OG NOTES (AUG-2018)
Frame Effect
The idea of framing is that choices depend, in part, on the way in which problems are stated. In sales, the most important thing isn’t ever what you’re selling, but how you’re selling it.
Framing Example: Suppose that you are suffering from serious heart disease and that your doctor proposes a grueling operation. You’re understandably curious about the odds.
Doctor Response 1: “Of one hundred patients who have this operation, ninety are alive after five years.”
If we consider the facts, the doctor’s statement will be relatively comforting, and you’ll probably have the operation.
Doctor Response 2: “Of one hundred patients who have this operation, ten are dead after five years.”
The Automatic System thinks: “A significant number of people are dead, and I might be one of them!”
This leads to what I consider, along with priming, as one of the most impactful ways to influence a decision: Framing Loss Aversion
Consider the following information campaigns relating to energy conservation:
(a) If you start using energy conservation methods, you will save $350 per year;
(b) If you do not use energy conservation methods, you will lose $350 per year.
As I’m sure you can expect by now, the information campaign (b), framed in terms of losses, is far more effective than information campaign (a).
This supports my initial sales breakthrough: to be more persuasive, you should highlight what the consumer would lose ($ and/or features) vs how much they could save.
Framing works because people, as a whole, are somewhat mindless and passive decision makers. The Reflective System does not do the work that would be required to check and see whether reframing the questions would produce a different answer.
So, you as a salesperson, can use framing to help do that part for them, which should directly result in influencing their decision.
This concept can also be effective when you combine framing questions with a priming effect. Take this study for example…
Framing Example: A group of young students were asked the following questions…
How happy are you these days?
How many dates did you have last month?
The researchers wanted to see the correlation between the two. Do you think the students who reported going on many dates say that they were happier than those with fewer dates?
Surprisingly no. The correlation between the two was about zero.
*The researchers flipped the questions around and asked another group of students...
How many dates did you have last month?
How happy are you these days?
**In this sequence, the correlation between the number of dates and reported happiness was, in Kahneman’s words, “about as high as correlations between psychological measures can get.”
Dating was apparently not the center of these student’s life in the first group, but when group 2 was asked to think about their romantic life prior to being asked how happy they were, they certainly had an emotional reaction.
The present state of mind looms very large when people evaluates their happiness.
So how do we use that during our sales interactions?
EXAMPLE
Two of the most common questions, both of which are used on nearly every sales call, are to ask the buyer about their current solution: what are you happy with and what are you unhappy with?
Both of those are important and should be asked, but remember, it’s not ‘what’ you ask… it’s how.
*Instead of leading with, “Are you happy with your current solution?” like you would find in many traditional sales models (SPIN). Lead with a question that gets them to unconsciously draw from their emotion.
Since your entire goal is to get them to buy your solution and ditch their old one, you need to…
Bring the Pain: using a priming technique to frame a leading question aimed at getting the buyer to think of what they are un-happy with prior to asking the traditional questions, can be a subtle but very effective difference-maker. Here’s an example…
How much time are you spending on billing and new hire onboarding? (or anything you know your customer spends a lot of time on)
What areas of your current solution are you unhappy with?
What areas do you like?
In this method, you’re priming them by getting to think of something you already know is a pain point. You always ask the what do you like/what do you not like, but asking what do you “not like” first, further gets their mind thinking about what aspects of their current plan they are unhappy with.
By the time you get to the “what do you like” it will be more difficult for them come up with the positive traits, thus inducing them to feel like it might be time to make a change.
A key component of the initial question is to make it so you’re able to… tie their pain to your value proposition. So whether it’s during your final pitch or right after their response, you can say something along the lines of…
“You said how billing and new hire onboarding was taking up a lot of your time. Those are two of the main areas that my solution was designed to alleviate, so if you were to move forward with us, you can spend that extra time doing other tasks on what I assume is a long to-do list.”
Telling/reminding the buyer of something they told you was a pain and connecting it with something your solution helps solve, breaks down the salesperson bias.
Also, don’t forget to mention the ease of change and your teams dedication to making it a smooth transition. Remember, remove all the reasons for them to say no.
We will get into framing more in the final section, but I hope that example conveys how you can use all of these tips to build a more influential story. It’s a reason why I don’t believe in sales models but also a reason why I love sales.
Every situation will be different, including the person you’re selling to, so you just need to determine what strategy will be most effective for influencing each of those situations and what best fits within YOUR selling style.
If you’re competitive like me, and virtually every other salesperson, look at each sales interaction as a game. The way the Broncos prepare for the Patriots is going to be different than how they prepare for the Lions. Adapt your approach and position yourself in a way that gives you the best chance at winning the game.
*It’s not always the easy route and can be uncomfortable, but you’re in sales so you better start becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.
There are a few more components of choice influence that I want to make you aware of, starting with how you can use the human tendency of following ‘the norms’ to your advantage when selling…