Master the 3A Reframing Framework to Boost Sales Success

I have over 100 sales people across our portfolio that does over $250 million a year in this video I'm going to teach

you one sales skill that separates the best from the rest and it's so powerful I've never taught it before and so I'm

going to cover the 3A framework of reframing which is the skill I'm going to teach you and the five rules for

using it ethically so what's reframing reframing is the one to three sentences that you say after a prospect says

anything but yes that increases the likelihood that whatever your next thing you say gets them to buy so here's how a

reframe might sound someone might say say hey uh how many certifications do your trainers have now this is a trap

question because it's basically a blind question where whatever you say in response Prospect gets to be the judge

of whether or not they accept that and then they choose to buy or not and you don't know what the right answer is and

so rather than answer the question you ask a question about the question and so you'd say something like well which

certifications are you looking for specifically the next version of this might be someone says uh how many

questions I'm going be able to ask via email in support now whatever number you give they might say oh that's that's not

enough or that's too many or whatever it is and then they say no for that reason I don't want to buy so instead you might

say well why do you want to ask additional questions how many questions do you want to ask is there a purpose

that you're trying to solve with this like what are you most afraid of see that was two or three questions in a row

that can reframe without answering the question they gave me and one of the biggest lessons that I teach in sales is

the person asking the questions is the one who's in control and if you've ever seen the Hollywood movies where they're

like I'm the one asking the questions here it's because the person who ask the questions is the one who's in control of

the conversation as soon as they start asking the questions you're on defense which is not where you want to be and

the reframing process I'm about to show you has sold things as low as 100 bucks all the way up to Million Dollar Plus

service packages and it's sold them in person on the phone via Zoom from stage wherever which way you can imagine this

works so in a second I'm going to give you the 3 a framework and five rules for using it because this is unbelievably

powerful and in use the right way it helps lots of people make good decisions use the wrong way you become a very bad

person give a bad reputation for sales so the reason I started thinking about this was I was writing and reviewing our

closing manual for our closers and I had this little piece right before all the closes says hey by the way make sure

that you reframe the question before you enter into the close but the thing is is I realized as I was walking through the

sales Flor the other day I heard someone just immediately fir back an obstacle overcome and it seemed very combative

and I was like ah they're not they're not getting the the reframe part and I realized that that little reframe little

bubble was one of if not the most important part of handling sales and so if you think about what the most

productive sales people do the people who close the highest percentage of sales what do they do they ask for the

sale more times than anyone else now here's the problem with that is that if you ask more times than anyone else the

wrong way you'll get prospects to hate you and if prospects hate you they won't buy from you and so the idea is we want

to be able to ask ask for the sale as many times as soon asly possible which means the way that we ask for the sale

or how we frame our ask should not decrease rapport with the customer and so the idea is we want to continue to

maintain Rapport the entire time so that we can then ask as many times as we darn well please so here's the 3A framework

that I teach the first a is acknowledge all right this is where you build rapport with the prospect version one

all right and the way that we do that is by saying what they said back to us now there's a couple benefits from this one

is when you say it back to them they think that you're actively listing which of course you should but the other part

of it is that it buys you time to think about what you're going to say next and so it gives you a little bit of space to

process before you give your overcome or your handling of whatever their objection is the second piece and this

is part of why this seems more natural with the most professional guys is that you this is the this is the really sexy

part you associate all right now there's three associations that I'm going to show you how to do but

what you do is you associate the question they asked with the type of behavior that someone who gets the best

results from your product or service would ask and so basically when they feel like they're taking a step away

from buying you say that's an amazing question that's actually a question that a lot of the best customers we have ask

and so actually you just say nope that means that you're more likely to buy the third thing is that after you have made

the association you've made you've acknowledged what they said you've made the association then you ask your next

question after you've properly reframed what you're going to say next so let's dive into this so like a lawyer in an

interrogation they never ask questions they don't already know the answers to and you as a salesperson want to only

ask questions that you know the answers to and if you are ever going to answer questions you want to know that you have

the right answer before you respond and so when we do the acknowledgement let's walk through the example I had earlier

so they say well what kind of certifications do your trainers have and I say so you're curious about what our

certifications are it's a great question it's actually shows that you're really rational person and you're making a

