Pitch Anything PDF

Chapter 1 The Method Here’s the “big idea” in 76 words: There is a fundamental disconnect between the way we pitch anything and the way it is received by our audience. As a result, at the crucial moment, when it is most important to be convincing, nine out of ten times we...

Chapter 1 The Method Here’s the “big idea” in 76 words: There is a fundamental disconnect between the way we pitch anything and the way it is received by our audience. As a result, at the crucial moment, when it is most important to be convincing, nine out of ten times we are not. Our most important messages have a surprisingly low chance of getting through. You need to understand why this disconnect occurs in order to overcome it, succeed, and profit. This book tells you how. I Am Not a Natural I pitch deals for a living. My job is to raise capital for businesses looking to expand rapidly or go public. I am good at it. When companies need money, I get it for them. I have raised millions for deals involving Marriott, Hershey’s, Citigroup, and many other household names—and I continue to do so at a rate of about $2 million per week. From the outside, the reasons for my success seem simple: I offer wealthy investors profitable deals that involve Wall Street banks. But others do that, too. Yet I raise a lot more money than they do. They compete in the same market. Do the same types of deals. Pitch the same kinds of facts and figures. But the numbers show I am consistently one of the best. The difference isn’t luck. It is not a special gift. And I have no background in sales. What I do have is a good method. As it turns out, pitching is one of those business skills that depends heavily on the method you use and not how hard you try. Better method, more money. Much better method, much more money. It’s no different for you. The better you are at advocating your position, the more successful you will be. Maybe you want to sell an idea to investors, convince a client to choose you over the other guy, or even explain to your boss why you should be paid more. I can help you get better at it using the five methods in this book. Pitching a Master of the Universe Over the years, I’ve pitched to—and closed deals with—some of the iconic businesspeople of our time, including founding members of Yahoo!, Google, and Qualcomm. But the story of what I can offer you cannot really be told without my explaining the day I went to pitch one of the guys Tom Wolfe would describe as a “master of the universe.” “Jonathan” (never Johnny or even John) is an investment banker who controls vast sums of capital. He gets between 600 and 800 pitches a year; that’s three to four every business day. He often makes multimillion-dollar investment decisions based on no more information than a few e-mails on his BlackBerry. As a dealmaker, this guy—and I have absolutely no intention of giving you his name; he sues everyone and anyone at a moment’s notice—is the real deal. There are three things you must know about Jonathan. First, he’s a math phenom who can calculate yield curves in his head. He doesn’t need spreadsheets. He can instantly analyze what you are pitching him. Second, he’s seen more than 10,000 deals and can detect any kind of flaw or BS no matter how well hidden. Third, he’s tough talking and, at the same time, witty and charismatic. The upshot: When he’s pitching you, his chances are good. When you’re pitching him, yours aren’t. Yet, if you want to be taken seriously in venture capital, you need to have done a deal with this guy. And so, some years ago, when I was working to raise money for a software company, I arranged to pitch Jonathan and his investment team. Given their reputation, I knew if I got them on board, it would be a lot easier to raise money from other investors who were still undecided. They’d say, “Hey, if Jonathan signed off on this, then I’m in too.” But Jonathan knew the power of his endorsement—and he wasn’t going to give me an easy win. As my pitch got underway, he made things difficult. Maybe it was for sport. Maybe he was having a bad day. But it was clear he wanted to take —and keep—control of the whole presentation. I didn’t realize this at the start, however, so, I began, as I always do, by framing (frames create context and relevance; as we will see, the person who owns the frame owns the conversation). I explained exactly what I would—and would not —be talking about, and Jonathan immediately started giving me a type of resistance called deframing, which is exactly like it sounds. For example, when I said, “We expect revenues to be $10 million next year,” he cut me off and changed the frame with, “Who cares about your made-up revenue projections. Tell me what your expenses are going to be.” A minute later, I was explaining, “Our secret sauce is such-and-such advanced technology.” And he said, “No, that’s not a secret sauce. That’s just ketchup.” I knew not to react to these comments. I pressed on. “We have a Fortune 50 company as our largest customer.” He interrupted with, “Look, I’m done here in nine minutes, so can you get to the point?” He was really making it difficult. You can imagine how hard it was to use all the right techniques: setting the frame, telling the story, revealing the intrigue, offering the prize, nailing the hookpoint, and getting the decision. Collectively, I call these the STRONG method (you will learn about these soon). Some 12 minutes after I began, what I had hoped was going to be my best pitch ever instead showed all the signs of being my one of my worst. Put yourself in my situation. After just 12 minutes of your presentation, you’ve been told that your secret sauce is ketchup. Told that your projections are made-up numbers. And that you have nine minutes left to actually make a point. I was faced with the presenter’s problem : You can have incredible knowledge about your subject. You can make your most important points clearly, even with passion, and you can be very well organized. You can do all those things as well as they can be done—and still not be convincing. That’s because a great pitch is not about procedure. It’s about getting and keeping attention. And that means you have to own the room with frame control, drive emotions with intrigue pings, and get to a hookpoint fairly quickly. (Details on those last two in a second.) I reminded myself of these steps in the face of Jonathan’s interruptions. Then I swallowed hard and hoped my nervousness wasn’t showing. I went back to my pitch, concentrating on my three objectives. I was determined. When he deframed, I reframed. When he looked disinterested, I delivered an intrigue ping (this is a short but provocative piece of information that arouses curiosity): “By the way, an NFL quarterback is also an investor.” And finally, I got him to the hookpoint, the place in the presentation where your listeners become emotionally engaged. Instead of you giving them information, they are asking you for more on their own. At the hookpoint, they go beyond interested to being involved and then committed. At the end of the 21 minutes, my pitch was complete. I knew Jonathan was in. He leaned forward and whispered, “Forget the deal for a moment. What in the hell was that? Nobody pitches like that but me.” I tried to show no emotion as I told him, “That, in general terms, is called neurofinance, an idea that combines neuroscience—how the brain works—with economics. I have taken it a step further and have broken it down into five parts” (the method we talked about above). Now, even though Jonathan has MENSA-level intelligence, he doesn’t have much interest in concepts like neuroscience. He—maybe like you— had always believed that the ability to pitch was a natural talent. But given what he had just seen me do in 21 minutes—it changed his mind. It was clear my pitching was a learned skill and not naked, natural talent like his. “You can do that all the time?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “It’s based on research about how the brain receives new ideas. And I’m raising a lot of money with it.” Jonathan hears a lot of big claims. When you listen to three or four pitches a day, your “BS detector” becomes finely tuned. So he asked, “How many hours do you have working on this neuro-whatever-it’s- called?”  He was sure my answer was going to be 20 hours. Maybe 50. I shocked him when I said, “Over 10,000 hours.” He looked at me with a wry half-smile. Giving up all pretense of being disinterested, he said, “I need you on my team. Come do this for my deals, and you’ll make a lot of money.” I had never been more flattered. Not only had Jonathan, a guy who had been on magazine covers, offered me a partnership, he had given me an even higher compliment—validation that my method worked in high- stakes situations. I turned him down. He had a reputation for being difficult to work for, and no amount of money is worth that. But his reaction persuaded me to try my approach as part of an investment company. I joined Geyser Holdings in Beverly Hills, the most profitable venture firm you have never heard of. Even as the economy cooled down (and then frosted over), I helped take Geyser from $100 million to $400 million in about four years. How I did that can serve as your blueprint for success. As you will see, it’s possible to use the PITCH method in any presentation where you need to be truly convincing. What worked for me will work for you— no matter what you do for a living. The Need for a New Method If ever there is a time to learn to pitch effectively, it is now. Funding is tight. Competition is more aggressive. On a good day, your customers are distracted by text messages, e-mails, and phone calls, and on a bad day, they are impossible to reach. If you’ve been in business for more than 10 minutes, you have figured this much out: The better you are at keeping someone’s attention, the more likely that person will be to go for your idea. But what kind of advice is this really? Telling someone, “Keep the audience’s attention” is like telling someone learning to play tennis to “hit the ball with topspin when it comes.” They know that! What they don’t know is how to do it. But it’s worth figuring out. If you have to sell anything as part of your job—a product, a service, an idea, and we all do at some point—you know how the right pitch can make a project go forward and the wrong pitch can kill it. You also understand how difficult it can be to pitch to a skeptical audience that is paying attention to you one minute and distracted by a phone call the next. But we all have to go through this because we all have to pitch if we need something. And though most of us spend less than 1 percent of our time doing it, pitching may be the most important thing we do. When we have to raise money, or sell a complicated idea, or get a promotion, we have to do it. And yet we do it incredibly badly. One reason is that we are our own worst coach. We know way too much about our own subject to be able to understand how another person will experience it in our pitch, so we tend to overwhelm that person. (We will deal with this in Chapter 4.) But the biggest reason we fail is not our fault. As you will see in the pages that follow, we don’t pitch well because there is an evolutionary flaw in our brain—a wiring kluge in our hardware—that we must understand and learn to deal with if we are ever going to pitch successfully. Dealing with the Crocodile Brain A brief history of how the brain developed will show 1. How the kluge got there. 