Framing

Do this at your next family dinner or staff meeting. Put something square on the table, a box, a book, anything, and ask everyone to describe what they see. Some will describe only the box. Some will describe the table, the light, the room. Some will describe what it reminds them of. Then watch what happens next. Do the box-only people change their answer after hearing the others? Who leads, who follows, who thinks? Now imagine how differently these same people view everything else. Do you understand why eyewitnesses disagree?

We all have to make sense of the world, so we build frames to view it through. The frame decides what we notice, what we ignore and what it all means. A problem frame, a solution frame. A curious frame, an angry frame. A “contractors always rip you off” frame. A “this is an investment in the house” frame. Your customer walks in already holding one, and most of the time they chose it long ago without knowing they chose.

The frame decides what a fact means

Here is why this matters for selling. The same fact changes meaning inside a different frame. “This will take six weeks” inside a problem frame means six weeks of disruption, dust and living out of boxes. Inside a solution frame it means “he is not rushing it; the last guy rushed it.” Your price of twelve thousand inside a “what does it cost” frame is a big number. Inside a “what does it cost me to do nothing” frame it might be the smaller number. You did not change the fact. The frame changed what it weighed.

I have watched owners argue facts with customers for an hour and get nowhere, because they never touched the frame. You cannot win a fact inside a frame that makes the fact mean something bad. You have to gently offer a different frame and let the customer step into it, if they choose to.

Structure and content

Let me give you the distinction that changed how I think about this. Suppose you have a building, and the building is condemned. Does it really matter what furniture you put in it? Will the house get better if you furnish it nicely? Most of us, when something is not working, keep changing the furniture. New brochure, new offer, new discount. But if the frame the customer is holding is condemned, “all of you people are the same,” no piece of furniture fixes it. Often it is the house, not the furniture, that needs replacing.

So before you present, ask yourself what house you are walking into. What frame is this person holding about your trade, about spending money, about themselves as a buyer? A homeowner who has been burned holds a frame you did not build, and every fact you offer gets placed in that frame. Your job in that first conversation is to show them, honestly, that a different building exists. The furnishing comes later.

Offering a new frame without arguing

You do this with questions more than statements. “What would make this feel like a good decision two years from now?” pulls a person out of “how much does it cost this month.” “What happened last time, and what do you want to be different?” acknowledges the old frame and opens a door out of it. “If we take the price off the table for a minute, what matters most to you?” lets them look at their own frame from the outside.

You can also offer the frame directly, as long as you offer it rather than impose it. “Some people come to me thinking about this as an expense, and some see it as one less thing to worry about. I don’t know which you are, but I’d rather you decide that before we talk numbers.” Notice that you have not told them what to think. You have shown them two frames and left the choice with them.

Now the harder part. Which frame are you selling from? If you walk in through a “they probably can’t afford me” frame or a “they’re going to shop me against three others” frame, every word you say will be furnished for that house. Have you done the same thing in the same way before and not gotten what you wanted? Most likely the structure is wrong, not the content. Change the frame you bring into the room and the room changes.

This week

Write down the three objections you hear most often. Under each one, write the frame that makes it an objection: what does the customer have to believe for this to be a problem? Then write one question you could ask that would let them see the same fact through a different frame, and use it in a real conversation this week. Notice whether the objection softens or simply moves.

That is two hours of writing, and it is free. Changing the frame you bring into the room is the longer project. It tends to arrive one conversation at a time, and you notice it mostly in hindsight, when a meeting that used to feel like a fight simply does not.

When you look at a situation that went wrong recently, was it the furniture or the house?