Tag: HPS Forum

Forum Summary – Why do we try to change people and what happens when we stop?

HPS Community Forum – Thursday, September 18, 2025

In this session, we explored two core questions:  why do we try to change people, and what happens when we stop?

Why do we try to change people?

  • From childhood, we learn to manipulate others as a way to survive and get what we need.  Even as adults, it is hard to let go of those early strategies.
  • Ego plays a role—we believe we know best.
  • Often we don’t stop to consider alternatives.
  • Many of us hold on to the belief that we can change others, despite evidence that it rarely works.
  • Attempts to change others can also come from a sense of powerlessness.
  • Sometimes it is rooted in good intentions:  wanting to help, fix, or rescue someone who appears to be struggling.

What happens when we stop trying?

  • A sense of peace and acceptance emerges, since we are no longer pushing against the impossible.
  • The effort required to interact with others decreases dramatically.
  • We stop worrying about what to say next, and simply listen.
  • Conversations become more relaxed and natural.
  • We absorb and understand more from the other person.

Perfectly Logical Reasons Why High Probability Selling Cannot Possibly Work

  1. High Probability Selling (HPS) is too direct.  I can’t communicate that directly with my prospects or clients, because they’ll be offended.  And if I offend them by asking direct questions, I will lose the sale.
  2. The reason people buy from me is because I’m so nice to them.  Everyone knows that people HAVE to like the salesperson.  If I stop being super nice to them, they’ll stop buying from me.
  3. HPS doesn’t require any sucking up or flattery or feigning interest in what the customer likes.  But if I don’t find commonality and create rapport, then how can I get them to like me?
  4. HPS will get me less appointments.  Sales is a numbers game, and less appointments ALWAYS means less sales.
  5. HPS recommends disqualifying prospects who aren’t ready to do business.  I can’t afford to leave money on the table without chasing every single opportunity, no matter how unlikely.
  6. The High Probability Selling book is all about outbound prospecting, and I don’t do outbound prospecting.  All my calls are inbound or referral, so there’s no way it will work for me.
  7. The book is based on selling B2B (business to business).  I only sell B2C (business to consumer), so it won’t work for me.
  8. I am in financial services, and I do seminar selling, and seminar selling isn’t mentioned in the book, so HPS won’t work for me.
  9. HPS says that you don’t have to educate people to get them to buy.  I sell to consumers who never know what they want and can’t make a decision.  Unless I am there to tell them what they want and why they want it, I won’t make any sales.  So HPS won’t work for me.
  10. The only reason people buy from me is because I’m able to impress them with all of my knowledge and credentials, and unless I wow them more than the other guys, they’re not going to buy from me.
  11. High Probability Selling claims to be selling without needing to overcome objections.  But that’s impossible, because everyone knows you have to overcome objections in order to sell anything.  My job as a salesperson doesn’t even start until they say “no”.
  12. Order takers aren’t real salespeople.  People who get lay-down sales aren’t working hard for it, and I don’t want to be perceived as someone who finds sales easy, so HPS won’t work for me.
  13. HPS is all scripted and C level executives hate scripts, so it won’t work for me.
  14. Success at HPS requires that I keep track of my prospecting and sales activity, and I hate keeping records.  I enjoy winging it and going by feel, so HPS isn’t going to work for me.

This is just a few reasons HPS can’t possibly work.  There are certainly a lot more.  If you have any to contribute, or if you want to learn more, please join us for our next HPS Community Forum meeting (details below).

You are also welcome to add comments to this blog post.  We will answer as many as we can.

When:  Thursday 19 June 2025 at 9:30 AM (USA Eastern Time)
Google Calendar Link

[Zoom access details removed]

This meeting will be recorded.  A link to the recording will be emailed to the people who attend this meeting.  If you want a copy of the recording for this particular meeting, and are not sure that you will be able to attend, please Contact Us and with a request for the recording before the meeting begins.

There is no charge to attend.  You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues.

Discovery/Disqualification Questions – Who really uses them?

For those of you who have been HPS practitioners for a long time as well as those who have just begun to discover HPS, Discovery Disqualification questions are a key component of the HPS process, typically done during the sales appointment.

