A lot of people think that selling is all about being super persuasive or having great people skills.
What if I told you that the very best salespeople essentially sift through and cherry pick the best prospects
In other words, they preach to the converted. They find the potential customers who are already ready to buy now.
There was a book I read years ago that introduced me to this idea. It’s called “High Probability Selling” by Jacques Werth.
Not the most popular book, yet one of the most contrarian and profound books I’ve ever read on selling.
I only found out about it because I worked with a sales training company that had all the cool sales books.
The ones I’d never heard of before. My jaw was literally on the floor when I first read this. I couldn’t believe it.
Rather than spoil some of the surprises with a full summary, I’ll give some tidbits. I will say that this approach takes all the pressure out of sales prospecting.
Using his system, you’ll go from dreading making sales calls or outbound cold emailing to a relaxed, simple approach that really works.
One of the secrets is: you don’t try to persuade while prospecting.
In fact, with his system, you don’t try to persuade at any point in the sales conversation which is extremely radical.
An underlying premise of the book is that at any given time, there is a percentage of “high probability prospects” who are ready to buy what you’re selling now.
Instead of wasting time with people who will never buy, Jacques lays out a system designed to identify those “HPPs”.
This is like the difference between swimming with the current rather than upstream.
He claims he learned from watching some of the best salespeople in the world.
Truthfully, the approach is so radical that I’ve never fully implemented the system as it’s laid out, but, the core concept of the book changed the way I prospect for new business.
Personally, I think that there is a place for ethical persuasion in the sales process ONCE you’re talking with a qualified, high probability prospect.
Either way, it’s an awesome book that will challenge the way you look at business and selling for sure.
You can check it out here (no affiliate link) or find it elsewhere on Google.
I’m thinking of reaching out to the guy and seeing if he’ll let me interview him. He’s semi-retired now, so, we’ll see!
