Jacques Werth

One-Minute Sales Tip: Say Goodbye to Resistance

Feb 062008

What causes sales resistance?

It’s not automatically produced by the customer; it’s created by the intention of the salesperson. Resistance is created when the salesperson intends to do whatever it takes to get the prospect to buy.

Most people perceive this as pressure. The natural reaction whenever pressure is applied is resistance. Remove the pressure, and you and the customer breathe easier and more business gets done.

Resistance is not a factor when seller and buyer both want the same thing – to do business together. Change your intention. Find the prospects that want to buy and say goodbye to sales resistance.

When Common Phrases Sabotage Sales

Articles, Blog 1 Response »

Jan 102008

by Jacques Werth and Paul Bunn

We live in a cynical world. Salespeople have helped create that world, by using words and phrases in ways that trigger suspicion, create mistrust and sabotage sales.

Many of these words and phrases are part of traditional and popular sales techniques that are intended to create trust and “build rapport” but actually do the opposite.

You may not even realize that you are using these words and phrases in a way that negatively affects your communication and your business.

Here are four of the most common ones:

“Interested”

Interested is the word that salespeople use when they don’t want to hear “No.” Interested is the word that prospects use when they don’t want to say “Yes.” There is no commitment associated with interest.

Interested people are gathering information. Interested people are not ready to buy. Selling to them when they are merely interested is usually a frustrating waste of your time and energy. Also, experience shows that it virtually guarantees that when they are ready to buy, they won’t buy from you.

Interested indicates an opportunity for marketing, not sales.

“Honestly” or “To Tell the Truth”

People pay more attention to what you do than what you say. They have learned that when a salesperson says they are going to be honest, they are likely to do the opposite.

When it comes to honesty, don’t say it. Be it.

“Just” or “Only”

“I just wanted to let you know…” or “Just fifteen minutes of your time.” What does the word “just” imply in sales situations? It communicates that you seem to be trivializing your communication in order to disarm the prospect. You’re minimizing the importance of your products and services, and your own time. If someone is a real prospect for your product or service, it’s an important priority.

“Thank You”

While gratitude in a business situation is often warranted, “Thank You” is one of the most over-used and abused phrases spoken by salespeople.

There is no need to thank prospects for their time and attention. Repeatedly thanking prospects and customers implies a subservient, begging, position, which will cause a loss of respect for you.

If you say thank you when no real value is received, then you will be seen as being insincere and phony. That impression will sabotage your credibility, mutual respect and lose business.

In High Probability Selling, we have a list of more than 30 of these words and phrases. We train salespeople to become aware of, and then either eliminate them or radically change how they use them.

People want to do business with people they can trust and respect. They will try to avoid doing business with anyone who arouses suspicion. The words you choose and the way you use them make all the difference.

To learn how to communicate with trust and respect, click here.

High Probability Selling
© 2008. All rights reserved.

A Process for Sales Success

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Jan 042008

Most salespeople, sales managers and sales trainers know that sales training seldom has a lasting beneficial effect. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), and other research organizations state that less than 25% of the people who take sales training courses obtain a sustained increase in their sales performance. Why not?

The vast majority of organizations that conduct sales training teach the subject the same way they would teach a Philosophy or Literature class. They outline their beliefs about the basic outline of their sales methods and invite the students to fill in the blanks. However, for every product, service, industry, market and salesperson there are myriad ways to fill in the blanks. Furthermore, the students are encouraged to “think creatively” in each situation; to “adapt their sales methods” to each individual prospect. Almost all of them find that selling that way is too complex, and too difficult, to implement in the real world with real prospects.

Creativity is extremely important to artists, researchers, consultants, parents, and in many other fields. In sales, a consistent process that seldom varies is far more important. Then, making changes to parts of the process should only be done when you discover something that consistently works better.