serious decision here which is amazing so what I did was boom We restated it boom we made our association and then I

would ask an i you can call it an attack it sounds a little bit more aggressive than it is but you basically attack the

frame of the question you say hey which certification you looking for specifically and the thing is is most

people have never asked a question about their question they usually ask questions because they feel like they're

supposed to to make an informed decision but most of the time they don't even know what they're asking and so they're

like I don't know it's like well let me tell you what we do have now if the person's like uh do they have nasman Ace

certifications now if I don't have that for my trainer specifically I would then say why those certifications

specifically right and then they would say well I I I heard that they're good it's like well those are amazing

certifications I agree with them I'm not disagreeing and then I would say well we have a couple other ones and I'll tell

you why we chose these rather than those and now I can answer it without failing right now if I just said uh our guys

don't have that or they have this I might have lost the sale right there and so the thing is is that this applies to

basically any question that someone asks it could even be like um you know I need to think about it it' be like awesome

what's your main concern right like immediately I'm not I'm not letting them out on that or like hey what are the

main variables using to decis make the decision or what would make this a no right these are all questions what are

you most afraid of having happen right if I'm deeper in the sale obviously that wouldn't be my first one I would say

what's your main concern then we'd sort the question from there but many times people ask you questions in the sale

that you don't need to answer you just ask more questions about their question and as long as you're the one asking

questions you're the one who's in control which leads me to rule number one of the triaa so here's a little

psychology for you as counterintuitive as this seems a prospect believes almost nothing about what you said say in

almost everything that they say and so the goal is not to tell them they're a good fit the goal is to ask them

questions so that they then say I think I'm a good fit for this or yeah that makes sense that's how you can get them

you breadcrumb them to The Logical solution which is that they should buy your thing and by the way if you like

some of this more advanced sales stuff we go through this stuff in depth at our acquisition. comom scaling Workshop so

my sales director he personally meets with all the companies uh that show up and helps them

issue whether it's nurture issues whether it's compensation issues is stuff that we understand really well and

so if you are a business owner you are looking to scale check them out acquisition. comom hit the scale button

and my team will be in touch so a lot of beginner salespeople think that they should want and this is the worst

question ever asked in sales is do you have any questions it's literally asking them to have objections and asking them

to take the wheel of the conversation you're literally saying here take control over this because I don't know

what I'm doing so please don't do that train that out of your team the second thing is that as soon as you start

answering questions again they're the judge jury and executioner of whether or not your answers are good and if your

salespeople are not as knowledgeable as you or your technicians which is often true in any kind of service business the

people delivering are not necessarily the same or as knowledgeable as the people who are selling it is that they

basically set themselves up for failure and I'll give you a quick overcome for this if someone gets a little bit like

hey why aren't you answering my questions you say listen it would be like you asking the secretary about how

your heart surgery is going to be with the surgeon you're going to want to talk to the surgeon and I'll give you a

different one I call this the mechanic version which is hey you're asking me what's wrong with your car and it would

be unethical for me to answer it without looking under the hood first and so we can give you much better answers on the

inside once we started working with your business or with your whatever right with your body it doesn't really matter

right but you can use that analogy to kind of get around it and then I say this and this seals it and if anyone

this is how I say it and if anyone does give you an answer on the first call without already having looked under the

hood after already giving you a physical or doing the an assessment run the other way because it means they're just trying

to tell you whatever they can to get you to buy and now I have the ethical High ground and they can't ask any more

questions about that rule number two no one can disagree with a question I tell my team be like smoke and so you can't

catch smoke because all you're doing is you're basically always sides shifting in terms of whatever they say you're

like o let me ask you a question about that oh can you be more specific hey what are the variables you're thinking

about and that way you're always engaging with them and they're the ones doing the talking and then you get to

decide whether their answers are good or not and whether or not they're a good fit for the program now we're not going

to tell them that that they're a good fit for the program we're going have them make that decision but in terms of

judge jury executioner you want that to be you here's why rule number two is so important you can never disagree with a

prospect now you may you may you know actually disagree with them but you don't want to voice disagreement with

the prospect because you never win a sale by winning an argument anyone who's engaged in an argument both people lose

and more importantly for you as a salesperson you lose the sale and so the objective is actually to never disagree

