Tag: trust

Relationship is Key, Right?

Ok, we can all agree on that one.

However, we might not all agree on the why, when, and how regarding building a relationship.

Here are some of my thoughts.

Why. If our purpose for creating a relationship is to get the prospect to buy from us, then we end up with a synthetic relationship. Too many prospects will see it as fake, which limits trust.

When. Same problem if we push for a relationship too early, while we are still strangers. Start with business, and let the relationship unfold over time. Don’t be in a rush.

How. Let the relationship be built on listening and acceptance, not talking and pushing.

We would all love to hear your thoughts and experiences regarding relationships and selling. Please put your thoughts in comments on this blog post.

Workshop on the Trust and Respect Inquiry (TRI), 3 Sessions, Starting Thu 22 Sep 2022

This what we do in High Probability Selling (HPS) in place of building rapport or creating a relationship. You can read more on the HPS website, at https://www.highprobsell.com/workshops/tri1/

This sales training workshop is 3 sessions, about 2 hours each, spaced 1 week apart. It is conducted as a live video meeting on Zoom, led by Carl Ingalls. It includes demonstrations and exercises. The meeting will be recorded, and the recording will be made available to the participants.

The total price is $382 USD per person.

If you want to take this course, please contact Carl Ingalls. Phone +1-610-627-9030 or email Ingalls@HighProbSell.com.

See the High Probability Selling Calendar for an updated schedule.

If someone says, “Why are you asking me all of these personal questions?”

How do you respond?

First, this almost never happens.  If you are being authentic and sincere, the person you are interviewing will rarely question your motives.

However, students of High Probability Selling worry about lots of things that almost never happen, and they need to have these “what-if” concerns answered before they can move ahead.

Here are two responses that are highly consistent with the principles and attitudes of High Probability Selling.

“I’m learning a new way of getting to know people.”

“This is how I get to know people.”

Do not say, “I’m just curious” or anything else that trivializes what you are doing.

Asking personal questions is what we do in the Trust and Respect Inquiry, which is one of the more advanced discovery tools of High Probability Selling.

This process is described in the book, High Probability Selling, in the chapter titled “Establishing a Relationship”.  For more on this topic, see earlier blog article, “Establishing a Relationship – Revisited“

Comments and questions are welcome

Conversation with a Long-Time Student of High Probability Selling

Jon Williams reached out to me (Carl Ingalls) on Facebook Messenger recently, with some questions about the application of High Probability Selling.

I am posting our conversation here with some minor editing, and with permission.

Jon: I wanted to ask you, have you ever been asked about how to sell things that aren’t as straight forward as a product per se. Like artwork, finery items like collectors stuff?

I heard this marketers take on it and she said you’ve got to look at what people want and “need” (manufacturing the need because they want it) and focus on that rather than the literal item.

I was thinking more about this and thought that’s definitely a decent start and to think about what the collectors want, the history of the piece or collection (as a feature), etc.

Carl: I have had several people inquire about selling something that is not very tangible. HPS is one example of that. I have also been asked about selling art. Collector’s items are fairly straightforward, at least on the selling side.

Jon: Gotcha. Ya I’ve always wondered about strictly non-tangibles.

Carl: If you see your job as one of influencing someone to buy, then HPS methods do not apply at all. The marketer person you mentioned recommends methods that are consistent with that. You really have to pick one or the other. If you flip back and forth [between influencing and not influencing], people won’t trust you.

Jon: Influencing or making offers based on what they want?

That’s what I took away from it as far as what they were saying. She walked us through her thinking and then applied that back to her style which I agree can certainly come off more “getting this or that” vs discovery.

Carl: If the people you reach out to do not have a clear picture of what you are offering, you need to have a good marketing system in place that educates them. Don’t try to do it during one-on-one selling. Extremely inefficient and unrewarding.

Jon: From what I’ve learned in marketing, it applies to everything, which is, truly know your audience and get real feedback from their perspective, the good the bad and the ugly.