Top salespeople look at their selling skills as a craft. Like carpenters, surgeons, accountants, and other skilled practitioners, they strive to do what works best the vast majority of the time. That means they constantly hone their craft. Working from a process outline, they fill in each section with what works best. Most of the best salespeople seldom deviate from their complete sales process. Rather, they work with written questionnaires and check lists during their conversations with prospects and customers.

This is a typical sales process outline used by many top salespeople:

Only meet with prospects that are ready, willing and able to specify or buy your type of product. Confirm the facts before the first meeting.
At the meeting, or telephone appointment, agree on the rules of engagement for the sales process.
Determine whether you can have a relationship of mutual trust.
Determine whether you have a mutually acceptable basis to do business.
Agree on the prospect’s criteria for buying your product or service.
Demonstrate how you will fulfill the prospect criteria and consummate the sale.

For a lasting beneficial effect from sales training you must develop or find a consistent sales process, comprised of reality-based measurable steps and written questionnaires. Then, you can develop the skill to utilize the process for consistent, long lasting sales improvement.

For more information about our proven sales process, click here.

_____________________________________________________

High Probability Selling Inc.
(C) 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Close Effortlessly without Pressure or Anxiety

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Dec 202007

By Jacques Werth, President

High Probability Closing is not an event. It’s an integral part of the entire sales process. We define “closing” as Mutual Commitment. Therefore, we request the prospect’s commitment at every step of the sales process, and we make corresponding commitments. We close throughout the entire sales process – typically between 25 and 45 times.

Closing starts when we set the appointment and then ask, “If we can meet all of your conditions of satisfaction for (this product or service), what will you do?” If the prospect doesn’t reply with “I’ll buy it,” or words to that effect, we immediately cancel the appointment, for now. However, we will continue to call the prospect every three to four weeks until he/she is ready to make a conditional commitment.

Most salespeople set out to contact a large number of people who have an apparent need for their products and service. Their objective is to convince every one of them to grant them an appointment.

If we don’t get a commitment at any step of the sales process, we determine whether the commitment that isn’t accepted is a deal breaker. If so, we terminate the sales process (perhaps temporarily) and we leave. Why? Staying and pitching to a prospect who does not make commitments almost guarantees the following:

The probability that the prospect will buy on that visit is highly unlikely.
You’re wasting your time and the prospect’s, thereby creating resistance to yourself and diminished respect. That leaves them with a negative perception of you.
If and when the prospect does decide to buy in the future, it’s most likely that he/she will buy from a competitor.

Think about how you would react if you were the prospect. This salesperson has given you all the information you need to make a decision when you were not ready to buy. Though mildly annoyed, you listened to their entire sales pitch. Now, when you are ready to buy, isn’t it likely that you will check what his/her competition has to offer? If the competitor’s salesperson appears equally competent and seems to have as good a deal, who are you most likely to buy from? Will you buy from the salesperson who is there now, or will you have him/her leave and call back the one who you wouldn’t buy from before?

However, if the prospect is ready to buy and we do arrive at mutual commitment throughout the initial sales process, we hardly ever encounter any “think it over” objections at the end. The prospect has just made dozens of commitments and affirmations of their intention to buy every feature, benefit and detriment of your product or service. At that point the prospect is anxious to consummate the sales process and get the benefits of your products and/or services. They have literally convinced themselves of the practicality of those decisions. The human mind operates like a self-validating computer. It does not doubt its own data.

People who utilize this process attain very high closing averages, both per number of prospecting offers and per number of prospect visits.

Change Your Commitments and Change Your Life

Articles, Blog 2 Responses »

Nov 282007

by Jacques Werth

Last week I got a call from "Mark" who has been a financial services professional for 12 years. He said he works far too hard for the $80,000 he earns. My response was, "What are you committed to?

He replied, "I want to make a lot more money and work less."

"I make as many appointments as I can and I try to persuade every one of my prospects to buy from me. But then, I really try to help them."