2. Why pitching is so much more complicated than we first thought. 3. Why, as with any high-order skill, such as physics, mathematics, or medicine, pitching must be learned. The three basic parts of the brain are shown in Figure 1.1.  First, the history. Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience show that our brain developed in three separate stages. First came the old brain, or “crocodile brain”—we’ll call it the “croc brain” for short. It’s responsible for the initial filtering of all incoming messages, it generates most survival fight-or-flight responses, and it produces strong, basic emotions, too. But when it comes to decision making, the croc brain’s reasoning power is... well, primitive. It simply doesn’t have a lot of capacity, and most of what it does have is devoted primarily to the things it takes to keep us alive. When I am referring to the croc brain, I am referring to this level. The midbrain, which came next, determines the meaning of things and social situations. And finally, the neocortex evolved with a problem- solving ability and is able to think about complex issues and produce answers using reason. Figure 1.1 Three parts of the brain. The Disconnect Between Message and Receiver I learned from molecular biologist Craig Smucker that when we pitch something—an idea, product, deal, or whatever—the highest level of our brain, the neocortex, is doing the work. It’s the neocortex that is forming ideas, putting them into language, and presenting them. This is fairly intuitive. Three Brains Working Independently and Together You can actually sense how the three parts of your brain work separately from each other. When you are walking to your car and are surprised by someone shouting, you will first act reflexively with some fear. (This is the old crocodile/survival brain at work.) Then, you will try to make meaning from the situation by identifying the person doing the yelling and placing him or her in a social context. This is your midbrain trying to determine if it is a friendly coworker, an angry parking attendant, or something worse. Finally, you will process the situation in the neocortex, the problem-solving brain (which figures it out: “It’s okay. It’s just some guy yelling out to his buddy across the street.”) Our thought process exactly matches our evolution: First, survival. Then, social relationships. Finally, problem solving. Pitching anything means explaining abstract concepts—so it didn’t surprise me that ideas would be formed by the most modern, problem- solving part of the brain. But this is exactly where my thinking—and probably yours—went off track. I assumed that if my idea-making abilities were located in the neocortex (as they are), then that’s where the people listening to my pitch were processing what I had to say. It’s not. Messages that are composed and sent by your young neocortex are received and processed by the other person’s old crocodile brain. You may be where I was about 10 years ago. Back then, I subscribed to “the brain is like a computer” metaphor. With a computer, if I send you an Excel spreadsheet file, you open it and read it in Excel. This is how I thought the brain worked. If I created a message in my smart neocortex and “sent” it over to you (by telling you about it), I figured that you’d be opening that message in your neocortex. But no pitch or message is going to get to the logic center of the other person’s brain without passing through the survival filters of the crocodile brain system first. And because of the way we evolved, those filters make pitching anything extremely difficult. So instead of communicating with people, my best ideas were bouncing off their croc brains and crashing back into my face in the form of objections, disruptive behaviors, and lack of interest. Ultimately, if they are successful, your pitches do work their way up to their neocortex eventually. And certainly by the time the other person is ready to say “Yes, we have a deal,” he is dealing with the information at the highest logic center of his brain. But that is not where the other person initially hears what you have to say. Let me explain further. Because we are a soft, weak, slow species compared with just about everything else out there, we survived for millions of years by viewing everything in the universe as potentially dangerous. And because very few situations we faced back then were safe, we learned to err on the side of extreme caution. And that continues (unconsciously) to this day every time we encounter something new. It happens whenever we encounter a pitch from someone who wants us to do something. We are hardwired to be bad at pitching. It is caused by the way our brains have evolved. The fact that you are pitching your idea from the neocortex but it is being received by the other person’s croc brain is a serious problem. It’s the kluge we talked about earlier. The gap between the lower and upper brain is not measured in the two inches that separate them physically. It must be measured in millions of years (the five million years or so that it took for the neocortex to evolve, to be more precise). Why? Because while you are talking about “profit potential,” “project synergy,” “return on investment,” and “why we should move forward now”—concepts your upper brain is comfortable with—the brain of the person on the other side of the desk isn’t reacting to any of those highly evolved, relatively complicated ideas. It is reacting exactly as it should. It is trying to determine whether the information coming in is a threat to the person’s immediate survival and, if it isn’t, whether it can be ignored without consequence. The Croc Brain at Work As you are pitching your idea, the croc brain of the person sitting across from you isn’t “listening” and thinking, “Hmmm, is this a good deal or not?” Its reaction to your pitch basically goes like this: “Since this is not an emergency, how can I ignore this or spend the least amount of time possible on it?” This filtering system of the crocodile brain has a very short- sighted view of the world. Anything that is not a crisis it tries to mark as “spam.” If you got a chance to look at the croc brain’s filtering instructions, it would look something like this: 1. If it’s not dangerous, ignore it. 2. If it’s not new and exciting, ignore it. 3. If it is new, summarize it as quickly as possible—and forget about the details. And finally there is this specific instruction: 4. Do not send anything up to the neocortex for problem solving unless you have a situation that is really unexpected and out of the ordinary.  These are the basic operating policies and procedures of our brains. No wonder pitching is so difficult. Sure, after initial filtering, parts of your message move quickly through the midbrain and on to the neocortex—business meetings would be very odd otherwise—but the damage to your message and your pitch has already been done. First, given the limited focus and capacity of the croc brain, up to 90 percent of your message is discarded before it’s passed on up to the midbrain and then on to the neocortex. The crocodile brain just doesn’t process details well, and it only passes along big, obvious chunks of concrete data. Second, unless your message is presented in such a way that the crocodile brain views it to be new and exciting—it is going to be ignored. Third, if your pitch is complicated—if it contains abstract language and lacks visual cues—then it is perceived as a threat. Not a threat in the sense that the person listening to your pitch fears he is going to be attacked, but a threat because without cues and context, the croc brain concludes that your pitch has the potential to absorb massive amounts of brain power to comprehend. And that is a major threat because there just isn’t enough brain power to handle survival needs, the problems of day- to-day life, and existing work problems plus whatever unclear thing you are asking it to do. Presented with this kind of situation, a circuit breaker in your brain is tripped. The result? A neurotoxin gets attached to the potentially threatening message (your pitch). This is like a FedEx tracking number, which, in turn, routes your message to the amygdala for processing—and destruction. Now, if there is one place in the brain you do not want your pitch to end up, it is the amygdala. This is the fear circuitry of the brain. The amygdala turns messages into physical sensations like a faster heart rate, sweating, increased breathing, and increased anxiety. And it produces a feeling that makes the person want to escape from the presentation.  Pitches are sent from the modern—and smart—part of the brain: the neocortex. But they are received by a part of the brain that is 5 million years older (and not as bright.) This is a serious problem if you are trying to pitch anything. Again, this is part of the hardwiring that has allowed us to survive. A lion is chasing you, and without needing to kick it up to your highly evolved neocortex (which would spend a lot of time trying to solve the problem), the danger switch in the amygdala is flipped on, and it sends the alarm to the rest of the brain to start spitting out chemical and electrical messages that get you to Run! before you even have a chance to think. And while we don’t live in the wild any longer, our brains are still wired to work this way. Everything in the recent research points to the same conclusion: Nine out of 10 messages that enter the crocodile brain—and remember, every single pitch starts by going through the crocodile brain—end up being coded. Boring: Ignore it. Dangerous: Fight/run. Complicated: Radically summarize (invariably causing a lot to be lost in the process) and pass it in severely truncated form. We’ve been thinking about this all wrong for years. Clearly, we need a new way of pitching. Rules of Engagement There are the two questions we always ask ourselves after we have made a presentation or pitch: 1. Did I get through? 