As many know and the book discusses, these 12 or 13 questions are designed to discover, inquire about, and negotiate or disqualify the typical deal breakers in a sale. In traditional selling these issues often come up towards the end of the sales appointment, and require a myriad of memorized objection handling and closing tactics in order to chase this herd of deal-breaker cats and get the sale.

In HPS, we ask these questions as soon as possible in the process. Most people who are introduced to that idea find it a groundbreaking concept. And a real relief.

These questions are a great idea, until we go back to the real world, and scare ourselves out of asking them.

We agree they should be used. Most of us understand where the idea of asking them came from. But when  the real world is engaged, most HPSers bail out before they ask question 3 at best.

All the questions make perfect sense until we start hoping we don’t have to be that direct.

After all, being that direct might offend someone. Being that direct might make people (us) uncomfortable. And why the heck am I asking these questions anyway? Just cuz some guy named Jacques said so? What could he possibly know about my business? My prospects? My clients? I’m sure they worked great for him, but I’m different. 

It turns out that the reason we don’t use them, and the reason some of the more successful practitioners do use them, Is Not What It Seems.

It’s not a thick skin. It’s not being extroverted or introverted. It’s not being detached from the outcome. And it’s certainly not courage. And it’s not training. And it’s not fear by itself.

And “Just Do It” won’t work sustainably enough.

It’s something else. And that something else is a key component to what makes HPS as powerful and distinctive when compared to any other sales process.

And on this forum call we will share that key component, with which all things HPS are based and upon which all successful HPS practitioners found their feet and foundation.

When:  Thursday 12 June 2025. We will offer this meeting twice: at 2:00 PM and again at 7:30 PM (USA Eastern Time)
Google Calendar Link  

[Zoom access details removed]

This meeting will be recorded.  A link to the recording will be emailed to the people who request it before or during this meeting.  Use our Contact Us page to request the recording.

There is no charge to attend.  You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues.

About the HPS Community Forums (2025)

Please see the most recent update on our HPS Community Forum Series Webpage.

What.  We host a series of interactive meetings on Zoom where we talk about High Probability Selling (HPS).

Purpose.  To provide a community of like-minded individuals, who would otherwise feel very isolated in a non-HPS world.  We talk about HPS, but we do not try to teach how to do it in these meetings.

Who.  Anyone who has an interest in High Probability Selling is welcome.  No particular background is required.  No charge.  No registration required.  Just show up.

When.  We generally offer these forum meetings once per week on Thursdays.  Starting time is usually 9:30 AM or 1:30 PM (USA Eastern Time).  We are experimenting with different timing, to see what works best for our audience.

Topics.  We usually decide what to talk about a few days before each forum meeting.  We keep our options open.  We welcome suggestions from our audience.

Recording.  We record these Zoom meetings.  We email each recording link to the people who showed up at that meeting.  We will also email it to the people who request the recording ahead of time.

[Zoom access details removed]

If you want to be notified by email about the details for each forum meeting, send us your name and email address so we can put you on our mailing list.  You can use our Contact Us page for that.

Or, you can see our Google Calendar and search for HPS Community Forum.

Where the Heck Are These High Probability Prospects Anyway?

A Review of the Neil Myers’ Recording on High Probability Prospects, led by Paul Bunn (recording available here, $50 USD)

This week’s HPS Community Forum will be a live discussion on a previously recorded HPS workshop segment that delivers a mutual understanding of the HPS paradigm shift as it applies to your prospects, markets, and sales experience. 

For those of you who are relatively new to HPS, a High Probability Prospect is defined as follows:  Someone who needs, wants, and is willing and able to buy from you now, if you can meet the prospect’s conditions of satisfaction.

The challenge of course is, in a world in which salespeople are expected to make people into sales, by the force and irresistible rhetoric of the salesperson’s skills, how could these High Probability Prospects (HPPs) even exist?  Why haven’t I seen them before?  You have seen them, and you probably have been one, but never realized it.

One of the first steps in being able to “see” these HPPs is to realize they not only exist, but they have been right under our collective noses for decades.  Like other perspective shift experiences, realizing the presence of these HPPs is like viewing auto-stereograms, also known as Magic Eye 3D, (see Hidden Illusions That’ll Make Your Brain Hurt on BuzzFeed).

