Sales & Persuasive Techniques: Persuasive Framing – Part 9/15

One aspect of contemporary society is that people are stimulus rich but context-poor. They don’t know what it all means. They don’t know where to focus their gaze. And one thing that helps people see in any realm of life is a frame. There’s so much stuff around us that we don’t know where to focus on. So we actually put something in a frame and make things a little clearer, and it can lead to a better outcome in part because it focuses the issue on what you want to focus on. It avoids people from concentrating on extraneous things. In some ways, it sets the terms of the discussion.

You don’t have to use a frame every single time, but what we want to be equipped with is a whole set of frames, so almost like we have a workshop. And you have all these frames arrayed on your shelf. And in certain circumstances, you say, oh I want to use that one. Oh, I want to use that other one. That’s going to give you a greater persuasive repertoire and allow you to be more convincing, and more likely to get people to go along.

Understanding Cognitive Biases

We like to believe that we are purely rational characters, making intelligent decisions all the time. But in fact, we get faked out by shortcuts, by things that make no sense, by taking the shorter view rather than the long view. A cognitive bias is a way that our thinking doesn’t go straight, our thinking goes sideways. It’s a glitch in the human mind. We all are subject to it. We have to watch for it because 99 times out of 100, it’s going to lead us astray.

And these cognitive biases are important. It helps you frame your message to other people, but they also offer a sense of caution for yourself not to fall prey to these biases. And so if you understand cognitive biases, you understand human framing, you understand human thinking.

If you know that people are subject to certain cognitive biases, you can actually enlist those in your persuasive efforts. If we know, for instance, one big cognitive bias is something called loss aversion – we experience losses more severely than the equivalent gain. So the prospect of losing $10 is far more daunting than the thrill of winning $10, even though economically, it’s essentially the same.

In certain circumstances, you want to actually put the loss frame around your message. Not what do you have to gain if you agree to buy what I’m selling, if you agree to consent to what I’m proposing, but what do you have to lose if you don’t? And so, a lot of times, we’re always talking about the benefits. We’re always talking about what’s in it for you. But what I’m going to suggest to you is that in many cases, you want to tell people what they have to lose.

And the quintessential example of this in the sales realm is insurance. Insurance is all about what you have to lose rather than what you have to gain. And it’s really important that we understand these biases so that we can prevent them in ourselves. But it’s also very helpful in understanding how other people think. And you can use some of these cognitive biases to steer people, and help move them in your direction.

The Opportunity Frame

Here’s another cognitive bias that gets in the way of our ability to persuade, opportunity costs. Anytime you do something, you forgo doing something else. That’s an opportunity cost. Any time you spend $1 on one thing, that’s a dollar you’re not spending on something else. That’s an opportunity cost. Oftentimes, you will use the opportunity cost frame when someone is trying to convince you and you need to push back a little bit.

Here’s an example. Imagine that you are an architect and that I am your client. And we have a certain budget.  And you, as an architect have a certain amount of time to devote to this. And I’d say, you know, I was thinking, we could do one of the overhangs at our house, we should do an oculus, create a big hole there so the sun can come in.  So you’re rolling your eyes as an architect, and again, you have to be deft. You have to be political. You have to be diplomatic. One thing that you can do to persuade me is to bring opportunity cost to the surface.

You can tell me, Okay, that’s an interesting idea, the oculus. We can do it but with our budget, tell me what you want to give up to get that. Whoa. Give something up? Another way, for example, is, I’m on a fixed amount of time to do this. What don’t you want me not to do in order to get you your oculus? What I haven’t done initially, is thought about the opportunity costs.

By your raising the opportunity costs, by putting your message in that opportunity cost frame. I start thinking about them and say wait for a second, this idea that I have isn’t free, There is a cost to it, as there’s a cost to every decision, every action that we take. And so when you’re pushing back on people putting the opportunity cost frame around things can help convince people to stay back.

The Experience Frame

I want you to think back on the last 12 months. Think about something that you bought that is memorable and meaningful to you. My guess is that it’s probably not a pair of socks. My guess is that it’s probably not a mobile phone. My guess is probably something like a vacation that you took. That’s etched in your memory now, forever. My guess is it might be something like a dog, who has enlivened and enriched your family’s life.

