"Profit Without Pain"
From Success Magazine The Magazine For Today's Entrepreneurial Mind, September 1997

"SELLING DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A GRIND,"
says Jacques Werth. "You can stop trying to persuade people to buy your product or service and simply find the people who want it already.

Werth, president of High Probability Selling, a sales training firm in Dresher, Pa. tells how:

The information revolution has done two things. The bad news: People are so bombarded with promotional messages from newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet that they don't want to listen to your sales pitch.

The good news: With all the information available to them, prospects already know about the benefits of products or services like yours - so you don't have to sell them! A small segment of your potential market - 1.5 percent to 12 percent - has already decided that it wants the benefits of a product like yours, now. If you find those people, you just need to determine if there's a mutually acceptable basis for doing business.

When prospecting, call and tell your prospect (1) who you are, (2) whom you represent, and (3) one or two primary features (not benefits) of your product or service. Then request a commitment - that is, is he in the market for what you're offering, yes or no? If the prospect says yes, ask for a commitment to do business if you can meet his requirements. Then make the appointment. If he says no, go to the next name on your list. Don't try to change his mind.

The Payoff
Here's an example of how this technique can pay off. One of my clients, who's used high-probability selling techniques for five years now, used to get one appointment out of every 92 contacts. Today, he still spends four hours per day prospecting - but now his average call takes less than a minute.

He spends no time trying to wangle appointments anymore. He reaches 10 times as many prospects. His contacts are now all pleasant, since he's not trying to persuade people to do what they don't want to do. When he shows up for appointments, his prospects are always there and they all invite him in (only 20 percent used to). He now closes more than 80 percent of these people, with no cancellations.

He is now one of the top five agents in a firm that has 16,000. His annual commissions have moved from $50,000 to more than $200,000.