with a prospect and the point is to get them to change their minds and we can only do that in an agreeable way people

don't change their minds when in a bad mood or they feel insulted right and so we do that by asking them questions now

there are ways to ask questions that seem insulting and that's what triaa helps solve and we're going to dive more

on that as we go through this but it also means that we can ask questions about their questions which is something

that a lot of beginner salespeople don't know they then assume they know what this person is asking about and so they

have this really vague question and then they try and come up with the quote right answer and they fail every time

and by the way this is just the Ultra Mega hack is that if you don't know how to answer the question you can always

ask more questions about their question so let me show you how this sounds in reality so someone says I need to think

about it we say totally understand what are the main things you're considering what are the variables that you're

considering in your decision what's your main concern what are you most afraid of having happen What would make this a no

and one of my favorite questions by the way is well then what would it take for you to say

yes now let's say someone says I don't have time timing is off right now for me you say great totally

understand acknowledge timing is kind of tough for you right now I think it's smart that you're already thinking about

implementation our biggest success stories are actually people who think they're the process the same way you are

right now so what would make it a good time and so as you work through this this these two give you the space make

the positive Association they take a step back you say I feel you I totally understand now they're back to neutral

and then you iate with the thing that's closer to the sale and then you move the move the conversation forward with the

ask so let's do another one someone says I need to talk to my spouse you say totally understand I think it's really

sensible that you'd want to talk to your spouse and super fair just so I understand out of curiosity what parts

do you think now I'm here what parts do you think they wouldn't like what parts do you think they would disagree with

and so we've now moved from I have to talk to my partner to now we're back in the sale talking about the specific

things and once we get the prospect to name those things then we can attack those right we're still in the sale so

let's say someone says I hate this particular feature you say totally get it I hate them all too just kidding let

me just ask you a real question why not and then we can get we're back into it right like all of these things is people

will make statements as though they are deal Enders and beginners will take a statement like that and think oh I guess

they're not going to buy and that's couldn't be further from the truth you just continue to ask questions about why

they don't like something and by continuing to ask questions about their questions you can stay in it and keep

asking because that's the point the best closers make the most asks which leads me to rule number three which is tell

them what their question means so this is a zoom in on associate if you're a salesperson with at least two years of

experience and you're enjoying this stuff this is like just the surface of the type of stuff that we train our

teams on and if you'd like to work at acquisition. comom or one of our portfolio companies we are always

looking for exceptional sales people we have a lot of roles open right now in sales and so you can go to acquisition.

/are and hit the business consultant button that'll that'll take you to the uh application for that if you're good

just apply we're willing to be flexible on payments based on experience and whatnot but just put in the application

so the first time I had this used on me I was actually getting pitched investment or private wealth management

from somebody and I wanted to just get out of the conversation as fast as I could because I was like I already have

a wealth advisor like I'm good and the guy just said oh that's amazing 90% of the clients we have that shift over are

already have a wealth advisor so it means you already know how a lot of these things work which means you'll be

up the learning curve and I was like what just happened I was like I thought I was getting out of this and now I'm

more like the customers that that ultimately buy and I ended up not buying from that particular guy but I did think

wow that was such a powerful reframe how can I use that in all of my selling and so the prospect has not had

this conversation as many times as you you should never be caught off guard with the questions or the statements

that they're going to make remember you've had a thousand of these conversations the fact that somebody

could surprise you is ridiculous you have to practice this is why we train and so a prospect is trying to just

throw up bombs or smoke screens to get out of the sale and again to be clear what I believe is bad selling is one of

two key things is one is you sell an unqualified Prospect which basically means that you're lying to them that

they're going to get a good result or that they somehow are qualified when they're really not which really

underpins the main thing of sales in my opinion which we have across really all of our communication stuff in the

company which is State the facts and tell the truth if you state the facts and tell the truth and this person is

qualified then you have the ethical obligation to ask as many times as you possible and get them to pull their head

out of their ass so that they can see the world clearly instead of it being dark and full of which is is up

their ass and help them make a decision to help themselves that's the point now if you get weird about resistance then

you don't understand the job of sales the the best sales people are comfortable when other people feel like

there's conflict all right and so they're able to always deescalate which is why be like smoke is so key it's a