When social scientists look at what people remember and what they value, they tend to remember and value experiences more than goods and services. They derive satisfaction not from, say, the television itself that they just purchased but from the experience of sitting around with their family watching a musical or having a regular Sunday night movie night in front of that television set. The experience is more enriching. The experience is more valuable.

And so, a way to frame your message is to put it in the experience frame. So take what you’re selling, whether it’s an idea, whether it is a product, and put it in terms of an experience. So let’s say you’re selling a car. You’re selling a used car. You can talk about the specifics of it, what kind of engine it has, but people are going to be able to find that. People are going to be able to search for that on their own. You can put it in terms of how much mileage is in the used car that you’re selling.

You can put it in terms of what kind of gas mileage it gets, and that’s important but you can also frame it in terms of the experience the tractor buyer would have. You can say, you know what, I used this car and I drove my kids to soccer practice in this car. It’s a great thing for doing. And you know as a parent, the things and opportunities to have to get deep conversations with your kids sometimes is in the car, and so this is a great car for doing that.

We tend to value a fairly universal set of experiences. What do we like? We like novelty. To some extent, we like challenges. To some extent we like relaxation. We like being with people we care about. And that common set of experiences is really what gives us satisfaction as human beings. And so what you can do is you can elevate your offering, again by putting it into this experience frame and make it in some ways, not only more viable but make it more valuable to the person who’s buying it.

The Less Is More Frame

Another one I like is something I call the less-is-more frame. We have been seduced by the belief that we’ll be more persuasive to other people if we offer lots of choices. You can have it any way you want. You can have it in any style you want. You can have it in whatever color you want. And the truth is that offering people choices can be persuasive up to a point, and there’s this famous study that exemplifies this.

There are two researchers at Stanford that set up shop in a grocery store, and they were purportedly selling jam. So in one instance, they offered free tasters of 24 different varieties of jam. In another instance, they just offered 6 varieties. Now, 24 varieties of jam are a great deal. And not surprisingly, when you offer 24, more people tasted the jam. But we’re interested in selling, right? It’s not a masterclass about tasting, but a masterclass about selling. Which sold more? When they offer 24 varieties of jam, 3% of the customers bought the jam. When they offered fewer options, 30% bought it.

Less is more. Fewer options are more persuasive. And this goes to something that’s really, really important. The choice is valuable but it has a ceiling on it. Suppose that I am a small business person and you are someone selling enterprise software. I’m running my own business. I got 10 employees. I’m working my butt off. I’m a little bit harried. And you come in there and told me to upgrade my computer systems. And I might agree with you. Then you’d tell me that there are 11 ways to upgrade my systems. I would most probably tell you that I don’t have the time to try those 11 different things. And push you back. But if you come to me and told me, say three ways to do it. Most likely than not, I would agree to your offer.

Again, there’s this idea that we have that more is always better. What I want to emphasize, in many realms of life, is that more isn’t always better. Better is better and fewer options can be much more clarifying. And your job, as a persuader, is to narrow the set of options in a way that is useful and enlightening for the person you’re trying to persuade.

The Contrast Frame

There’s a famous story in the annals of marketing and advertising, a very well-known story. It might even be true. It involved a fellow named Rosser Reeves, who is a legendary ad man in the 1950s. He’s legendary for a couple of reasons. He came up with the lovely phrase, unique selling proposition. Second, he made one of the very first political commercials ever, the famous animated, I like Ike singsong commercial.

There’s a famous story about Rosser that goes like this. He’s out to lunch with a friend, and he’s in New York City. He sees a blind man. The man is sitting on the ground and has a receptacle for coins. It’s a very sad story and made even sadder than the fact that there aren’t many coins in the man’s receptacle. The blind man has a sign that says – I am blind. So Rosser Reeves supposedly famously says to his friend, that he can add four words to the man’s sign that will dramatically increase that man’s money he’s going to collect. His friend teased him saying he does not believe Rosser.

So Rosser walks over to the man and starts talking to him. He took the cardboard sign, and he wrote four additional words on top of the word that says – I am blind. What he wrote was this: It is Springtime and I am blind. That’s the contrast principle. And as the legend goes, the coins started piling up, and the story has a very happy ending. That’s the idea there. We understand that this person can’t see. Compared to what? Compared to being someone like me on a beautiful spring day and seeing everything. That’s the contrast principle at work.

