thanked Pam and asked her to rejoin the rest of the group.  Then, he asked the entire group, “What did you notice about the way I just approached Pam, the prospect?”

They called out their answers:

“You were very straight-forward.”
“You were dignified.”
“You were very relaxed.”
“You were authentic.”
“You were not acting.”
“You were in control.”
“You asked for and got commitments.”

Pam then capped it off with, “I felt privileged to be your prospect.  I felt respected, and I felt respect for you.”


The above article was copied from an earlier post on this blog, and recently edited by Paul Bunn and Carl Ingalls. 

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