"Interested" is one of the most common words that salespeople
use in their prospecting and selling activities. If you can eliminate
that word from your sales vocabulary and replace it with the word
"want," your volume of closed sales will rapidly increase.
In most cases, just changing that one word can increase sales by
up to 25 percent. This is easy to explain, and very difficult for
most salespeople to do. Here's why.

Closing is all
about mutual commitment. However, commitment can be either positive
or negative. Rather than ask for a commitment and allow for the
possibility that the commitment may be negative, most salespeople
avoid asking for a commitment. Instead, they ask prospects if they
are "interested" - because they don't want to hear "No."
And, their prospects often say they're "interested" -
because they don't want to say "Yes." Then, you have two
people spending a lot of time with no commitment - except the salesperson
provides his time and expertise without compensation. Those salespeople
are hoping that they will be able to persuade those interested prospects
to buy.

Obviously, sometimes
interested prospects actually do buy - but not very often. On average,
salespeople close 17 percent of their appointments. In many industries
closing rates are much lower. However, most salespeople keep hoping
that they'll get better at persuading interested prospects to buy.
That's referred to as "Random Negative Reinforcement."
When you're doing something that has a small probability of producing
a positive result, an occasional payoff will get most people to
keep doing it. The vast majority of people who keep putting their
money in slot machines will lose all of their money in a short time.
The lure of the big win combined with a few small wins keeps them
hooked. They keep hoping that they'll become more skillful and learn
how to beat the odds. That's the principle that enables gambling
casinos to earn billions of dollars a year. That's also the principle
that causes most people who go into the sales profession to fail
or continue while earning meager wages.

If you only
spend your time with prospects that want what you're selling and
who will make a commitment to buy if it meets their requirements
you have broken the pattern of Random Negative Reinforcement. That
can change your life.

But, how can
you get people to make a commitment to buy during a prospecting
call? Stop asking them if they are interested in a benefit of your
product or service. Stop asking them if they are interested in meeting
with you to see whether they are interested in eliminating their
pain. Instead, describe your product or service and tell them about
a couple of its performance features. Then, ask if it is something
they want. If it is something they want, they'll also commit to
an appointment. If it's not something they want, they'll say "No,"
or "I'm not interested." If you quickly terminate the
call, it will save you so much time that you'll be able to contact
many more prospects. That will enable you to find more of those
prospects that already want the benefits of your type of products
or services.

Now, you may
say, "But I don't have that many prospects that I can afford
to bypass anyone. I have to try to sell them all." That may
be true. However, it's also a matter of timing. The best time to
visit with a prospect is when they are ready to buy (or specify)
your type of product or service. If you visit with prospects when
they are not ready to buy, your chances of selling them then are
very small - and your chances of selling them in the future are
even worse. When that prospect does become ready to buy, they're
much more likely to contact one of your competitors to compare what
they have with your offering. At that time, they're much more receptive
to what the competitor has to say, because they're ready to buy.
It's then most likely that they'll buy from a competitor. If you
wait to visit them until they are ready to buy, it's most likely
that you will be the one who will get their business.

You should stay
in touch with a large number of prospects by frequently calling
them all. For most industries, the best frequency is every 4 weeks.
Each time you call your prospects you should present them with a
different prospecting offer than the previous one. That will minimize
the likelihood of them being annoyed with your calls. New information
isn't annoying unless it's used for manipulative purposes. Each
time you call you must be willing to accept "No" for the
answer and be willing to move on to your next call, quickly. Each
successive time that you call your chances of contacting the prospects
that want to buy increases.

High Probability
Selling is a leading sales training and sales consulting company
founded in 1989. While High Probability Selling principles may seem
quite radical, they have been proven to be highly successful on
hundreds of thousands of sales calls by salespeople in over eventy
industries.

©1996-1999,
2000-2003 High Probability® Selling. All Rights Reserved.

About
the Author:

High Probability Prospecting® is the first phase of
the High Probability Selling® system. Learn how to stop wasting
time with Low Probability Prospects! Read the first four chapter
of Jacques Werth's book, High Probability Selling - FREE –
at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=108505.

High Probability Selling is a leading sales training and sales consulting
company founded in 1989. While High Probability Selling principles
may seem quite radical, they have been provento be highly successful
on hundreds of thousands of sales calls by salespeople in over seventy
industries. More information on Jacques Werth and High Probability
Selling is available at http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=108505.

Contact
Information:

High Probability® Selling

103 Chesley Drive, Suite 200

Media, PA 19063

Foreign: (610) 566-1535, Toll Free: (800) 394-7762

Email: contactus@highprobsell.com

www.highprobsell.com

© Copyright 2003 by SalesVault.com

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