dance not a fight it's seduction not rape all right the idea is that we want to always have consent from the person

we always want them to want to be there and people like you when you ask questions about them people like you

when you compliment them and you say hey that's a really smart question hey that makes you just like the people who have

the best success stories and I'll show you a little bit more about some more associations in the next rule which

leaves to rule number four use Straw Men for tough truths so we've all been in a sale where someone just says something

ridiculous where you can clearly see that they beliefs around the world are so flawed that you have to have kind of

a papa talk right now there's different ways of entering this some people say hey can I put my coach hat on instead of

my friend hat so the thing is is that in all of these reframes you're basically getting permission from the person to

give them a harsh truth now if you're a younger guy and let's say you sell B2B much tougher to do so if you're 22-year-

old sales guy and you're talking to a 45-year-old you know $10 million year plumber he probably doesn't give a

about you trying to put your coach hat on he just thinks you're a child and he doesn't care at all to the same degree

if you say hey well can I share something that really worked well for me again the same degree that puts you

above him and he's not going to like that and so I use three different strategies of Straw Men and strawman in

argumentation is basically like basically putting I use the word foil normally but people don't know what that

means but basically it's like you basically put up this caricature of someone who's just like them that you

can then have the tough conversation with without insulting the prospect so I'll give you three different ways that

we do this so the first way is when you make the association so this is us going deep on associate here okay so this is

where someone says whatever it is totally understand that you're coming from that direction I would ask those

questions too now we make the association so one of three so number one you can say it's so funny you ask

that because I had someone just earlier today who asked the same questions can I share with you what I just shared with

them now the thing is is that because I'm now talking about a conversation I had with

someone else I can now be brutal as to this other person but I'm not saying it to the Prospect and so it's not

insulting the second way that you can do this is that you do it in reference and I said it earlier to a successful past

customer that's so cra like totally understand you know what that actually makes you just like Sarah who had a

similar Plumbing business and actually crushed it with our marketing agency and so now we've made the association and

she asked this question too boom and then we and then we handle the objection all right and so these Straw Men are

particularly important when you are going to answer a question so everything up to this point has been basically

sidest stepping being like smoke but sometimes you will have to make the answer and so if we do need to give them

an explanation or kind of break their belief when they're say I don't have time you're like oh it's not really a

timing thing it's a priorities question but if you say that to somebody and you don't have as much Rapport you're going

to lose the sale right like that is the logical thing it everybody has the same amount of time every day it's really

just a question of priorities but if you say it at the wrong time they're going to be like screw you right and so by

doing the straw man or putting the foil up or the car that you can then attack or talk to in front of this Prospect it

creates a third party that's neutral the third way of using the associate is that you can appeal to

Authority so if you're in a business where the CEO is edified or the CEO is seen as a as a as a as a uh as a

respectable person or an expert in the field either can be fame or it can be influence or can be expertise it doesn't

really matter which one but as long as they have some level of expertise instead

of appealing to your own authority you appeal to theirs which is it's so funny that you ask that Alex just told me this

thing earlier today can I share it with you right and so then the person appeals to someone else's Authority and then

shares it they're the messenger they're not saying I'm not saying this he said it and I'm just sharing it with you

these sound like tiny Sid steps but this type of triple reframing is what separates beginners from pros and it and

when you do it this way people actually like to be sold by you because they feel like they're being hurt you make

associations that are saying hey that's smart hey that's reasonable totally understand why you'd say that like these

are all things like that's a rational decision hey I think that's a fair point those are all things that someone wants

to hear they're like hey he's listening he thinks I'm intelligent or I'm rational or he's not discarding my

decision everybody wants to be validated right so it's the same thing as the angry boat but just in a sales

conversation so in the angry boat for customer success or customer service if someone's upset you don't disagree with

them and say hey it wasn't that big of a deal sorry we were 5 minutes late it never works because you're disagreeing

with them you're invalidating the reason that they're angry so you have to get more angry you have to go above and

that's where you say hey that's a totally reasonable concern rather than saying that's a stupid question right

like you might feel that way but you don't say that and the reason I realize this especially with the association one

is I heard my sales guys and they were they were having a tougher time using some of the closes and I was like

they're like yeah you know some of them aren they sound a little you know tough they're a little harsh and I was like no

