Category: Articles

Blog posts that are articles.

The Carrot Illusion

Do you ever feel that a prospect is leading you on, dangling a carrot in front of you to keep you hoping that they will eventually reward you with a sale?

Did you ever ask yourself where that carrot came from and who put it there, really?

You may think that the prospect is purposely teasing you. One author calls this “carroting”. Others call it “future faking”.

If you are so eager to chase an illusory carrot, can you blame them?

But consider the possibility that this fake carrot may be entirely of your own making. Wishful thinking. Part of the fiction that you tried to create in the prospect’s mind. Only you fell for it, and they didn’t.

There is a simple mirror that you can hold up to see if the illusion has any real substance. Ask the questions that you are afraid to ask.

  • Ask the prospect if they want what you are selling. If the answer is not yes, then let go. If they do say yes, find out more.
  • Ask the prospect when they want this to happen. If it’s too far in the future, don’t spend any time on it now. Come back another time.
  • Say what it will cost, and ask if the prospect is prepared to spend that. If the answer is not yes, well, you know what to do.

In-Person Appointments VS Zoom Meetings

Question

Now that COVID has passed, do you think that it is better to have appointments in-person face to face, or to continue with Zoom or Google Meet?

Answer

If you are a believer in having to have a meeting at all to sell, then either way will work. For example, if you (the salesperson) insist on meeting in person and the prospect is 500 miles away, then Zoom starts looking better for most people.

I have learned that where or how the appointment is conducted doesn’t matter much to me or my prospects. But that’s because, long ago, I gave up the traditional sales strategy that getting the most appointments equals the most sales, in person or otherwise.

The difference is in the conditional commitment level of the prospect towards something they want and I can provide, and the agreed upon purpose of the appointment or meeting if desired.

I don’t need an appointment to sell. I need a high probability prospect who is ready to buy if I can meet their requirements. Quite often, prospects prefer to buy without an appointment at all.

For a lot of buyers, a sales appointment is a waste of time, and it gets in the way of doing business for them.

The problem is that almost no salespeople bother asking IF the prospect wants to meet in the first place.

The Quest for the Perfect Offer

In spite of advising myself and others, for like 30 years, to give up the search for the perfect offer to which everyone will say “yes”, I confess that I still get excited by a compelling and crafty series of words that appear from time to time.

As it turns out, even marketing greats like Seth Godin can believe strongly in an irresistible offer which he was convinced would work perfectly. He’s written more than 20 super successful books about marketing. If anyone can create a perfect offer, he can.

The following is a timeless (IMHO) blog post about an irresistible offer (almost a no-brainer) that he created and used in real life, with real people, and the outcomes he observed.

Link: https://seths.blog/2005/08/i_changed_my_mi/

Worth a careful read…or three. I get something more everytime I read it. Seth’s blog has always been for me, time well spent.

Sales Techniques and Closing – A Conversation on Reddit

The following conversation is copied from the subReddit called “Sales Techniques”.

Here is the opening question:

I sell a pretty high ticket item at $7000 over zoom meetings. My average is to close 5-6 new clients per week. BUT, I miss on another 10 or so. Yes that is a great close ratio and my employer is incredibly happy with that. But I cannot seem to shake off the ones I miss.. anyone else? Oh, 2025 will be my 35th year in sales, you would think I was over this by now..

Here is how I (Paul Bunn, aka Illustrious_Bunnster) replied:

There is a way to reduce the number of appointments with the prospects who aren’t likely to buy in the first place.

By this point, you probably intuitively know at least half of the low probability prospects that don’t really qualify for an appointment yet.

Use the criteria for those that buy to (temporarily) disqualify the ones who don’t really fit, that you might hope will buy but don’t.

When you become more selective about whom you meet with, your number of sales will actually increase overall AND compared to the number of appointments you book.

It will initially feel like you’re going to “lose” sales, but you can’t lose sales that aren’t going to follow through anyway.

The time and energy you save from meeting with low probability prospects will lead to more “found” sales who are looking for a salesperson with higher standards.

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.

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.

Troubleshooting Prospecting – Beyond the Offer

There’s often more to a High Probability Outbound Prospecting Offer than whether or not it fits the template.  

And many, including myself, have spent a long frustrating time trying to figure out the High Prob Prospecting offer that “WORKS BEST”.  Especially when the one we thought would “WORK” doesn’t seem to connect, nor deliver. Something is missing, but we can’t quite “see” it.

Almost always the offer is well written and structured and it meets the HPS offer criteria and attributes.  But it doesn’t produce anything useful.  Sometimes, it’s not entirely the offer.  The mismatch is in the factors beyond the scope of the offer itself. 

List design, target market, real market, location, timing, competitors, changing markets, prospect perspectives of value, our perception of value, etc.

The next time it seems like your offer “DOESN’T work”, step back and look beyond the words, Beyond the Offer.  

Calling Businesses by Telephone and Leaving Voice Messages

In High Probability Prospecting, we teach students to identify themselves first (with their name and company), say what the call is about, and then ask the prospect if that is something they want. That’s what we do when the call is answered by a real person, preferably a decision-maker.

When we find ourselves talking to an answering machine, we have to decide whether to leave a message, or just hang up and move on to the next prospect in our list. Jacques Werth, the founder of High Probability Selling, recommended never leaving a message.

Paul Bunn and I believe that this is not always the best strategy in today’s world. We are trying out other options, and paying attention to results.

And here are some results that I recently encountered. The context is sort of the reverse of prospecting. I was not looking for someone I could sell to. I was representing a buyer who wanted me to find a company capable of producing a specialized product for them. So I made a lot of telephone calls.

Extremely few companies answered the phone with a live person. Most connected me directly to an answering system, with an option of leaving a message in a general voice mailbox. When I did get a live person and explained the purpose of my call, they forwarded me to a number that was also answered by voicemail. This is today’s telephone world, even when you are a potential buyer.

In every case, I left a voice message. I started with my name (Carl Ingalls) and my company name (Embossing Technologies), and then explained briefly what I was looking for. Surprisingly, I got very few callbacks, even after I had left several messages with the same companies.

And then I found out why.

I was sounding just like any other spammer who wanted to sell them something they didn’t want. My name didn’t mean anything at all to them. My company name suggested that I was trying to sell them some product or service related to embossing. And they didn’t listen any further.

If I had started with a clear statement of what my call was about, establishing relevance for the other person, I probably would have had better results.

In the past, we believed that the recipient of a telephone call wanted to know first who is calling, and second what the call is about. That was probably true way back in the old days.

We now believe that the “what” question is more important to the person picking up the phone. The “who” question is secondary.

Although my recent experience was in making phone calls about buying and not about selling, we believe that it is worth testing this idea in outbound telephone prospecting.

We will keep you informed.