Month: November 2018

Resistance to Doing the Trust and Respect Inquiry (TRI)

Resistance is a natural reaction to being pushed.  This is a core concept in High Probability Selling (HPS).

If you feel pushed into buying an idea, it’s just like sales resistance.  The more someone tries to convince you, the more the resistance builds.

That’s the problem with the Trust and Respect Inquiry (TRI).  When people sense that it’s being pushed onto them, they resist it.

So who’s doing the pushing, and why?

The authors of the book High Probability Selling felt very passionately about the TRI.  They really wanted people to benefit from this, and that desire came through in their writing.  Passion about what you are selling can make people feel pressured, and I believe that’s what happened here.

We handle this differently today.  Still passionate, but less pushing, and we offer more choices.  We teach a gradual approach to the TRI, and we don’t make it mandatory.

For more information about the TRI:
You Have to Get Personal
Establishing a Relationship – Revisited

Workshops in Dec 2018:  Chapter 12 Updated on Tue 11 Dec for $95

Establishing a Relationship – Revisited

In High Probability Selling (HPS), a relationship is something that comes from doing business, not the other way around.

We do not attempt to steer the relationship.  But we do want to find out what a future relationship might be like with that person.  For instance, will we be able to trust each other?

When we have better information about a person, we make better decisions about whether or how we will do business with them.

How do you find out these things?  You can’t know any of this for 100% certain, but you definitely can improve your odds significantly, by asking questions and listening to answers in a very open way.

It’s an inquiry process.  It is described and discussed in the book High Probability Selling (Chapter 7 – Establishing a Relationship).  However, a few things have changed since that book was written.

  • We no longer call it Establishing a Relationship, because that may imply that we are manufacturing a relationship.  Internally, we call this process the Trust and Respect Inquiry (TRI).  Also, we teach a lighter version of that for beginners, in workshop courses called Getting Personal or Connecting.
  • At one point, the book states, “The process of Establishing a Relationship creates trust.”  We would not say that today.  Trying to use this process to make someone trust you is very likely to backfire.
  • The book also says that this is the single most important step in High Probability Selling.  I agree that this process is the most valuable thing HPS has to offer, but it is a lot bigger than just selling.  Also, some people have been very successful in doing HPS without it.  Therefore, I see its value not as a step in a sale, but rather as a whole way of interacting with people.

There is a previous blog post on the same topic from July 2010, titled Establishing a Relationship.

Workshops in Dec 2018:  Chapter 12 Updated on Tue 11 Dec for $95