If we have this and don’t add to it, then it becomes easier to “make offers”. 🙂

Carl: Making an offer based on what the other person wants is perfectly consistent with HPS, and is not an attempt to influence their decision.

Jon: Ya that’s what I focus on too 🙂

We’ve all had about enough of the internet hype and all this pressure to sell based on their need.

What about empathy?

Do we actually care about the human on the other side? Or are they just another dollar with a pulse?

That’s been made clear via high prob and very verrry few sales training does this well or at all. (Marketing training seems even worse because it’s so removed from the one-on-one)

Carl: In classical HPS outbound prospecting (one-on-one), we normally do not know what the individual wants. We may know something about the probabilities, based on the demographics used when purchasing a list. And the most efficient way of finding out if they want what we are offering is simply to ask them directly. The more specific [the offer], the better.

With the newer HPS Inbound prospecting (where a prospect reaches out to the salesperson), we listen to find out what they want, and we decide if we want to offer something based on that.

Jon: I do hear the better ones saying this method where they do interviews with their existing customers or clients, not to sell them anything new but to gain understanding from their perspective.

I do love this method of listening to them and going from there.

I think you shared this once, that when we start listening we may find they have a completely different want than what we thought at the beginning.

Carl: Some people call that marketing research [doing interviews with existing customers].

Most of the time, I’m a one-man operation. This means that I fill all of the roles. Market research, marketing, prospecting, selling, fulfillment, office manager, etc.

Jon: How have you found that to work for you?

I’m the same way. I only want about 2-3 really solid clients when I get there.

Carl: I like the variety of roles, a lot. However, going solo is a very lonely job, and I do have trouble with that.

Jon: Ya, I’ve heard that too, about the lonely part. For now I don’t mind but it may change later, lol

Carl: I’m looking forward to doing a 3-session workshop on the TRI, starting this Tuesday 11 Jan. That’s real connection with real people, and teaching them how to do it too. Of course, you already know about that.

By the way, I’d like to put our conversation on the HPS Blog. May I have your permission to do that? I’ll probably use just our first names. Any thoughts?

Probably some minor editing. I’ll send you a copy to review first.

This is an example of one-to-many marketing that educates.

Jon: Ya that’s perfectly acceptable with me. Thanks for asking ☺️

Carl: You are very welcome. And I really appreciate the thoughtful conversation.

Jon: Yes it’s helped me understand the differences too and to get clear myself.

Questions and comments on this blog are very welcome.

Judging

We try not to judge, but it’s a difficult habit to break.  Sometimes we do it without intending to.  Sometimes we are completely unaware of it.

I’m talking about the Good vs Bad kind of judging that we do when we apply it to people and what they do.  We form a value opinion, and then we drop our opinion into the world where it does its damage.

In High Probability Selling (HPS), we do our best to avoid this kind of judging.  Nothing positive, nothing negative.  Neither good nor bad.  We consider it too manipulative.  People are less likely to trust us.

It takes a great deal of work to become more aware of how our opinions – and how we state them – make other people feel judged and pressured.  Good intentions are not enough.

If you want to read some guidelines about how we avoid judging, see a previous article on this blog, “You Have to Get Personal“.

Questions and comments are very welcome.

The Purpose of the Trust and Respect Inquiry

Jacques Werth has taught that the primary reason for doing the Trust and Respect Inquiry (TRI) in a sales situation is so that you can find out whether you can trust the other person or not.

My opinion on this is a little different.

Although I believe that the TRI can be effective in discovering most of the people who might try to cheat you, I believe that this is not its most important purpose.  I have never found a dishonest person by this method, and I have only heard Jacques tell of 2 or 3 cases where he actually discovered someone like that.  And in one of those cases, he chose to do business with the prospect anyway (and ended up regretting it).

I believe that the most important purpose of the Trust and Respect Inquiry is to find out about people.

Why is it important to find out about people?

  • High Probability Selling is a personal way of selling.
  • If we are going to work with people, we will do a much better job of it when we understand them well.
  • The time to find out about what it will take to work with someone is before the sale, not after.
  • The TRI is even more valuable when it is used outside of selling.  In my opinion, the TRI is the most valuable thing we teach.