Once you’ve seen the hidden image, seeing it again gets easier and easier through practice. This HPS Forum session is intended to provide a similar “aha” level of awareness of the paradigm shift, which will provide a foundation for understanding and implementing HPS with minimal stress and effort.

By the end of this session, you should be able to answer the following FAQs:
Do HPPs really exist?
What creates HPPs?
Who creates HPPs?
What exactly are they?
How have I missed seeing them before?
Can HPPs be created by me?
Are there enough of them out there?

When:  Thursday 5 June 2025 at 9:30 AM (USA Eastern Time)
Google Calendar Link

[Zoom access details removed]

This meeting will be recorded.  A link to the recording will be emailed to the people who attend this meeting.  If you want a copy of the recording for this particular meeting, and are not sure that you will be able to attend, please let us know before the meeting begins.

There is no charge to attend.  You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues.

Selling to Engineers

In a recent coffee shop meeting, we were in conversation with a business marketing consultant with considerable success with some large corporations that most of us would recognize. He volunteered the following, “…one thing I hate to do, and that is to sell. Okay, I really hate that so much. And that’s because (when I am selling) I don’t feel that I’m being truthful. As much as I want to be truthful. I believe that I’m always saying what I think they want to hear in order to get the sale. And I don’t like that.”

What he came to believe was that he is too direct for typical sales situations. “I will not talk to VPs. If you’re not the CEO with total P&L responsibility, I’m not interested in the conversation…with one exception”. If the people that he’s dealing with are engineers, he can be direct because of their tendency to look for proof and actual solutions. But people who are from other disciplines are more concerned about their career than the well being of the entity that they represent.

“I want to know what their problems are. I don’t really want to hear any good news. If you tell me good news, we’re not going to be successful. Just tell me what your problems are. I’ll fix your problems. And that’s my only way of selling. And it’s always worked; when I have that proper audience. And that’s why it works with engineers because they’re focused on solving problems. They’re focused on getting things to be better and better.”

I (Paul Bunn) found his words to be unusual or at least contrarian. Over the years, I have seldom heard of salespeople who ENJOYED selling to engineers. Until this moment, I didn’t really understand why.

I (Carl Ingalls) have had more experience as a consulting engineer than as a salesperson. In that role, I met quite a few salespeople who seemed to feel at home when selling to engineers. However, I am beginning to understand why so many people find engineers frustrating.

Paul Bunn and Carl Ingalls will discuss this topic, “Selling to Engineers” in an open discussion on Thursday 13 June 2024, as part of our High Probability Selling Community Forum Series. It will be on Zoom, starting at 10:00 AM (USA Eastern Time). If you want to be part of this, please register by providing your full name and email address on this webform. We will then email the Zoom invitation details to you. No charge.

New Discussion Group on Facebook for High Probability Selling

This discussion group is for students and practitioners of High Probability Selling.  People who have received interactive training and/or coaching from Jacques Werth, or from any of the teachers and coaches he has authorized.

The main purpose of this group is for members to exchange information with each other about their own experiences with High Probability Selling.  I (Carl Ingalls) will participate to some degree in some of the conversations, but I really want the members to step up and help each other.

The name of the group is High Probability Selling.  It is private (closed), and the content is visible to members only.  If you want to be a member, or if you have questions, please contact me (Carl Ingalls).

You will need a Facebook account.  As far as I know, you will not need to “friend” anyone.

I created this group on 3 Sep 2019.  This is the first public announcement about it, and I anticipate lots of new members.

Carl Ingalls
+1 610-627-9030
info@HighProbSell.com

Some notes added by Ingalls on 24 Sep 2019:

  • An easy way to find the HPS Discussion Group is to click on this link:  www.facebook.com/groups/HighProbSell/
  • If you ask to be invited, Facebook will ask you some questions about your background and training or coaching in HPS, and then FB will notify me.  I will review your request and decide.
  • Please note that membership is currently limited to people who have received personal training and/or coaching from Jacques Werth, or from any of the teachers and coaches he has authorized.  The main reason is to ensure that people who answer questions posted by others have at least a minimum level of training in HPS.
  • I have asked everyone to speak from their own personal experience with HPS.  I believe that will be more valuable to others than thoughts and opinions, or things that other people have said.
  • As of today (Mon 24 Sep 2019), we have 23 members, and are still growing.
  • I am new to Facebook, and I am still figuring it out.