It’s been well known for at least 70 years that “Prospects buy on emotion and justify with logic.” So why is it that average salespeople rely only on logic to sell their products and services?

Being willing to walk away from a deal will get you much better deals.  This may be obvious to some readers, but may not be so obvious to salespeople who cannot take “No” for an answer.

“Market demand” comes from people who want what you’re selling. This article describes an efficient process for finding and connecting with these people. by Jacques Werth and Carl Ingalls of High Probability Selling

I’m fascinated by the quick learning abilities of my children when they play video games. Most recently my children received a Wii game unit for Christmas. Before the day had expired Samuel, my 8-year-old son challenged me to a boxing match.

Finally, I thought, something electronic where I can whup on my kids. I’ve got formal training in the martial arts and can move my hands quicker than any 8-year-old boy on the planet. The results? I didn’t make it past round 1. Sam KO’d me.

One day I heard a very loud bang and angry shouting coming from the front office. I went out to see. There was a large man holding a baseball bat high over his head in one hand. He looked and sounded enraged, irrational, and dangerous. Several of the office staff were cowering along one wall. I said, “You seem very upset.”

There are plenty of moral reasons to be honest, but there are also very pragmatic ones. Even in selling, honesty just works better.

Matching each of the three types of prospects with its most effective sales process produces the highest closing rates.  However, most Realtors utilize just one type of sales process and use it on every type of prospect they encounter.  The most successful Realtors are very selective about which type of prospect they meet, and use the most effective sales process for that type.

I was riding along with Jim Langworthy, one of the top sales producers in the industry that supplies production equipment to the electronics industry. He was not an engineer, but almost all of his prospects and customers were engineers. I was there to watch him sell.

What kind of marketing would fit with High Probability Selling? A lot of marketing methods are designed to persuade people to buy a product or service, and they often present a very unbalanced picture of the strengths and weaknesses of what they are pushing. This is contrary to the way we train people to sell.

Do you need to hear a plausible explanation for why something works before you are willing to try it out for yourself? Or is it enough just to know that it has worked for others? Do you think that High Probability Selling needs an explanation?

On most days there are times when you feel terrified. One of those times is when you are scheduled to have a closed meeting with your boss. You even dread the possibility of accidentally meeting him in a hallway. Another is when you read things like “ERS Research says the average tenure of sales manages is now less than two years.” You also feel terrified when you realize that you are trying to do too much and very little is actually working. …