2. Was my message well received? We assume that our audience will do what we want them to do if our idea is good, if we didn’t stumble through the pitch, and if we showed a winning personality. Turns out, it doesn’t work that way. What is vitally important is making sure your message fulfills two objectives: First, you don’t want your message to trigger fear alarms. And second, you want to make sure it gets recognized as something positive, unexpected, and out of the ordinary—a pleasant novelty. Bypassing those fear alarm sensors can be extremely difficult. Creating novelty in the message can be tricky, too. But it is the only way our pitch stands any chance whatsoever because the crocodile brain wants information a certain way—simple, clear, nonthreatening, and above all, intriguing and novel. You need to communicate in these ways, or you are never going to capture people’s attention. The croc brain is picky and a cognitive miser whose primary interest is survival. It doesn’t like to do a lot of work and is high maintenance when it is forced to perform. It requires concrete evidence—presented simply in black and white—to make a decision. Minor points of differentiation don’t interest it. And this is the brain to which you are pitching. As the principal gateway to the mind, the croc brain doesn’t have a lot of time to devote to new projects. It’s overseeing a big, complex operation (taking care of survival) and can’t get bogged down in nuance and details. It likes facts clearly explained. It wants to choose between just two clearly explained options. And it needs you to get to the point fast. It goes to sleep during PowerPoint presentations, and it needs strong summarizing points to keep its attention. If it gets really excited about some new project you have presented, then it approves it. Otherwise, it gives up on it, doesn’t give it another thought, and goes on to the next issue. The harsh but true reality is that the croc brain—the source of your target’s first reaction to your pitch—is Going to ignore you if possible. Only focused on the big picture (and needs high-contrast and well- differentiated options to choose between). Emotional, in the sense it will respond emotionally to what it sees and hears, but most of the time that emotional response is fear. Focused on the here and now with a short attention span that craves novelty. In need of concrete facts—it looks for verified evidence and doesn’t like abstract concepts. When I learned these rules of engagement for dealing with the crocodile brain, I had my big “Aha” moment. I understood two very important things: First, I finally got the fundamental problem you and I have when we pitch something: We have our highly evolved neocortex, which is full of details and abstract concepts, trying to persuade the crocodile brain, which is afraid of almost everything and needs very simple, clear, direct, and nonthreatening ideas to decide in our favor. Second, I realized that when my pitches had gone well, I had inadvertently adhered to the five rules of engagement contained in the bullet points above. I had made the crocodile brain feel safe; I was feeding it short vignettes of clear, visual, and novel information; and I wasn’t making it do much work. (I also understood that when I didn’t stick to those rules of engagement, I usually failed.) Why do these rules of engagement matter for pitching? Sometimes they don’t. If you’re pitching the Google Android phone, 3D television, or a Ferrari coupe, the brain becomes so flooded with dopamine—a chemical in your brain that sends messages about pleasure and rewards— that any old pitch will work. But short of having a product that’s so sexy it’s irresistible—you have to observe the rules about how the brain works. How to do this makes up the heart of this book. What Comes Next What became clear to me after my big “Aha” moment was that I needed to bridge the gap between the way the neocortex and crocodile brain see the world. More specifically, if I wanted my pitch to get through, I needed to be able to translate all the complex ideas coming out of my neocortex and present them in a way that the crocodile brain of the person I was pitching could easily accept and pay attention to. It took me countless efforts to come up with a formula that worked. Now you are going to learn that formula. As you will see, it begins by setting the frame for your pitch, putting your big idea into an easily understood context. And then, once the frame is established, you must seize high social status so that you have a solid platform from which to pitch. Then you must create messages that are full of intrigue and novelty. To make this process easier to remember, I use the acronym STRONG: Setting the frame Telling the story Revealing the intrigue  Offering the prize Getting a decision Over the years, I’ve used this formula—which we will be exploring in detail—in deal after deal with executives from Bear Stearns, Boeing, Disney, Honda, LinkedIn, Texas Instruments, and Yamaha. Each time I pitched, I learned more about the behaviors of the croc brain, and I eventually came to the understanding that there are five separate places where you can stumble in a pitch. Each step in the process represents one of these points where missteps can be fatal. When the other person’s croc brain becomes either bored, confused, or threatened, your pitch is in trouble. In the pages ahead I will discuss how to avoid those problems and create the perfect pitch, one that gains the full endorsement of the croc brain and increases your chances of success dramatically.  Chapter 2 Frame Control It was July 2001, and I stood in front of a towering office in the heart of Beverly Hills. This was a corridor of power, both in Hollywood and the financial world, a place where careers were made, a place where deals got done. And here I was, headed to the office of a guy who controlled close to $1 billion in assets. It’s not every day you pitch someone with this level of influence. If you think I was nervous, think again. For once, I wasn’t pitching. Instead, a colleague, Tom Davis, would be pitching to this icon of corporate finance, Bill Belzberg, one of the three billionaire Belzberg brothers. You might have heard of the Belzbergs if you follow the business press. They rose to prominence as corporate raiders in the 1980s. Merely observing one of them in the boardroom was a master class in finance, so I was looking forward to what would materialize in the next hour. Tom was 31, charismatic, a likeable CEO type. He had a nice company in place, but he lacked the money to grow. To get that money, he was willing to try the impossible—impress Belzberg. I smiled to myself. This was going to be interesting. I’d watched Tom rehearse his presentation, and he had good instincts. “My pitch is totally bulletproof, I have nerves of steel, and I’m bringing my A-game,” he had said while we were waiting in Belzberg’s lobby. His confidence was inspiring. “We’ll see,” I said. “Just relax.” Soon after that, we were moved to the conference room. After more than 30 minutes of waiting, we watched as the double doors swung open. Bill Belzberg strode through as if entering a saloon. At 69 years old, he was tall and lanky. He waved his arm at Tom, motioning him to get started. Tom looked at me, and I nodded the go-ahead. Belzberg remained standing and almost immediately cut Tom off, “Look, I only want to know two things from you. What are monthly expenses, and how much are you paying yourself?” Not what Tom wanted to hear. He had a different pitch planned, and now he was looking foolish, searching his bag to find expense charts. Where were the confidence and nerves of hardened titanium? He dropped his papers and stuttered a bit. He was lost. Belzberg had said only 20 words. As you will see, it’s possible for a 20-word disruption to control the fate of any deal. Why is that? An analogy, like the one below, might help explain all this. Imagine for a moment that there is some kind of powerful energy field that surrounds all of us, silently transmitting from the depths of our subconscious. This invisible defense shield is genetically designed to protect our conscious minds from sudden intrusion by ideas and perspectives that are not our own. When that energy field is overwhelmed, however, it collapses. Our mental defenses fail, and we become subject to another person’s ideas, desires, and commands. That person can impose his will. No one really knows whether there are human energy fields or not, but perhaps this is the best way to think about the mental structures that shape the way we see the world, which I call frames. And in a moment, you will begin to understand what happened when Tom’s frame came into contact with—and collapsed under—Bill Belzberg’s power frame. Imagine looking at the world through a window frame that you hold in your hands. As you move the frame around, the sounds and images you encounter are interpreted by your brain in ways that are consistent with your intelligence, values, and ethics. This is your point of view. Another person can look at the same thing through his own frame, and what he hears and sees may differ—by a little or a lot. The common label given to this is perspective. I might perceive and interpret things differently than you do—which is a good thing. Another perspective is often what we need as we nurture our ideas and values. Yet, as we interpret the world through our frames, something else happens. Our brains process what our senses tell us and quickly react with a series of questions: Is it dangerous? Should I eat it or mate with it? This is the croc brain at work, doing what it does best—detecting frames, protecting us from threats, and using dominance and aggression to deflect attacking ideas and information. There are millions of people in the business world, and each brings a frame to his or her social encounters. Whenever two or more people come together to communicate in a business setting, their frames square off and then come into contact, but not in a cooperative or friendly manner. Frames are extremely competitive—remember, they are rooted in our survival instincts—and they seek to sustain dominance. When frames come together, the first thing they do is collide. And this isn’t a friendly competition—it’s a death match. Frames don’t merge. They don’t blend. And they don’t intermingle. They collide, and the stronger frame absorbs the weaker. Only one frame will dominate after the exchange, and the other frames will be subordinate to the winner. This is what happens below the surface of every business meeting you attend, every sales call you make, and every person-to-person business communication you have. The moment your frame makes contact with the frame of the person you are calling on, they clash, battle, and grapple for dominance. If your frame wins, you will enjoy frame control, where your ideas are accepted (and followed) by the others. But if your frame loses, though, you will be at the mercy of your customer, and your success will depend on that customer’s charity. Understanding how to harness and apply the power of frames is the most important thing you will ever learn. Frame-Based Business One of the many benefits of using a frame-based approach to doing business is that it does not require a lot of technique, tactics, or smooth talk. In fact, as you will soon see, the less you say, the more effective you will be. Sales techniques were created for people who have already lost the frame collision and are struggling to do business from a subordinated or low-status position. The sad fact is, these methods are typically ineffective and usually end up offending people instead of promoting pleasant, mutually beneficial business. For decades, there have been many books and seminars—there are more than 35,000 on Amazon—promoting methods to persuade, influence, cajole, and browbeat customers into making rapid purchase decisions. Many years ago, when the promoters of these programs realized how inefficient their methods were, they explained it away with the law of large numbers. Their typical promise is “Make 100 sales calls using our sales technique, and you will land two sales.” In other words, work much, much harder than everyone