Sometimes High Probability Selling (HPS) feels like it’s incredibly simple. Sometimes it feels like it’s the most complex idea on earth. I have certainly oscillated between both of those extremes and maybe you have too.
The focus of teaching and implementing HPS from 2000 to 2015 has mostly been on the PROCESS, the steps of what you do, and much less on the thinking that goes with it. This was a conscious choice by Jacques Werth, the founder of High Probability Selling.
He chose to teach HPS the way he was taught martial arts. Practice the physical forms, over and over and over and over, until you “get it” and it becomes automatic. He knew very well that this was just a way of getting there, and that there was far more to HPS.
He also chose to sell HPS as a sales process, perhaps because it seemed more concrete and real that way, and because that was the kind of thing he was most familiar with selling. He always seemed surprised when asked, “What if High Prob were more than just a process?”
Some students were very successful in learning and applying HPS simply as a process, but too many were not. They needed to understand the aspects of HPS that were both behind and beyond the step-by-step process before they could actually do any of it. And without the doing, nothing happens.
Understanding the MINDSET is a necessity when trying to figure out what to do when things change. People have changed the way they do business and the way they communicate with each other, and especially over the past several decades. This means the sales process must change. A fixed process is too rigid.
I have learned in my 30 years of learning, teaching, and implementing HPS in a wide variety of business and personal applications that the process alone (without a deeper understanding) can actually do more harm than good. To make HPS really “work” holistically, and without having to constantly adapt the process I had to fully understand and implement the mindset behind HPS, and the communication nuances based upon that mindset.
There’s much more to HPS than getting the steps right, or the words right. To excel at HPS, I learned that I must BE HPS, not just DO HPS. And to BE HPS, we have to embrace and adopt the HPS MINDSET.
We will write more about the Mindset of High Probability Selling as we understand it today. It’s a very big concept. We also plan to offer a workshop on this very soon. Stay tuned.
As always, we’d love to hear from you.