And again, technically, we understand things in relative terms and not in absolute terms. What does that mean? Is this expensive? Compared to what? Am I tall? Compared to who? Is this a good place to visit? Compared to where? The single most important question in sales and persuasion is not what’s in it for me. That’s what we’re taught in sales training classes. What’s in it for me? That’s an important question. It’s the second most important question. The most important question in sales and persuasion is “compared to what?” The way you make something clear is by contrasting it with something else, not letting it sit on its own.

The Blemish Frame

Another frame is what we call the blemish frame. As persuaders, whether we are in an official sales encounter or whether we’re just in our personal lives, what we offer isn’t often perfect. It might have a few blemishes. So a dilemma that we confront is- do we reveal that blemish, or do we conceal the blemish? And once again, science gives us some guidance, a really beautiful study out of Stanford University where they did the following.

They had people sit in front of computers and decide whether to buy hiking boots. So one set of people looked at the hiking boots, and it had the whole list of positive attributes. Like, these hiking boots have a 5-year warranty. They have waterproof soles. They’ve been endorsed by a hiking magazine. So a long, long list of positives. The other group saw the same hiking boots and the same long list of positives. But at the bottom where it said- but unfortunately, they come in only two colors. So they’re revealing the blemish.

Who is more likely to buy the hiking boots, a long list of positives, or a long list of positives followed by a small negative? The answer – is the second group. Now, why is that? You might think that it’s because the seller was being honest and open, and that could be part of it, yes, but what really is going on was something that’s so important, probably the meta of everything that we’re discussing, which is this – In the long list of positives, you didn’t have anything to compare it to. With the long list of positives followed by a small negative, that small negative triggered that very important compared-to-what question.

So you look at that long list of positives. You see the tiny negative, and you say, two colors compared to all this great stuff? What a great deal. I’m going to take this. Again, it’s a little bit counterintuitive. Now, it does not work in every circumstance, and we want to be clear about that. What we know from the research is, that it has to be a small blemish. It can’t say that – oh, these hiking boots have giant gaping holes in the bottom of them. And it has to be a small blemish, and actually, sequence matters here.

It’s more effective when it follows a long list of positives. But sometimes our instincts theorize us in the wrong direction. I have felt it myself. It’s like, I’m trying to make an offer. I am trying to get someone going along., and I know that what I have to offer is good, but maybe not perfect. And was really hoping that that one small blemish would not come up in the conversation. What I want to suggest to you is that in those circumstances, when you have a lot of positives but a small negative, is that you actually reveal that small negative because revealing that small negative is almost like a light switch. Boom! It shines a light on all those other positives by triggering the compared-to-what question.

The Potential Frame

This one’s called the potential frame. And it really surprised me. And just as bad, it made me realize I was doing things wrong most of my life. Here’s what this research showed. They were asking people to play the role of a general manager of an NBA team, and they were offered different profiles of players. In one, it was a rookie who’d never played in the NBA before. And another one was a five-year veteran. And the question was, what do you want to pay that person in the sixth year? So what do you pay the rookie when he gets to the sixth year? What do you pay this veteran next year?

So you’ve got the veteran stats. Then they say, we project that this rookie’s stats are going to be this over the five years, and it was the same stats as the veteran. They wanted to pay the rookie more for his sixth year, even though he had the exact same numbers. Why? Because he had greater potential. Buyers tend to overvalue potential more than they should. This is super important in a job interview. In many cases, as we are interviewing for a job, we’re persuaders trying to get someone to hire us, and we spend a lot of time talking about all that we’ve accomplished. And that could be important. Let’s not discount that. But I don’t want you to do is to spend all your time talking about that and none of your time talking about your potential.

Potential, weirdly enough, is often more persuasive than actual experience. The reason this is effective, I think, is because potential creates uncertainty. When we don’t know what something is going to be like, we start filling in the blanks. And often, people fill in the blanks and make decisions based on what they imagine to be very positive things. And so by emphasizing potential in those kinds of circumstances, you’re creating uncertainty. The other person is filling in that uncertainty with something positive.