else, and you will get a 2 percent success rate. But really, what kind of success is that? What these sales gurus are missing is this: When you fail to control the social frame, you probably have already lost. All you can do then is fight for survival by fast talking, spin selling, trial closing, and a myriad of equally ineffective and annoying tactics that signal to the customer that you are needy and desperate—and defeated. By preaching the law of large numbers, the purveyors of sales techniques are asking you to work longer and harder, with no real competitive advantage. They are forcing you to compensate for your weak position with a Herculean effort to win new business, claiming that it’s just a numbers game. It’s rather rude of them to give away so much of your life this way, isn’t it? Frame-based business takes the opposite approach. It promotes the use of social dynamics, stacking things in your favor before the game even begins. When we think back about why this pitch or that pitch failed, we usually arrive at the fact that the terms of the deal weren’t right for the buyer. Or we had a bad day and didn’t position things correctly. Or the potential buyer found something he or she liked better. The reality is, however, that a pitch will fail for reasons that are far less obvious. And that’s because frame control is won or lost even before the pitch starts. When you own the frame, you are positioned to reach an agreement with your buyer. And you are also in a position to decide which deals, orders, or projects you want to work on instead of taking what you can get. Think it’s not possible? I do it every day and for the simple reason that I want to serve my buyers well. I can’t do that if I’m continuously engaged in a frantic chase for new business. Instead of flogging yourself to the point of exhaustion by making dozens of mind-numbingly unproductive sales calls and presentations, I’m going to show you how to get, and keep, frame control. And you are more likely to find yourself pitching five deals, tossing out the two deals you don’t like, and keeping the three that interest you. How do you like my law of large numbers? This is what I do and what I have been doing for years. Own the Frame, Win the Game Let’s do a quick review: A frame is the instrument you use to package your power, authority, strength, information, and status. 1. Everyone uses frames whether they realize it or not. 2. Every social encounter brings different frames together. 3. Frames do not coexist in the same time and place for long. They crash into each other, and one or the other gains control. 4. Only one frame survives. The others break and are absorbed. Stronger frames always absorb weaker frames. 5. The winning frame governs the social interaction. It is said to have frame control. The Cop Frame: An Introduction to How Frames Work So that you can become familiar with the terminology of frames and the basic function of frames in social encounters, here is an example of a dominant frame that you already know about—an almost textbook example of frame control. Imagine you are driving along California’s Highway 101 north of Santa Cruz. The weather and the scenery are intoxicating, as is the rush of speed you feel as you take the fast lane at 80 mph in your pursuit of the setting sun. The moment is perfect—until you see those flashing lights in your rearview mirror. It’s a police interceptor. The whoop-whoop from a piercing siren and the Technicolor strobing of the light bar alert your croc brain that danger is imminent. Dammit, where did he come from? How fast was I going? These are the last few thoughts going through your neo- cortex before fear (a basic and primal emotion) sets in, and your croc brain seizes control of your actions. You are now “pulled over.” As you reach for your license and registration, you see the cop approaching in the driver-side mirror. As you will see from this example, frames make human communication simple because they package a particular perspective and all the information that goes with it. You roll down the window. In this moment, two frames are about to collide: the cop’s frame and yours. Quick! What is your frame made of? “I was going with the flow of traffic” or “I thought the speed limit was higher out this way.” You settle on the “nice guy” frame: “Officer, I’m usually a good driver. How about cutting me a break this one time?” But the cop frame is nearly invincible. It’s reinforced—morally, socially, and politically. Oh yeah, he’s got you on a speed gun, too. You meekly smile as you hand him your license and registration. He pauses, scowling at you through his mirrored aviators. Now, your “nice guy” frame is about to be disrupted. “Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asks. You know you were speeding. Because you do not have any higher moral authority to bring to the frame game, your frame will be destroyed. This is the key to frame control. When you are responding ineffectively to things the other person is saying and doing, that person owns the frame, and you are being frame-controlled. Of course, there’s no mystery about the outcome here. The officer has the stronger frame. Your two frames collided, and the cop frame won. I chose this example so you could see how lesser frames literally crumble under a frame built from authority, status, and power. In this example, the officer had every form of power possible: physical, political, and moral power (you broke the law, and you knew it). Let’s explore the officer’s frame on a deeper level so as to understand what really happened. The silhouette of his cruiser in your rearview mirror and the flashing lights pulled your primal levers of fear, anxiety, and obedience. Your croc brain went into defense mode. Your stomach tightened. Your breathing accelerated, along with your heart rate, and blood rushed to your face. All this happened the moment your croc brain was alarmed. You couldn’t come up with any frame, any perspective, any way to view the situation that would be strong enough to break the officer’s frame. The lesson of the cop frame is an essential one: If you have to explain your authority, power, position, leverage, and advantage, you do not hold the stronger frame. Rational appeals to higher order, logical thinking never win frame collisions or gain frame control. Notice, the officer does not need to pitch you on why he is going to issue you a citation. He does not need to rationalize with you. He doesn’t have to explain his power, he doesn’t need to rest a hand on his gun, and he doesn’t need to describe to you what will happen if you decide to resist. He feels no need to explain how critical it is that you remain calm and obedient. He doesn’t suggest that you have fear and anxiety. Your croc brain instantly and naturally has these reactions to the cop frame. You are reacting; your croc brain is in control. Your actions are automatic, primal, and beyond your grasp. In the final moments of the social encounter, the officer hands you the ticket. This roadside meeting is over. The only other thing he says to you is: “Sign here. Press hard. Fifth copy is yours.” Finally, not quite an afterthought but perhaps intended as a reward for your calm obedience, he says, “Slow down, and have a nice day,” crowning your defeat with shame. Every social interaction is a collision of frames, and the stronger frame always wins. Frame collisions are primal. They freeze out the neocortex and bring the crocodile brain in to make decisions and determine actions. Strong frames are impervious to rational arguments. Weak arguments, made up of logical discussions and facts, just bounce off strong frames. Over the years, I observed that a successful pitch depends on your ability to build strong frames that are impervious to rational arguments. These strong frames can break weak frames and then absorb them. Is there a formula for creating such a frame and using it? Turns out, there is. Choosing a Frame Whenever you are entering a business situation, the first question you must ask is, “What kind of frame am I up against?” The answer will depend on several factors, including the relative importance of your offering to the business interests of your buyer. But know this: Frames mainly involve basic desires. These are the domain of the croc brain. It would be fair to say that strong frames activate basic desires. One way to think about this is that there are only a few basic approaches that the buyer’s croc brain reacts to, so you don’t need to carefully tune each frame to individual personalities. If you were a mechanic reaching into your toolbox, then a frame would be more like a rubber mallet than a screwdriver. I think of these things before I take a meeting: What are the basic primal attitudes and emotions that will be at play? Then I make simple decisions about the kind of frame I want to go in with. For many years, I used just four frames that would cover every business situation. For example, if I know the person I’m meeting is a hard-charging, type A personality, I will go in with a power-busting frame. If that person is an analytical, dollars-and-cents type, I will choose an intrigue frame. If I’m outnumbered and outgunned and the deck is stacked against me, time frames and prize frames are essential.  I am also ready and willing to switch to a different frame as the social interaction develops or changes. Going into most business situations, there are three major types of opposing frames that you will encounter: 1. Power frame 2. Time frame 3. Analyst frame You have three major response frame types that you can use to meet these oncoming frames, win the initial collision, and control the agenda: 1. Power-busting frame 2. Time constraining frame 3. Intrigue frame There is a fourth frame you can deploy. It’s useful against all three of the opposing frames and many others you will encounter: 4. Prize frame What follows is a discussion of how you can recognize opposing frames and defeat them. The Power Frame The most common opposing frame you will encounter in a business setting is the power frame. The power frame comes from the individual who has a massive ego. His power is rooted in his status—a status derived from the fact that others give this person honor and respect. You will know that you are facing a power frame when you encounter arrogance, lack of interest (a vibe that conveys “I’m more important than you”), rudeness, and similar imperial behaviors. Power frame types (a.k.a. big shots, egomaniacs—whatever you want to call them) tend to be oblivious to what others think. They are more likely to pursue the satisfaction of their own appetites. They are often poor judges of the reactions of others. They are more likely to hold stereotypes. They can be overly optimistic. And they are more likely to take unmeasured risks. They are also the most vulnerable to your power-busting frame because they do not expect it. They expect your fawning deference and obedience. They expect you to laugh at their bad jokes. They expect you to value their feelings above your own. They expect you to adopt their frame. Therein lies their weakness. Not for a moment do they think that your frame is going to take control. You will almost always take them by