no no it's and when I realized that I was like oh it's because they're not prefacing it with this if you preface

with this you can say almost anything and this allows you to cut to the heart of the matter way faster instead of

dancing around it because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings which leads me to rule number five which is retain

childlike curiosity at all times so one of my favorite ways of training this concept is actually training a physical

thing that you do with your body even if you're on a sales call and they can't see you because your tone will change

based on how you're standing if you're smiling or not your voice will come out different which by the way I encourage

you to have a mirror if you're on the phone next to you in your sales booth and if you do Zoom obviously you can see

your own little image there but I like to have people say huh and you say it just like that and huh also buys you two

or three seconds before you say your next thing say huh that's so interesting you'd ask that question can I can I ask

you a little bit more about that like if someone says something really nasty to you right but if you if you

retain that way the goal is to seek to understand not whenn and the way that I try to keep this and if you're a sales

guide put a little sticky note above your camera or wherever you look while you're selling which is keep the human

number one all right and so this is a really powerful frame that I actually learned from Leila for having hard

conversations on the team but it actually applies to sales which is if you genuinely believe that the product

you have is going to help this person and this is a qualified prospect that you're talking to then you want to

understand their concerns so that you can help them get over them because you know this is the right decision for them

and so this is a frame that I like to think about so let's say you could travel back in time but you're in a

different body and you see your old self and you know what the future's going to be and you might say okay I have to

convince this person to buy Nvidia 10 years ago and so or I have to buy Apple stock or I have to buy Bitcoin whatever

it is I don't really care the thing is is you know that this thing is going to go through the roof but the person

you're talking to doesn't know you from adom think about how you talk to that person now remember they don't know who

you are even though you know you you would have absolute empathy for your old self and be like listen I totally

understand this seems totally crazy but let me walk you through what I think is going to happen right let me let's like

what are what are your main concerns what are you most afraid of right what would it take for you to say yes what

would it take for us to take the next step together it allows you to make sure that you're focusing on the prospect

rather than the product and so you don't close sales by being right you close sales by making the prospect right and

so the big understanding here is that you want to understand them not beat them because as soon as it feels

combative you've already lost the sale if they feel like you won an argument logically you've lost the sale the point

is to make money not to be right and so we want them to feel good about The Logical decision that we're helping them

make and if anything you want to be you want to be a face hero in this in their in their Journey you're like hey I'm

just I'm just the guide here I'm just I'm going to just share the information that I think will help you make a good

decision right Ah that's a great question can I provide a little bit of context on that just from someone that

had this experience earlier today right like all of these things are things that will allow you to give those hard truths

to close the deal the reason the association is so important is that it gives the prospect a label to then live

up to and so this is a 2011 version of selling but if you say Hey you seem like a really honest person or hey that's a

really smart decision or hey that's a really smart question if I then give them that label when I get closer to the

close I might bring that back up and then associate smart people by this thing right hey that's you must be a

good family man right because you had some spouse objection fine seems like your family man family is really

important to you I think that's awesome it's super admirable now when I get to the end of the sale I can bring up the

fact that this is a family man and because he's a family man he should buy and so it allows me to pair whatever

their obstacles were with things that I'm going to bring up in the clothes Pro tip my Universal response for almost

anything so I walked through the sales floor and one of the guys was on the phone and I was like you should come and

I just walked through the room and then the guy was like ah and so my sales guy was like so you coming and the iy was

like yeah and it a super weak right he was obviously not sold yet so I actually was like give me the phone and so I

hopped on the phone and I said dude what are you afraid of and so when you ask what are you most afraid of it gets you

to the heart of the issue as fast as POS now if it's the first objection I would want to ask what's your main concern

what's your main issue what are the variables using to make the decision that's like kind of understanding so you

can triage but when I'm further along in the sale I'll usually ask hey what are you afraid of man like what are you

afraid of having happen and if someone's like I just I just need more time then you say totally understand what would

make it a no and so by doing that it still keeps you in the sale because at the end of the day like you want to make

a good decision I'm the source of your information so the best possible decision we can make is is here but

again you can only say something like that if you have Rapport in the sale and you've continue to demonstrate that

throughout if I said something like that and I didn't have Rapport they'd be like no you so it's not going to work if

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