Note:  The Trust and Respect Inquiry is a special process within High Probability Selling where we ask questions about the other person in a particular way.  An early version of this is described in the book, High Probability Selling (in the chapter titled “Establishing a Relationship”).

I’d very much like to hear thoughts and opinions from people who have a lot of experience doing the TRI.  Please use the comments feature, because I’m sure a lot of our other readers would like to hear from you as well.

A Student’s Experience With the Trust and Respect Inquiry

The following is my favorite testimonial about High Probability Selling.

This was by far the best workshop that I have ever attended.  I learned more practical concepts in this workshop than all the others combined.  I was very impressed with the amount of knowledge that was shared during the class.  I received so much more from the class than I had originally anticipated.  I was so pleased to learn that Jacques was teaching the class, there’s no better way to learn than getting it straight from the source.  The thing that was most astounding to me was how much the skills from High Probability Selling can be used in everyday life to better the interactions one can have with the people in their lives.  That was truly more than I had expected.  Since the closure of our workshop I was able to do a trust and respect inquiry on my Father (the man of few words).  In the 45 minute ride to the airport, my dad talked almost the entire way and I was truly amazed at how much I learned about my father that I never knew.  About the relationship he had with his father and how he was terrified of him.  It gave me so much insight into my father and why he behaves the way he does.  I gained a huge amount of respect for him and a deep love and appreciation for all that he has done for me.  Had I not learn how to do this, I would have never known what makes my father tick.  Thank you so much for teaching me this skill that will help my business and my life.  I will forever be grateful.  You have truly left footprints on my heart that will no doubt allow me to leave footprints on other’s hearts.  I hope all the talking I’ve done and will continue to do about your workshop sends you some new business!  Thanks again for everything!

~ J. Cano, Empowered Financial Services

The above review is my favorite from a set of 26 testimonials that Jacques Werth had collected from students between about 1990 and 2006.  You can read all of these testimonials on the main HPS website at www.HighProbSell.com/testimonials/

Comments and questions are very welcome and appreciated.

 

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

 

Implementing High Probability Selling – Where to Start?

The beginning?  The end?  Bits and pieces?  All at once?  Just the parts that are comfortable or make the most sense?  Nowhere?

It takes a lot of time and effort and practice to learn how to do High Probability Selling (HPS).  There are lots of ideas to unlearn, and lots of habits to drop.

Implementing all of HPS all at once has worked very well in the past, but most of our clients prefer to learn and apply it in steps, slowly and gradually over time.

The problem with gradually adopting HPS is that the transition period can be a negative experience for prospects and customers.  Being subjected to pieces from sales methods that have conflicting purposes can make them wary.  Some sales methods just don’t mix well.

It matters where you start.  It matters because of what the prospect sees.

If you start at the beginning, and use High Probability Prospecting (with no attempt to influence, persuade, or entice), the prospect will initially have one idea of what kind of person you are and how you do business.  If you then switch to using more traditional sales methods on the same prospect, they may decide that you can’t be trusted.

We don’t know if this is the real reason or not, but we do know that people have had extremely poor results when High Probability Prospecting was followed by traditional selling methods.  If you’re going to use any parts of a sales process that is designed to get someone to buy, you’ll get better results by starting out with that process from the beginning of your interaction with a prospect.  And once you switch to using HPS with the same prospect, stay with HPS all the way through the end.

For gradual implementation, we now believe that the best place to start using HPS is at the end of the sales process.  And then add the step that comes before the end, and so on, all the way back to the beginning.

The sequence of steps in the High Probability Selling Process is shown in an earlier post on this blog, Sequence of Steps in High Probability Selling

Note:  In this article, “We” means Paul Bunn and Carl Ingalls.

Workshops in March 2018:
Chapter 12 Updated on Thu 15 Mar for $95
Mindset Discovery on Wed 21 Mar for $255

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