surprise. When you approach an opposing power frame, your first and most important objective is to avoid falling into the other person’s frame by reacting to it. And make absolutely certain that you do nothing that strengthens the other person’s frame before your frames collide. Observing power rituals in business situations—such as acting deferential, engaging in meaningless small talk, or letting yourself be told what to do—reinforces the alpha status of your target and confirms your subordinate position. Do not do this! As the opposing power frame approaches, when you first encounter the person you are meeting, you must be prepared for the frame collision to happen at any moment. Prepare well and your frame will disrupt his, causing a momentary equilibrium in the social forces in the room, and then your frame will overtake and absorb his. This all sounds like high drama, but in practice, it is often swift and tranquil. Before your target realizes what has occurred, control of the frame has shifted. Once you get used to establishing the dominant frame, it will become second nature. And when it does, you are going to have the time of your life. Encountering the Power Frame Several years ago, I had a meeting at a large money center bank whose name you would recognize in an instant. This was supposed to be a one- hour meeting, and it was made clear by the guy we were meeting that he would give us precisely one hour. This is classic power framing with hard time pressure thrown in. The cost of getting our team to Washington for this pitch was more than $20,000. But the meeting could be worth millions if we pitched it right. After my team and I were escorted through security, we rode the elevator to the nineteenth floor, where more than $1 trillion worth of business was traded each year. We felt like we were about to take a place among the nation’s most powerful and elite financial traders. Thirty-five traders moved billions of dollars a month here, and we were one hour away from being part of the game. I had contacted all my investors, and together we had pooled about $60 million in investment money that I was bringing to the table. My contact, a trader named Steve, was meeting us, and I would be pitching him and two analysts. After a long wait, an impeccably dressed young woman led us to the largest conference room I’ve ever seen, about half the size of a basketball court. Steve and his entourage came in and exchanged the standard pleasantries. Steve was one of the bigger volume traders on the floor. He showed up several minutes late and then spent 15 minutes talking about himself. A precious 22 minutes had been burned. Finally, I was able to hand out our materials and begin the pitch. During the economic boom of the time, Steve had become accustomed to doing $100 million deals that would close in a single day; by contrast, we had a $60 million deal that would take at least 30 days to close. So he didn’t seem terribly interested. I talked about the types of assets we wanted to buy and what we would pay. During a moment of pause, I looked over at Steve. He had taken our pitch book, flipped it over, and was absent-mindedly tracing his hand on the back of it with a pen. How significant is this lack of attention? Well, it’s pretty bad. However, if you view the world through the lens of traditional sales techniques, you would think there’s something wrong with my information or my deal. But instead, if you view the world through frames and social dynamics, then you would understand that the deal was fine. This is just the power frame coming at you, and in the collision of frames, you’ve just lost. I first thought, Ouch, how could this be happening? I had burned a lot of time and money getting to this meeting, and I could see our opportunity slipping away. The guy was tracing his hand on my executive summary. I felt two inches tall. My crocodile brain became overwhelmed with basic, primal emotions. I was frame-controlled. My simple, emotional, reactive croc brain told me to run, and I considered it. When you abide by the rituals of power instead of establishing your own, you reinforce the opposing power frame. I soon recovered my poise, and here is what followed: “Steve, gimme that,” I said, pulling the pitch book away from him. That’s a power frame disrupter. Dramatic pause... I looked at Steve’s drawing intently. “Hold on, wait a sec. Now I see what’s going on. This drawing is pretty damn good. Forget the big deal for a minute. How about you sell this to me. Name a price.” This is an extreme example of high-stakes power frames. But you can do this in everyday meetings in a far less dramatic way to change and refocus the frame to a totally different subject. If a guy is going to dominate you, let him dominate you on the price of something like a hand drawing in this case, something that doesn’t matter. If you find yourself in a similar situation (the day will come when this happens to you, too), then pick something abstract and start an intense price negotiation over it —and it doesn’t matter if you win or lose. The power of the person’s frame is rendered trivial, and the focus is back to you and what you want to do with the meeting. Steve didn’t expect this, and the concussion from the force of my frame-busting move completely changed the dynamic of that moment and the remainder of the meeting. I got another chance to get the focus back on the real subject—the $60 million I was there to spend. And now I had Steve’s complete attention. To instigate a power frame collision, use a mildly shocking but not unfriendly act to cause it. Use defiance and light humor. This captures attention and elevates your status by creating something called “local star power.” (You will read about creating status and local star power in Chapter 3.) Taking the Frame Here are some subtler examples of taking the power frame away. As soon as you come in contact with your target, look for the first opportunity to 1. Perpetrate a small denial, or 2. Act out some type of defiance. Examples You place a folder on the conference table that is labeled “Confidential— John Smith.” When the target reaches for the file, you grab it and say, “Uh-uh, not yet. You have to wait for this.”  If you deal in creative work and you brought visuals, let the target sneak a peek and then, when you see him curiously looking, turn it over, take it away, and deliver a soft reprimand that says, not until I say you’re ready. This is a quick tease followed by a strong denial, and it is massively disruptive to the target’s croc brain. What you are doing is not offensive, and it’s not mean. It’s playful, and it tells the target subconsciously, “I’m the one in charge here, not you, my friend.” The key to taking the frame is to perpetrate the denial and make it clear: Not yet. This is my meeting, we’re following my agenda, and everything that happens will be on my timeline. Another way to control the frame is to respond to a comment with a small but forceful act of defiance. TARGET: “Thanks for coming over. I only have 15 minutes this afternoon.” YOU: “That’s okay, I only have 12.” You smile. But you are serious, too. With this simple remark, you have just snatched the power frame away from your target. This can easily become a frame game. I’ve had meetings get cut down to just two minutes this way. They will say, you only have 12 minutes? I forgot, I only have 10. Then I will come back with 8. And so on. As you’ll find out, these kinds of frame games are good for relationships. They are a way of prizing (which you will read about next) and can be entertaining for both parties. It can be that simple. The better you are at giving and taking frame control, the more successful you will be. Think of how many ways you can use small acts of denial and defiance in the opening moments of meetings. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Defiance and light humor are the keys to seizing power and frame control. Keep it fun, do it with a grin on your face, and the moment the power shifts to you, move the meeting forward in the direction you want. This is the foundation of frame control. You’ll be seizing more power and status as the pitch continues. Power shifts and frame grabs start small and escalate quickly. When this first power transfer takes place, when your target loses the frame, he knows it—he can feel that something just happened. His cognition is hot, which means that his basic desires have been activated. Now, he is paying close attention and is fully engaged. He is thinking, Whoa, what do we have here? He might be feeling a little buzz from what you’ve just done but is not offended because you were not rude or mean. When you are defiant and funny at the same time, he is pleasantly challenged by you and instinctively knows that he is in the presence of a pro. This is the moment when he realizes that this is a game, that the game is now on, and that you are both about to have a lot of fun playing it. Once started, the game has its own inertia, and you can use it to your advantage. Don’t be afraid to play with your power by engaging in a little give and take to keep his attention in the moment because that is the entire purpose of this game—to capture and keep attention until your pitch is complete. You must also take care not to abuse the power you now hold. The frame master, which is what you will be when you get good at this, knows that dominating the frame is not how you win the game but rather a means to win the game. No one likes to be dominated, so once you own the frame, use this power in ways that are fun and mutually exciting. Small acts of denial and defiance are enormously powerful frame disrupters. They equalize the social power structure and then transfer all that power to you. Then, all you need to do is hold on to the power and use it wisely. The Prize Frame Another common situation occurs when the key decision maker does not attend the meeting as was agreed to. This situation requires a special kind of response that not only will reaffirm your control of the frame but also will establish you as someone unlike anyone else they have dealt with. Let’s say that you’ve done everything right so far. You’ve come into the business interaction and quickly asserted strong frames and, hopefully, frame control with the people you’ve just met. You’re ready to start your pitch and are waiting for “Mr. Big” to come in, when his assistant steps in to announce, “I am so sorry. Mr. Big just called. He can’t make the meeting for another hour. He says to start without him.” She turns to leave. This is a defining moment for you. You have just lost the frame, and there is nothing you can do about it. However, this does not mean that you do not have choices. Your options are 1. Go ahead with your presentation, even though you know you’ve lost the frame, hope for the best, and hope that maybe Mr. Big will join the group toward the end of the meeting. I would not recommend this. 2. Stop everything. Reframe using power, time, or prize frames (which are covered in this chapter) or perhaps all three. Immediately take the power back. You’ve traveled to this meeting, prepared for it, and have an established goal. Are you willing to throw that away? No one can tell your