Month: September 2024

Mindset – Note from a fan and practitioner of HPS

Hi Carl

I absolutely support everything about HPS.

You’re so correct, it is a mindset, if someone doesn’t get that it won’t work.

My work in selling was as an Audiologist providing hearing healthcare, selling hearing aids with ongoing aftercare, it was totally the psychology of “finding people who want you’ve got” and dismissing (at that time) those who don’t. 

The mistake fellow Audiologists make is to find someone with a hearing loss and try to sell them hearing aids!!!

Our sales managers want sellers to sell, I didn’t, however that could resulting in a typical 25+% cancellation rate. I wanted to find those who wanted to buy and my consultation involved being confident to know the time was not now. I felt in control. I was a top seller and had a super low 7% cancellation rate, it would never be 0%. 

My sales manager picked on the 7% as a weakness to sell, “you could sell even more if you pushed harder” he said! 

I never had to cold call but my appointments were still somewhat cold so that was my starting point. 

My first question was always 
“why have you come to see me?” ie to put the onus on them straight away and then go on to find out if they wanted what I had and to know when to stop.

Apologies if that’s a little rambling 🤣

Regards
Ian

We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences as well.

We are in the process of putting together a workshop about the High Probability Selling Mindset. We will announce it here, so stay tuned.

What Do We Mean by Mindset?

We asked ChatGPT for its opinion on what is mindset, and here is what it gave us.

A mindset refers to a mental attitude or inclination, a particular way of thinking or approaching situations. It encompasses beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes that shape how individuals perceive and respond to the world around them. Mindsets can influence behavior, decision-making, and overall outlook on life, often determining one’s approach to challenges, opportunities, and relationships.

Not bad, in my opinion.

And here is something I (Carl Ingalls) put together on the topic a while ago, but haven’t published until now.

Mindset drives our thinking, actions, and reactions.  It affects how other people interact with us, whether consciously or unconsciously.  Furthermore, our mindset affects our ability to learn and apply High Probability Selling (HPS). 

Here are some of the elements of the HPS Mindset.

  • Principles and guidelines are conscious ideas of what to do and what not to do in specific situations. For example, if a prospect tells us that they do not want what we are offering, then we move on to the next prospect in our list, without trying to change anyone’s mind.
  • Concepts and beliefs are mostly conscious ideas of what we believe are true. For example, “Sales resistance is created by the salesperson when they try to get someone to buy.” Another example, “It is quicker and more effective to find someone who wants what you are selling, than to try to convince anyone who doesn’t.”
  • Attitudes and worldview and some beliefs are things that we don’t think about as much, but which can have a huge effect on our interactions with others. An attitude of acceptance and respect is more likely to lead to a good business relationship than a controlling attitude.
  • Language matters, because the words we choose affect our thinking and therefore our behavior, and sometimes in subtle (but important) ways. For instance, words like win, drive, steer, funnel, and pipeline can encourage a competitive or even manipulative attitude. Even thinking those words can have subtle effects.
  • Habits may be the most difficult to change, and especially the ones we don’t think about. For instance, many of us are habitual talkers, and that gets in the way of listening, which is so very important in HPS. Another habit is trying to help people who do not want our help.

We are in the process of putting together a workshop about the High Probability Selling Mindset. We will announce it here, so keep tuned.

As always, we would love to hear from you.

High Probability Selling – Mindset vs Process, Thinking vs Acting

Sometimes High Probability Selling (HPS) feels like it’s incredibly simple. Sometimes it feels like it’s the most complex idea on earth.  I have certainly oscillated between both of those extremes and maybe you have too.

The focus of teaching and implementing HPS from 2000 to 2015 has mostly been on the PROCESS, the steps of what you do, and much less on the thinking that goes with it. This was a conscious choice by Jacques Werth, the founder of High Probability Selling.

He chose to teach HPS the way he was taught martial arts.  Practice the physical forms, over and over and over and over, until you “get it” and it becomes automatic.  He knew very well that this was just a way of getting there, and that there was far more to HPS.

He also chose to sell HPS as a sales process, perhaps because it seemed more concrete and real that way, and because that was the kind of thing he was most familiar with selling. He always seemed surprised when asked, “What if High Prob were more than just a process?”

Some students were very successful in learning and applying HPS simply as a process, but too many were not. They needed to understand the aspects of HPS that were both behind and beyond the step-by-step process before they could actually do any of it. And without the doing, nothing happens.

Understanding the MINDSET is a necessity when trying to figure out what to do when things change. People have changed the way they do business and the way they communicate with each other, and especially over the past several decades. This means the sales process must change. A fixed process is too rigid.

I have learned in my 30 years of learning, teaching, and implementing HPS in a wide variety of business and personal applications that the process alone (without a deeper understanding) can actually do more harm than good.  To make HPS really “work” holistically, and without having to constantly adapt the process I had to fully understand and implement the mindset behind HPS, and the communication nuances based upon that mindset.

There’s much more to HPS than getting the steps right, or the words right.  To excel at HPS, I learned that I must BE HPS, not just DO HPS.  And to BE HPS, we have to embrace and adopt the HPS MINDSET.

We will write more about the Mindset of High Probability Selling as we understand it today. It’s a very big concept. We also plan to offer a workshop on this very soon. Stay tuned.

As always, we’d love to hear from you.

Know Your Why – A Forum Discussion on Thu 12 Sep 2024

Knowing your why is the kind of self-awareness that may help you find your Hows.

The title is taken from a short YouTube video by Derik Fay. We will talk about how this way of thinking fits with High Probability Selling.

You (plus friends and colleagues) are invited to join us.  No charge.

Thursday 12 September 2024 on Zoom at 9:30 AM (USA Eastern Time).

Register here and we will send you the Zoom details.

Like Blind Men Appraising an Elephant

There is an ancient parable about a group of blind men who decide to examine an elephant so that they can determine what it is. Each blind man encounters a different part of the elephant, and they come to very different and conflicting conclusions about the elephant. If you are not familiar with this story, there is a good description on Wikipedia.

Sometimes I suspect that this is similar to the way people decide what High Probability Selling is. They encounter one aspect of it, and they conclude they have grasped the whole of it without looking further.

Many people see the probability aspect of HPS, and see it as a way to improve the efficiency of their efforts, by focusing only on the most probable prospects. It’s one of the easiest concepts to grasp. It is a true aspect of HPS, and may be a good place to start, as long as you don’t stop there.

Others see HPS as an ethical way of doing business, being honest with people, no cheating. That is also one aspect.

Jacques Werth chose to present and teach HPS as a sales process, like a recipe to follow. Just do the steps over and over again, as if you were learning martial arts, and eventually you will just “get it” by doing it. That is an approach that works for some people, but is usually not enough for most. Jacques knew there was so much more to it than just doing, but this is what he focused on.

I initially saw HPS as a non-aggressive and less conflicting way of interacting with people, many years ago. I still do, but I also know there is so much more.

I have taught the mindset of HPS, initially with the help of Jacques (and later with Paul Bunn). By mindset, I mean both conscious and unconscious attitudes, beliefs, habits, concepts, principles, guidelines, worldview, and language.  And probably a few other things as well. However, even this does not encompass the whole of HPS. It’s just the mental stuff.

The best that Paul Bunn and I have been able to come up with is to say that High Probability Selling is a Way of Being. Imagine trying to teach that.

And we are doing just that. We guide people to the seeing, thinking, doing, and being of High Probability Selling.

We’d love to hear from you.