"That is a selling strategy that you are committed to and that strategy is not working," I said. "It is obvious that you need to change your sales strategy."

In sales, and in life, commitment is everything. Yet, most people cannot accurately articulate what their commitments are. They make a sincere stab at it by telling you what their ideals and goals are. However, evidence shows that what you are committed to is seldom the same as your ideals and your goals. So, what are you really committed to? The answer to that is simple. You are committed to the life you have now.

Your commitments are evidenced by the results of all of the actions that you take to attain what you are committed to. All of the choices that you make, every minute of every day, are in support of your commitments. If you are happy and satisfied with the life you are living now, then your commitments are aligned with your ideals and your goals.

If you are not happy and satisfied with the life you are living now, then your commitments are not aligned with your ideals and your goals. Knowing and accepting that is the first step towards having the life that you want. The next step is to figure out how to change your commitments to achieve what you want. It starts with reexamining all of your activities to determine which of them are forwarding your ideals and goals and which are not.

You may be committed to:

Find more prospects by working longer and harder;
Make tons of cold calls, while bearing the pain of rejection and failure;
Struggle heroically to overcome difficult obstacles in order to succeed;
Get all prospects to like you by establishing "rapport" and commonality;
Show prospects how to solve important problems;
Persuade and convince prospects with logic and factual documentation;
Use sophisticated closing techniques to help prospects decide;
Manipulate, control or dominate people in order to get what you want.

Yet, your income might indicate that those commitments are not producing the results that you want.

Your commitments dictate the choices that you make about what you do every day, and how you do it. Change your commitments and you will change your behaviors. That will change your life.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth, President
High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Six Reasons Top Salespeople Disqualify a “Hot Prospect”

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Oct 192007

Most top producers increase their sales by disqualifying low probability prospects. These are prospects that initially looked "hot", however, by asking the right questions, it becomes obvious that the prospect is not ready to buy, now. Top producers know that there is a far better likelihood of winning the sale if they leave early and then come back when the prospect is ready to buy. It is a matter of the best utilization of your time, money and efforts. Here are some examples:

1. The prospect told you that he/she is the sole decision maker. Now, it seems, someone else must approve the decision, and you will not be able to meet with that person. In almost every case, this is a deal-killer. Forget about this deal and this prospect. Use your time to find better prospects.

2. At the end of your first meeting, the prospect is not ready to go forward to the next step, whatever that may be. Give it up. Do not pursue or chase this deal. Go back to prospecting with this one.3. The prospect told you he/she is the sole decision maker. Now it seems that someone else must approve the decision, but you will not be able to contact or meet with that person. In almost every case, this is a deal-killer. Use your time to find better prospects.

3. Throughout the first two meetings, the prospect told you that he/she is the sole decision maker. Now, in the midst of the final meeting, you learn of another poerson that has to approve the purchase, but you will not have access to them. In nearly every case, this is a dead end that could be "almost closed" forever. Disqualify and move on. Find a better prospect instead.

4. At your last meeting, the prospect told you to call him/her back in two weeks for a final decision. Now, the prospect cannot be found. No one at his/her location has seen or heard from him. Do not continue to call. Send an email stating that you will be available whenever the prospect is ready to contact you.

5. The prospect told you they would have a purchase order ready for you today. Now, he/she says that they can buy the same thing and get the same service from one of your competitors, at a better price. Ask the prospect, what the competitor’s price is. If he tells you, ask whether you will get the order if you can meet the price. If he will not tell you, but says, “Just give me your best price and I’ll tell you whether it’s low enough. Say “No thanks,” and leave. The only time you should be the low priced supplier is when you have the lowest cost structure.

6. It’s your first meeting and the prospect tells you that there are are more decision makers. However, he/she will not tell you who they are and indicates that it is unlikely that you will get to meet them. It’s good that you learned that early on. It’s time for you to leave, before you waste any more of your valuable time with such a low probability prospect.

