I opened ChatGPT in a private browser window without signing in, so that it would have no access to my previous conversations with my own instance of ChatGPT. I wanted to see what someone unfamiliar with HPS might learn by asking their own ChatGPT about it. After several exchanges, I explained my purpose and I then asked that ChatGPT to summarize our conversation. What follows is its response to my request. Note that it identified itself in third person. My two modifications to its response are enclosed in square brackets []. Everything else below was written by that ChatGPT.
What [an ordinary untrained] ChatGPT Understands About High Probability Selling
This conversation began with a simple question [asked by Carl Ingalls]: “What is High Probability Selling, and how do I make it work?”
The purpose, as Carl Ingalls subsequently explained, was to discover what an ordinary instance of ChatGPT is likely to know about High Probability Selling (HPS), how accurately it can explain the methodology, and what advice it might give someone trying to learn or practice it.
The results were interesting.
1. ChatGPT had a reasonably good starting understanding
Its initial explanation captured several important HPS concepts:
- Find people who already want what you offer.
- Don’t persuade or pressure people to buy.
- Establish trust and mutual respect.
- Determine whether there is a mutually acceptable basis for doing business.
- Identify the prospect’s requirements.
- Avoid wasting time on unlikely prospects.
These ideas were substantially consistent with the original methodology developed by Jacques Werth and Nicholas Ruben.
Much of this understanding appears to have come from publicly available HPS material, including articles on the High Probability Selling blog.
2. But ChatGPT mixed HPS with conventional sales practices
The initial explanation also incorporated generic consultative-selling techniques and presented them as HPS.
Examples included:
- Asking discovery questions to uncover problems.
- Creating a 30-day implementation plan.
- Using conventional sales metrics.
- Treating closing as a natural final step.
- Using generic questions to establish buying interest.
Some of these suggestions are useful in appropriate circumstances, but they don’t necessarily reflect the original HPS methodology.
More importantly, some could lead a salesperson back toward the very practices HPS was designed to replace.
3. Questioning ChatGPT improved its understanding
When asked to identify which statements were actually supported by the original methodology, ChatGPT was able to recognize and correct several shortcomings.
In particular, it developed a better understanding of:
- The importance of mutual commitments throughout the sales process.
- The distinction between expressing interest and making a conditional commitment.
- The prospect’s Conditions of Satisfaction.
- Total disclosure.
- The importance of disqualification.
- The two-way nature of trust and respect.
- The distinction between principles, methods, and techniques.
This was probably the most interesting part of the conversation: ChatGPT could improve its explanation when challenged to distinguish original HPS teachings from its own interpretations.
4. The most important remaining limitation
ChatGPT can produce a convincing explanation of HPS without necessarily having a complete or accurate understanding of the entire methodology.
It can combine publicly available information with general sales knowledge, fill gaps with reasonable-sounding assumptions, and inadvertently attribute its own recommendations to HPS.
A reader who doesn’t already understand HPS might have difficulty recognizing the differences.
This is particularly important because the underlying principles matter more than memorizing particular questions or techniques.
5. What HPS readers should do when asking AI for advice
My recommendation would be to encourage readers to ask more discriminating questions.
For example:
- Which of your statements are directly supported by the original HPS methodology?
- Which are your own interpretations or recommendations?
- Are any of your suggestions inconsistent with HPS principles?
- Can you distinguish HPS from conventional consultative selling?
- Explain the principles behind a particular HPS procedure.
- Don’t invent HPS techniques when you cannot verify them in the original material.
Readers should also provide AI with original HPS articles or book excerpts when they want more authoritative answers.
Conclusion
This conversation demonstrated both the value and the limitations of AI as a learning resource.
ChatGPT already has access to a surprising amount of publicly available information about High Probability Selling. It can explain many of the fundamental concepts and help people understand how they relate to one another.
However, it doesn’t automatically distinguish the original methodology from conventional sales practices. It can also sound more authoritative than its source material justifies.
The most useful lesson is that readers should not simply ask AI to teach them High Probability Selling. They should challenge it to explain why HPS works, identify the principles behind its procedures, and distinguish the authors’ teachings from its own interpretations.
That is how this conversation became considerably more informative than the initial question.
And perhaps that is the best use of AI in learning HPS: not as an unquestionable authority, but as a resource that can be questioned, examined, corrected, and made more useful.
Written by ChatGPT (OpenAI), following a conversation with Carl Ingalls, 13 November 2026.