story as well as you can. If you trust your presentation to subordinates and expect them to pass it on to the decision maker with the same force and qualities of persuasion that you have, then you are not being honest with yourself. Again, no one can tell your story as well as you can. Mr. Big must hear it. He must hear it from you. This is what I usually say in this situation: “So you guys are asking me to delay the start? Okay. I can give you 15 minutes to get organized. But if we can’t start by then, then let’s just call it a day.” Usually someone will volunteer to track down Mr. Big, and that person will try as hard as he or she can to find him and request that he join the meeting. Or someone will say, “Let’s go ahead with the presentation, and we’ll make sure that Mr. Big is briefed.” You can’t let your frame get absorbed by this. Your response? “No, we’re not going to follow your agenda. This meeting is going to start when I say start, and it will end when I say stop. You’re going to make sure that all the right people come to the meeting on time. Then we’re only going to cover the items on my agenda, and you’re going pay attention to every minute of my presentation.” You only think this way, of course. What you actually say is, “I can wait 15 minutes, but then I have to leave.” That’s enough to get the message through. The first time you think this way and say these words, you’ll be uncomfortable—no, make that terrified—and you’ll wonder if you are doing the right thing. Your heart will race, and you’ll fear the consequences of your boldness, afraid of having offended your audience. You’ll second-guess yourself and think you’ve just made an awful mistake. And then something awesome will happen. The people in the room will scramble, doing their best to prevent you from being offended, doing their best to keep you from leaving. They are worried about you. When you own the frame, others react to you. Like Peter Parker’s transformation into Spiderman, you will suddenly be empowered by an internal change state that is felt by everyone in the room. Be judicious with this power as you are now in complete control of the situation. If you stand, pack up your things, and leave, it will be a social disaster for Mr. Big and his staff. So be benevolent, give Mr. Big the promised 15 minutes to arrive, and act politely but true to your frame. And if he does not show at that point, you leave. You do not deliver your presentation, you do not leave brochures, and you do not apologize. Your time has been wasted, and you don’t even need to say it. They know.  If it seems appropriate, and if this is a company with which you want to do business, tell the most important person in the room that you are willing to reschedule—on your turf. That’s right, you offer to reschedule and acknowledge that these things happen (we have all missed meetings before), but for the next meeting, they must come to you. This is a subtle framing technique known as prizing. What you do is reframe everything your audience does and says as if they are trying to win you over. A few moments earlier, you learned that Mr. Big wasn’t coming to your meeting and apparently you were just the morning entertainment. Now, however, you are communicating to your buyers that they are here to entertain you. What prizing subconsciously says to your audience is, “You are trying to win my attention. I am the prize, not you. I can find a thousand buyers (audiences, investors, or clients) like you. There is only one me.” It also conveys to your audience that if they wish to get any further information from you, they will first have to do something to earn it. Prizing 101 To solidify the prize frame, you make the buyer qualify himself to you. “Can you tell me more about yourself? I’m picky about who I work with.” At a primal, croc brain level, you have just issued a challenge: Why do I want to do business with you? This is a powerful and unspoken expression of your high status and your frame dominance. It forces your audience to qualify themselves by telling you exactly how interested they really are. Sound outrageous? It’s not, I promise you. When you rotate the circle of social power 180 degrees, it changes everything. The predator becomes the prey. In this instance, what your target is feeling is a kind of moral shame—they have wronged you—and they feel obligated to make things right. Initially, you walked in with low status. Just another pitch in a long string of pitches. Over many experiences, these people have learned how to have their way with salespeople and presenters like you. But now, you’ve broken their power play. They will apologize, appease, and try to correct for the social gaffe, and in most cases, if Mr. Big is in the building, they will find a way to get him in front of you. In a moment, I’m going to address what happens when you encounter time frames and analyst frames. Before going into these aspects of framing in greater detail, though, I think it might help to prepare the ground if I recount how I came to develop and use frames over the years. As you will see, the practical side of frames grew out of my personal experiences, sometimes in high-stakes situations where there was much to be gained and lost. Remember, when you own the frame, people respond to you. Let me share an example from my own experience. The Avocado Farmer’s Money I looked down at my phone. Fourteen missed calls, all from the same person, D. WALTER. I’d turned off my ringer for less than 30 minutes, and the phone blew up. I listened to one of his messages: “Oren, I have a serious problem,” he started. His serious problem was a deal that had already gone bad, and now it was my job to help. Dennis Walter was an avocado farmer, a guy who got his overalls dirty, a guy who put in long days in the hot sun. After 35 years, he was ready for retirement. He had money saved, but a good portion of it ($640,000) was in an escrow account, controlled by a man named Donald McGhan. Dennis wanted his money now, and it was his, legally. But he was unable to get it back despite repeated attempts. This was now affecting an $18 million deal that both Dennis and I were in. If Dennis couldn’t wire his money to me, all $640,000, then the deal—a large property we were buying in Hawaii—would start to unwind. So his problem was now my problem, too. To retrieve Dennis’s money, I would have to sit down with McGhan and make an appeal to have the money returned. This is how I was thrust into a pitch that clearly was doomed to fail. It wasn’t life and death, but it was close. This was a man’s life savings. I knew a little bit about McGhan. He had a reputation as a successful businessman, primarily in the field of medical devices. Intriguingly, while at Dow Corning in the 1960s, he helped to invent the first generation of silicone breast implants. Today, he owned two companies: MediCor and Southwest Exchange. MediCor’s breast implant business had looked promising for a while. But the success enjoyed there was short-lived, and McGhan turned desperate. To keep MediCor solvent, McGhan began siphoning money from Southwest Exchange. Southwest Exchange, which McGhan bought in 2004, gave him instant access to over $100 million in escrow accounts. Real estate investors, like Dennis, had used Southwest Exchange to hold their money while looking for new investments. Soon after acquiring Southwest Exchange, McGhan, according to federal investigators, transferred $47.3 million from Southwest Exchange to MediCor. Just like that. Including $640,000 from Dennis, the avocado farmer. Now I was on our corporate jet, en route to Las Vegas, on my way to help Dennis attempt the impossible. I thought about McGhan and what it might be like to confront him face to face. At the time, I had no idea I was walking into a $100 million problem involving hundreds of investors. Or that McGhan was a bad guy, a criminal, presiding over a large-scale Ponzi scheme. All I knew was that this wasn’t going to be pleasant. As I drove to Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb, I had a strong sense of purpose. Not only was McGhan harming Dennis, not only was McGhan in the wrong, but the lost $640,000 also was holding up my Hawaii deal. I pulled into the Southwest Exchange parking lot, and I met Dennis for the first time in person. He was a nice guy, looked like your typical farmer, and looked like a guy who really needed my help. I was clearly nervous. Although I almost always enjoy pitching deals, it’s usually for new business. Making this kind of pitch, to get money back—a lot of money—from a bad deal, is mentally and emotionally tough. To calm myself, I thought about frame control and all the other methods that I had spent countless hours learning, and trying to master. As I mentioned before, no situation has real meaning until you frame it. Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world and put relationships in context. The frame you put around a situation completely and totally controls its meaning. But you aren’t the only one framing. People are always trying to impose frames on each other. The frame is like a picture of what you want the interaction to be about. And the most powerful thing about frames? There can be only one dominant frame during any interaction between two people. When two frames come together, the stronger frame absorbs the weaker frame. Then weak arguments and rational facts just bounce off the winning frame. Dennis and I spoke for a few minutes in the parking lot. I prepared my frame. Then, just like that, I was ready, so we walked into the building together, and I went looking for the one guy who had caused all these problems: Donald McGhan. It was 9 a.m. when we walked into the building. It was a generic looking office with a black leather couch and magazines spread neatly on the coffee table. “Good morning. How can I help you?” a receptionist asked. “I don’t need help,” I said. “Just tell me which office Don McGhan is in.” She began her gatekeeper script: “I’ll see if he’s in.” Rituals like these are meant to reinforce status hierarchies. But I was there to establish my own status and frame control and certainly not to supplicate a gatekeeper. I strode past the front desk and down the hallway, the gatekeeper chasing behind me. She tried to keep me out of the office, to keep me from finding Dennis’s money, so I had no choice but to start throwing open doors to various offices, interrogating anyone and everyone. What were they going to do, call the cops? Back at the office, my partner already had the local police and the FBI on speed dial. “Where’s Don McGhan?” I bellowed! There were plenty of people now trying to stop me, but I wasn’t going to stop until I’d spoken to McGhan. And I wasn’t going to leave without Dennis’s $640,000. As I made my way through the building, office by office, Don McGhan hustled himself out the back door, not wanting to deal with me. Instead, he sent his son, Jim, who finally came out to “handle” things. Jim McGhan, in his early 40s, was dressed in an Armani suit and had a confident, arrogant way about him. He was tall, and he looked down at me. We sat in a conference room, and right away, he was trying to take control, trying to frame things by saying, There’s a rational explanation for all of this. So that was his game; he was playing with the analyst frame, which relies on facts, figures, and logic. I had a better frame prepared, the moral authority frame, and it’s an analyst disruptor. “Jim, you cannot hold Dennis’s money,” I told him. “We’ve requested it properly, and you’re going to get it for him right now.” Jim was a player. I saw it in his eyes. But he knew that his scheme was falling apart, and he wasn’t interested in giving Dennis the money. Instead, the money probably would be wired to McGhan’s attorney by day’s end, and then, we’d never get it. He knew what he was doing. He was using his status and authority to confidently explain the so-called facts. I give him credit for one thing: Jim pulled off a beautiful analyst frame. He was completely unfazed, arrogant, and acting puzzled as to why we were there. Then he began with a rational, highly detailed, and analytical explanation of why the money couldn’t be transferred right away. This was the squaring-off phase. He was trying to spin. He thought he could put us off and have us leave empty-handed.  