The best salespeople know the value of a “disqualification mindset.” They know from experience, that what initially looks like a “hot prospect” may be a “tire kicker” in disguise. The kind of questions they ask do not offend high probability prospects. It is important to know the right questions to ask, and the right way to handle the responses.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Consultative Selling is Obsolete

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Oct 152007

Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

Consultative Selling and all of its relatives such as SPIN Selling, Solution Selling, Strategic Selling, Customer Focused Selling, Buying Facilitation, etc. are merely variations of the "Needs Selling" systems of the 1960′s. ?Consultative Selling? has been in vogue with salespeople for over three decades – with good reason. Most salespeople still believe that finding prospects who need their products and services, and then convincing (or helping) them to buy, is a viable sales strategy. Thus, acting like a consultant might seem to be the best way to initiate the sales process. However, in today?s world that strategy is obsolete.

Information Overload, caused by massive increases of all forms of communications, has radically changed the markets for virtually every product and service. It has made prospects and customers far more knowledgeable, sophisticated, skeptical and sales-resistant than they were just ten years ago.

Hardly anyone is fooled by Consultative Selling anymore. Most prospects are worn out and disgusted by salespeople who ?just want to ask a few questions so that they can help them.? They have heard dozens of variations of pitches designed to arouse their interest and desire. Salespeople that act like Advisors or Consultants are misrepresenting their true agenda, which is to make a sale.

Everyone knows that the primary objective of salespeople is not to help prospects, clients and customers; it is to produce sales in order to earn money. Salespeople would be doing some other kind of work if they didn?t get paid for producing sales.

If you feel disturbed or upset by these assertions, but want to learn more, that is a good thing. If you resent and resist them, then you are destined to continue to work too hard, and struggle too much, trying to improve your mastery of an obsolete selling system.

Here is one of the primary clues to the obsolescence of Consultative Selling. You find yourself working with prospects who need, and have an interest in, what you are selling ? only to find that nearly all of them are the wrong prospects?at the wrong time.

It is now entirely feasible to find an abundance of prospects who already know about their needs for the benefits of your products and services. These are prospects who are ready to spend time and money to satisfy those needs. That kind of ?high probability prospect? is being continuously created by Information Overload.

Here is another clue. These ?high probability prospects? don’t want a new best friend. Whether on not they really like you is unimportant to them. Attempts at "building rapport" or ?creating a relationship? turn them off.

Most high probability prospects don?t expect to buy the best possible solution to satisfy their needs. They just want to buy a satisfactory solution that they can absolutely rely on to serve their purpose. Therefore, they want to deal with a salesperson that they trust and respect; one who also trusts and respects them. However, they don?t trust and respect people who try to appear as if they are consultants ? instead of what they really are ? salespeople. In order to be trusted and respected you must be authentic.

Thousands of top producers, in almost every industry, have learned or figured out most of the steps of a sales paradigm that eliminates the need for persuasion, convincing, manipulation, and misdirection. These top producers know how to find and meet with high probability prospects when they are ready to buy or specify their type of products and services. They can quickly develop relationships of mutual trust and respect with their prospects. They know how to prevent objections, and to close effortlessly without pressure or discomfort.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time?Sell Well

Jacques Werth ? High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

How Top Salespeople Maintain Their Dignity and Self-Respect

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Oct 112007

Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

Prospects and customers, no matter their titles or status, are people like you and me. We all have a very strong preference for dealing with people that we respect.

The degree in which a prospect feels respect for the salesperson is extremely important. It is almost as important as their trust in the salesperson. We don’t really know whether it is a deliberate behavior of top salespeople to maintain their dignity and self-respect, or whether it is a character trait. Either way, it is very important to adopt that attitude and learn that attitude and behavior if you want to become a top producer.

Many of our highly successful graduates have reported tremendously improved relationships with their prospects and customers. They also cite far greater enjoyment in their work and much higher levels of self-esteem.