The problem that we sometimes have is that when people go further along in their careers, they always go back to their experience, which is very important, but they don’t talk enough about their potential. It is very important if you’re looking for a promotion. You’ve been doing this one role for three or four years. You want to do something else. You want your boss to promote you. You can do a lot of laundry list of what you’ve accomplished in your current job, but the boss might think that you’re too good at that job and lets you stay there instead of promoting you. What you want to do is you want to talk about your potential because potential creates uncertainty that your boss then fills in.

The Sunk Costs Frame

There’s another cognitive bias that leads to yet another frame. This bias is called the sunk cost fallacy. So many of us fall prey to this. Again, what you want is to watch it in yourself and use it to your advantage with others. Sunk cost fallacy is essentially this, I bought tickets to a concert, say, two tickets for $75 apiece. I paid $150 for the tickets. I can’t get a refund. I’ve already bought them. On the night of the concert, it’s cold. It’s rainy. The venue’s far away. I’m kind of burnt out from my day on the job. I feel like I have a cold coming on. Should I go to that concert?

And a lot of you would say, of course, you have to go since you have already spent $150 on these two tickets. That’s the sunk cost fallacy. If you go to the concert or don’t go to the concert, you already spent that $150. It doesn’t matter. What you want to do is you want to make the decision about what you should do next. And what it might be is not to go to the concert as the best thing that you can do because you’re really not into it and you’re out that $150 regardless of what you do.

And so people tend to overvalue costs that are already sunk. Don’t do that. Those are sunk costs. What you want to do is you want to look prospectively, not retrospectively. So be wary of the sunk cost fallacy when you are a buyer. And where appropriate, keep in mind when you’re a seller.

The Anchoring Frame

Anchoring is a very important cognitive bias. It’s one that you should be aware of and one that you can actually deploy to your advantage. Anchoring, in plain and simple terms, is that the first thing that people hear plants in their head stays there and has a disproportionate impact on how they think and what they believe than you would imagine.

There’s a famous experiment about this. Here’s what they did. They had what they called a wheel of fortune – it was rigged though -that spun numbers. And for half the group, the number spun to 10. The other half of the people, the number spun to 65. Then they asked these people, how many African countries are in the United Nations? The people who got the 10, said there were 25 countries on average. The people who saw the 65 thought there were 45 countries on average. The answer is 53, by the way.

That’s weird, right? That’s what I am talking about cognitive bias. Your brain is screwy in that way. What you got on your spin shouldn’t matter at all in your estimation of how many countries are in the United Nations, but it does. It’s the quirk of the human mind, this anchoring bias. It’s just that whatever we hear first shapes our views more than it should. It’s almost like a defect. And so what you have to do is you have to be aware of the defect and act around it.

Let’s say that you’re a designer and you’re selling your services to a client. You’re selling a design project. I think, there’s a good argument for making the first offer, especially if there’s going to be a wide disparity in price. If the client tells you, let’s say, a $10,000 project, don’t make a discussion about whether or not it’s really a $10, 000 project. I want you – if the true price of what you deserve as a creator is much higher than that, I want you to go in there and say, yeah, for this project, this is a $70,000 project. Those are two very different discussions. Now, you can’t come up with the anchor out of nowhere. It has to be based on something. It has to be based on value and going rates and so forth. But, your ability to make the first offer often allows you to set the terms of a negotiation, to set the terms of a conversation.

As with many of these things, the most important element here is being aware. I am not immune to the anchoring bias. You’re not immune to the anchoring bias. If we don’t pay attention to it, it’s going to hurt us. If we pay attention to it, we can actually use it to our advantage.

Choose Frames Wisely

You don’t need to use a frame on every single thing. You don’t need to repeat frames over and over again. Let’s think about it like this. Let’s think that we have a workshop. You have a variety of different frames. You have the less is more frame. You have the blemish frame. You have the experience frame.  Look at that shelf and ask yourself if you need to frame in that circumstance. This might be a job for the less is more frame. Pull it off your shelf, and bring it there. And help the person you’re trying to persuade see things your way. If you do that, you’re going to be more persuasive. You’re going to be more convincing.