Of course, I wasn’t having that. I came in with a moral authority frame —that we were right and he was wrong—a nearly unshakeable frame when used correctly. The game was on. He knew my frame, and I knew his. Next came the moment of first contact. It’s that moment when two opposing frames are about to collide with full force. You can feel it— usually as a pang of anxiety in the pit of your stomach. It is at this moment when you need to strengthen your resolve and commit completely to your frame. No matter what happens, no matter how much social pressure and discomfort you suffer, you must stay composed and stick to your frame. This is called plowing. So you prepare yourself to plow, as an ox might plow a field. Always moving forward. Never stopping. Never any self-doubt. And, as you are about to see, when two frames collide, the stronger one always wins. The niceties didn’t last long. I spoke plainly and looked Jim right in the eyes. “We want Dennis’s $640,000, and we are getting all of it back from you, today, right now.” He hemmed and hawed. He threw out a bunch of promises, half-truths, and MBA double talk. But I saw through the jibberish. And I had the stronger frame: moral authority. I plowed. “Look,” I said. “Your lips are moving, but I’m not listening to a single word. Your words have no meaning. Stop talking. Start transferring money.” He blinked. He tried one more time to explain, to argue, to rationalize why the money hadn’t been transferred to Dennis, something about misplaced wire-transfer numbers. But rational explanations will never override a moral authority frame. At one point, I saw the realization cross his face. He knew that he had picked the weaker frame. In fact, he tried the moral authority frame out for himself, “You know what, I’ve had enough of this. Get out of here now, or I’m going to call the cops.” But it was too late for him. He had already picked a weak analyst frame and had overcommitted to it—and was about to pay for doing so. It was time for frame disruption. I was ready to pulverize his frame into a puff of fine mist. I pulled out my phone and dialed a colleague, Sam Greenberg. I put him on speaker and discussed the logistics of getting the FBI involved. Dramatic? Yes. But Jim McGhan knew at that moment we were 100 percent committed to following through. I was activating the primal fears in his croc brain. As soon as he became afraid, my frame would crush his, and he would bend to my will. “Let me paint a picture for you, Jim,” I told him. “You’ve seen SWAT teams in the movies. It happens just like that. They are going to swarm through this door, FBI accountants wearing Kevlar vests and Glock 22s. And the sheriff will be blasting pepper spray at anything that moves, dogs will be barking, and they’ll be fastening your hands behind your back with zip ties. Is that how you want today to end, hog-tied, pepper sprayed, lying in the back of a black van with no windows? The other option is— you starting transferring money to us.” SMASH! That was the moral authority frame, delivered with emotional realism, and here, I achieved the hookpoint. Our frames had collided. My frame had absorbed his. The only options were my options. There’s a moment in games of strategy when the other side realizes that no matter what moves it makes, the game is lost. This was that moment. I now had his full attention. Although it was his office and his domain, I had the seized the high-status position. Although he still had our money, $640,000, I had the frame control. “Jim, starting right now, every 15 minutes, you’re going to give me a deliverable. That means—just so you understand me perfectly—every 15 minutes something happens that benefits me. Cancel your schedule, do not leave this room, pick up the phone, and start finding our money.” He was listening, and I continued. “I need the money wired to Dennis’s account, right now.” Just because you have frame control doesn’t mean that someone won’t push back. You just stay committed to your frame and keep it strong. You plow. Jim started with more MBA doublespeak, returning to rationalization mode. So I expanded the frame to include new characters and new consequences.  “Listen, Jim. Stop,” I told him. “Get your friends and family and investor’s list and start dialing for money. Every 15 minutes you need to hand me a wire-transfer confirmation.” This was the point of consolidation. Because I had done everything right, up to this point, there was no need to make threats or create drama. The frame was set. The agenda was my agenda. Because the social interaction was being governed by my frame, these were the rules Jim had to follow: Rule 1: Everything happening must involve Dennis’s money. Rule 2: Something good must happen every 15 minutes. Rule 3: The meeting isn’t over until all $640,000 is wired. I sat with Jim for six long hours as he dialed associates, family members, and friends. The money came rolling in, in small increments ($10,000 here, $15,000 here). As I mentioned earlier, when two mental frames come together, when they collide, the stronger frame disrupts and absorbs the weaker frame. I’d controlled the frame, started it small, and expanded it, and Jim’s weaker frame collapsed. His internal state went from nonchalance and arrogance to panic and desperation. His status went from high to low. Responding to my frame, he raised Dennis’s money, and we walked out with all the $640,000—irrevocably secured via wire transfers. Mission accomplished. Over the next few days, Dennis and I and some other victims worked with the authorities and Southwest Exchange was raided. I got Dennis’s $640,000 out just in time, thanks to my knowledge of framing. Not for a moment was it about threats or power plays. Although it was Dennis’s money legally, perhaps Jim and Don McGhan never should have given back that $640,000. It wasn’t in their best interests. If Jim McGhan really thought I was going to call the FBI, he should have wired that money to his attorney. It was clearly the last bit of cash Jim and Don could scratch together. I had always respected the nature of frame control. But now, with Dennis’s $640,000 back in my escrow account, I was learning to rely on it more and more often. All told, the McGhans had bilked more than 130 investors out of more than $180 million. Several people lost their life savings, and the case spawned numerous lawsuits. In 2009, Don McGhan, age 75, was sentenced to a 10-year prison sentence for wire fraud. This is an example of owning the frame. There are still more frames that you will encounter that I haven’t discussed yet. Let’s take a look at time-based frames and how to respond to them. The Time Frame Frames involving time tend to occur later in the social exchange, after someone has already established frame control. Again, if you want to know who has the frame, it’s easy to observe. When you are reacting to the other person, that person owns the frame. When the other person is reacting to what you do and say, you own the frame. Time frames are often used by your Target to rechallenge your frame by disrupting you and, in the moment of confusion, unwittingly take back control. As long as you are alert, time frames are easy to defeat. You will know that a time-frame collision is about to occur when you see attention begin to wane. You’ve been pitching for a few minutes, and the temperature in the room is noticeably cooler. The game you initiated was fun at the beginning, and now the audience has cooled and might be a little bored. There are limits to the human attention span, which is why a pitch must be brief, concise, and interesting, as you will read about in Chapter 4. If you wait for someone in the audience to say (or give body language to the effect), “We only have a few minutes left, so let’s wrap this up,” you will lose the frame because you now have to react to that person. Instead, when you see attention begin to bottom out and expire, that’s it. You’re done. Stay in control of time, and start wrapping up. Running long or beyond the point of attention shows weakness, neediness, and desperation. I n Chapter 4, I explore attention extensively and you’ll begin to understand that attention is an extremely rare cognitive phenomenon that is exceedingly difficult to create and manage. When attention is lacking, set your own time constraint, and bounce out of there: “Hey, looks like time’s up. I’ve got to wrap this up and get to my next meeting.” If they are interested in you, they will agree to a follow-up. Ironically, the mistake most people make when they see their audience becoming fatigued is to talk faster, to try to force their way through the rest of the pitch. Instead of imparting more valuable information faster, however, they only succeed in helping the audience retain less of their message. Here is another example of an opposing time frame and how to respond to it. If you visit customers’ offices, you will recognize this situation: CUSTOMER: “Hi, yes, um, well, I only have about 10 minutes to meet with you, but come on in.” SALESPERSON: “I really appreciate your time. Thanks for fitting me into your busy schedule.” This is a common dialogue and form of business etiquette—and it is exactly the wrong thing to do. You are reinforcing your target’s power over you and confirming your target’s higher status. You are essentially handing your target your frame and saying, “Here, please, crush my frame, control me, and waste my time.” When you encounter a time frame like this, quickly break it with a stronger prize frame of your own. Qualify your target on the spot. YOU: “No. I don’t work like that. There’s no sense in rescheduling unless we like each other and trust each other. I need to know, are you good to work with, can you keep appointments, and stick to a schedule?” YOUR TARGET : “Okay, you’re right about that. Yeah, sure I can. Let’s do this now. I have 30 minutes. That’s no problem. Come on in.”  