Becoming someone who is a widely respected salesperson is relatively easy to learn how to do.

It starts with the disqualification mindset. The stated purpose of each prospect contact is to determine whether there is a mutually acceptable basis for doing business, now. If not, you will (temporarily) disqualify the prospect. That enables a relationship of equals. You, the salesperson, are no longer a supplicant.

One simple step can be that you stop saying “Thank you,” when the prospects have done nothing more than share time with you. You understand that they not doing you a favor; they are with you in the hope or expectation of getting something that they want. Your time is just as valuable as any prospect’s time; if for no other reason than it is your life.

Adopting an attitude of dignity and self-respect enables you to be comfortable about saying “You’re welcome” and mean it, when the prospect says “Thank you” as he/she hands you a signed contract.

Of course, it is much easier to do if you know how to acquire an abundance of high probability prospects.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Are You New to NLP?

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Sep 162007

Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

A software salesperson related the following story about one of his recent sales appointments.

“I went into a meeting with a prospect in his office, and our conversation started with him asking, ‘Tell me again what your software does.”

As he spoke I noticed the prospect, whose elbows had been on the arms of his chair, was moving his hands down alongside the arms of his chair. So I moved my hands down alongside the arms of my chair.

Our conversation continued, and then the prospect pulled his chair back from his desk and crossed his legs. Then I crossed my legs in the same manner.

A few minutes later, the prospect leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers.

About a minute later, I put my hands behind my head, mirroring his movements. The conversation was going well as I explained the benefits of our software system.

A short time later, the prospect put his left hand back down on the arm of his chair and, with his right hand, reached around the back of his head grabbing his left ear.

Then, I tried to emulate the prospect’s new movement and the prospect interrupted me, saying, “No, it’s the right hand holding the left ear… Are you new to NLP?”

Savvy prospects like this one are becoming more and more prevalent. They know a technique when they see one, even the “subtle” ones. Selling to these prospects requires an entirely different way of thinking about sales, instead of learning another technique of persuasion.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

I Just Learned a New Business Principle

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Sep 102007

By Paul Bunn
High Probability Selling

During lunch today, I went to my optometrist in an attempt to get my classes repaired. It was a minor repair. I could have done the work once I purchased the parts. The only problem was that my optometrist’s business is set up to facilitate the purchase of new glasses.

Customers that want repairs or parts, no matter how minor, are directed to the department that sells frames and lenses. I waited for about 30 minutes, anxiously waiting for someone to assist me. Nothing happened.

I don’t necessarily blame the salespeople. After all, why handle a minor repair job when a much more immediately lucrative set of glasses might be sold? And they were just following the owners’ business model. And I clearly didn’t fit their model.

And that model has a flaw. The awareness of what customers, in my case existing long-term customers, want…other than selling a new pair of glasses to us every year or so…was somehow overlooked.

Once I realized that, unless I was willing to wait another hour or two, my repair was not going to happen at that establishment I went to a nearby mall and had Pearle Vision do it in less than 5 minutes. I walked in, said what I wanted, they fixed the glasses, at no charge. Easy. Quick. Apparently a good fit to their business model.

While at the Pearle location, I noticed something else. Their counter displays stated the key features of their services – instead of the latest cool frames to buy – the one I noticed most was a 60-day complete satisfaction guarantee. From personal experience, my existing optometrist doesn’t have that either.

My next glasses purchase will likely be from Pearle. I wonder if my (old) optometrist, a long established neighborhood-type place that I purchased from every year for 10 years or so, is aware of that.

Events like this one get me thinking about how well we do at being aware of what our customers want, versus what we want to sell.

Do you know what your existing customers want?

Does your business model make it easy for both of you to find out? And deliver?

Have you tested it lately?

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Paul Bunn – High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Are You Missing Your Best Niche Market?

Articles, Blog 1 Response »

Sep 052007

By Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

Every salesperson has a great niche market that 99 percent aren’t even aware of. The concept of a niche market is not new. The meaning of the term is as varied as the number of sales, marketing and business people trying to identify, define or pursue a niche. If you find the right niche, your sales volume will skyrocket.

A typical niche may be a group of millionaires that own helicopters, or an affinity group of retired doctors and lawyers, or large-scale forested landowners. The list is only limited by our imaginations and exposure to the worlds within the world around us.

There is one niche market, however, that exists for virtually every salesperson or businessperson out there. And it is not defined by commonly used demographic factors. It is a segment of nearly every market that goes virtually unnoticed, except by the best salespeople.

That niche is made up of prospects that, thanks to the information age, already want the benefits of your type of product or service. If asked in an appropriate way, they would actually confirm that they want what you’re selling, and that they will do business with you if you can meet their requirements to do so.

These are their “psychographics”:

They’ve figured out why they want the benefits of your product or service.
They don’t need to be sold to.
They don’t respond favorably to persuasion, however subtle.
They don’t want (or need) to be educated about your offering.
They are not merely interested in what you’re offering. They are ready to make commitments to do business.
One of the things that determines who they buy from is whether they trust and respect the salesperson they’re buying from. Whether they “like you” is unimportant.

They are out there. Right now. In your market. In your industry. Hoping to encounter a salesperson that they can trust and respect, and do business with in a direct, open and transparent way. You need a prospecting system that is designed to communicate in a way that allows them to identify themselves.

Now you have options that are not just variations on the theme of selling as most people know it.

You can sell in a way that requires attempting to make people, most of whom aren’t buyers, into customers…or…sell in a way that requires finding the people that are buyers and making the determination of whether or not it is mutually beneficial to do business.

What do you want to do?

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

How Top Producers Eliminate Objections

Articles, Blog 20 Responses »

Aug 072007

By Jacques Werth
High Probability Selling

Many salespeople try to rationalize that objections are good because they indicate the prospect’s level of interest and pinpoint the keys to making the sale. That is analogous to saying that you should not prevent the cause of pain in your body; pain is good because you then know what ailment to cure.

Take notice of the kinds of objections that salespeople are plagued with and how some otherwise smart salespeople try to overcome them. Some objections are caused by flawed prospecting methods. Other objections are caused by flawed sales methods. Instead of learning a new sales process, or a new way of thinking about sales, most salespeople try to use clever rhetorical manipulations to overcome each objection. Those manipulations raise the prospect’s sales resistance, which then creates an adversarial relationship.

The way top producers prevent objections is to tell all of the detriments of each feature – along with the benefits – before the negatives occur to the prospect. Most prospects are just as smart as salespeople. Therefore, avoiding or obscuring the negatives is not a viable sales strategy. Even if everything that you tell them is true, that is not good enough. Withholding negatives is perceived to be half-truths by most salespeople. However, most prospects perceive half-truths to be lies. "Total Disclosure" eliminates objections and creates relationships of trust and respect with clients and prospects.

The High Probability Selling process eliminates almost all objections with the technology of Total Disclosure.

If you want to learn the process and mindset of top producing salespeople, you want to learn more about High Probability Selling.

Until Next Time…Sell Well

Jacques Werth – High Probability Selling

Tags: How+to+sell, The+secret+to+selling, Selling+and+Persuasion

Older Entries

High Probability Selling

Jacques Werth

One-Minute Sales Tip: Say Goodbye to Resistance

When Common Phrases Sabotage Sales

A Process for Sales Success

Close Effortlessly without Pressure or Anxiety

Change Your Commitments and Change Your Life

Six Reasons Top Salespeople Disqualify a “Hot Prospect”

Consultative Selling is Obsolete

How Top Salespeople Maintain Their Dignity and Self-Respect

Are You New to NLP?

I Just Learned a New Business Principle

Are You Missing Your Best Niche Market?

How Top Producers Eliminate Objections

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