You have just broken your target’s time frame, established that your time is important, and he is now giving you focused attention instead of treating your visit like an annoyance. Another frame that you will encounter is called the analyst frame. Like the time frame, the analyst frame usually appears after the initial frame collision and can derail you just when you are about to reach a decision. It is a deadly frame that you must know how to repel using the intrigue frame. The Intrigue Frame How many times have you been giving a presentation when suddenly one or more people in the room take a deep dive into technical details? That’s the analyst frame coming at you. This is especially common in industries that involve engineers and financial analysts. This frame will kill your pitch. The moment your audience does a “deep drill-down” into the minute details, you are losing control. The cognitive temperature of the audience, which was hot when things got started, naturally will cool as audience members listen to your pitch. But once you give their neocortex(es) something to calculate, they will go cold. Problem solving, numerical calculations, statistics, and any sort of geometry are called cold cognitions. Nothing will freeze your pitch faster than allowing your audience to grind numbers or study details during the pitch. As you will learn in Chapter 4, the key to preventing this is to control access to details. Sometimes, however, a drill-down will happen anyway, and you have to act—fast. It is important to realize that human beings are unable to have hot cognitions and cold cognitions simultaneously. The brain is not wired that way. Hot cognitions are feelings like wanting or desire or excitement, and cold cognitions come from “cold” processes like analysis and problem solving. To maintain frame control and momentum, you must force your audience to be analytical on its own time. You do this by separating the technical and detailed material from your presentation. Oh, for sure, audience members will ask for details. They believe that they need them. So what should you do if someone demands details? You respond with summary data that you have prepared for this specific purpose. You answer the question directly and with the highest-level information possible. Then you redirect their attention back to your pitch. In financial deals, I respond with something like this: “The revenue is $80 million, expenses are $62 million, the net is $18 million. These and other facts you can verify later, but right now, what we need to focus on is this: Are we a good fit? Should we be doing business together? This is what I came here to work on.” If you’re pitching a product and the drill-down is on price, don’t chase this conversation thread. Do answer fast, answer directly with high-level details only, and go straight back to the relationship question. What this tells the audience is that (1) I’m trying to decide if you are right for me; (2) if I decide to work with you, the numbers will back up what I’m telling you, so let’s not worry about that now; and (3) I care about who I work with. Keep the target focused on the business relationship at all times. Analysis comes later. This is the best and most reliable way to deal with a target who suddenly becomes bored and tries to entertain himself with the details of your deal. Remember, when you own the frame, you control the agenda, and you determine the rules under which the game is played. There will be times when you are doing everything right, but for reasons beyond your understanding or control, the other person stops responding to you. The personal connection you had at one point seems to be fading. When it no longer seems that communication is flowing back and forth, the other person is in something called a nonreactive state. It’s like the other person’s mind is wandering or thinking about something else. This is a state of disinterest that you can correct for if you recognize it in time and act quickly.  You can tell that this is starting to happen when you notice remarks or body language that indicate that your presentation is not intriguing— when the target thinks he can easily predict what your idea is before you even explain it or when he feels that he can anticipate what you are going to say and how you’re going to say it. Most intelligent people take great pleasure in being confronted with something new, novel, and intriguing. Being able to figure it out is a form of entertainment, like solving the Sunday puzzle. Our brains are wired to look for these kinds of pleasurable challenges. When you described your idea initially to your target, you were pulling on a primal lever. When the target agreed to the meeting with you, what he or she really was saying was, “This is a puzzle I am interested in solving.” No one takes a meeting to hear about something they already know and understand. It’s a fundamental concept driving every single presentation —it’s the hook that allows you as the presenter to grab and hold attention by subconsciously saying, “I have a solution to one of your problems. I know something that you don’t.” This is why people agree to take meetings and to hear a pitch. At the start of the meeting, you have the audience’s attention. It’s a rare moment, but not for the reason you may think. Audience members are, with full concentration and at the most basic and primal level, trying to figure out the answer to this question: “How similar is your idea to something I already know about or to a problem I have already solved?” If audience members discover that the answer is close to what they had earlier guessed, they will mentally check out on you. They will experience a quick ping of self-satisfaction at the moment of realization, just before they mentally check out. But checking out is not just a catch phrase to describe drifting attention or wandering minds. Checking out, in this context, refers to something very specific: an extreme and nearly total loss of alertness, and this is exactly what you need to avoid. As your pitch moves along, at any time, some or all members of your audience will solve the puzzle, see the solution, and get the whole story. Then they check out. This is why you see presenters lose more and more of the audience as time goes on—those who solve the puzzle drop out. We generalize by saying, “Oh, they lost interest.” But what really happened is that they learned enough about our idea to feel secure that they understand it—and there is nothing more to be gained by continuing to pay attention. They determined that there was no more value to be had by engaging with us on any level. As I’ve said before, the brain is a cognitive miser. Unless it can get value for itself, it stops paying attention. The analyst frame can devastate your pitch because it only values hard data and ignores the value of relationships and ideas. This frame is completely lacking in any kind of emotion or connection to the people in the room. The most effective way to overcome the analyst frame is with an intrigue frame. Of the four frame types at your disposal, intrigue is the most powerful because it hijacks higher cognitive function to arouse the more primitive systems of the target’s brain. Narrative and analytical information does not coexist. It cannot; that’s simply impossible. The human brain is unable to be coldly analytical and warmly engaged in a narrative at the same time. This is the secret power of the intrigue frame. When your target drills down into technical material, you break that frame by telling a brief but relevant story that involves you. This is not a story that you make up on the spot; this is a personal story that you have prepared in advance and that you take to every meeting you have. Since all croc brains are pretty similar, you will not need more than one story because the intrigue it will contain will have the same impact on every audience. You need to be at the center of the story, which immediately redirects attention back to you. People will pause, look up, and listen because you are sharing something personal. As you share your story, there has to be some suspense to it because you are going to create intrigue in the telling of the story by telling only part of the story. That’s right, you break the analyst frame by capturing audience attention with a provocative story of something that happened to you, and then you keep their attention by not telling them how it ends until you are ready. This is much more powerful than you may imagine. Now I can’t give you a story to tell; that has to come from you. But what I can do is tell you what your story should contain and then tell you my personal analyst frame crusher so you can see how the elements come together to recapture and hold audience attention. The Intrigue Story Your intrigue story needs the following elements: 1. It must be brief, and the subject must be relevant to your pitch. 2. You need to be at the center of the story. 3. There should be risk, danger, and uncertainty. 4. There should be time pressure—a clock is ticking somewhere, and there are ominous consequences if action is not taken quickly. 5. There should be tension—you are trying to do something but are being blocked by some force. 6. There should be serious consequences—failure will not be pretty. What’s new here is not that you should tell some kind of story to your target. What’s new and important is when to use it—as soon as you recognize that the target is coming at you with an analyst frame. Then use it to nudge him out of analytical thinking. There are half a dozen other ways to disrupt the analyst frame—anger and extreme surprise are two. But in most social situations they are impractical. The intrigue frame does it better and does it fast.  Here is my intrigue story, which I will tell you first, and then I will show you how I tell this story to my audience. My Intrigue Story: The Porterville Incident. Recently, I was traveling in our company plane with my business partner and our attorney. We were at an airstrip in Porterville, a small California town about 300 miles from San Francisco. While this tiny airstrip served mostly small local aircraft, jet traffic in the air was heavy because of the many commercial planes going in and out of San Francisco. A jet must make a rapid and steep ascent after takeoff to join in with the busy traffic pattern. In a pitch setting, I do not tell this story the way I just relayed it to you. When I was meeting with officials from a local airport, I told this story much differently. Knowing that my audience was made up of aviators, engineers, and guys interested in jets, I came to the meeting with this story prepared and ready to deploy if needed. As it happened, I did encounter an attack from an opposing analyst frame, and this story easily brought the meeting back under my control. As the audience’s attention began to shift to analytical questions, this is what I said: “This reminds me of the Porterville incident. A while ago, my partner and I flew to Porterville to look at two deals. You guys know, they have a tiny airfield; it’s visual-flight-rules-only and has no control tower.” “Mostly they get single-engine traffic—Cessna Skycatchers and Beechcraft Bonanzas—and maybe a few small jets. So when we got there, our big Legacy 600 skidded to a stop at the far edge of the runway. But the landing was nothing compared with the takeoff. “Since Porterville airspace is under San Francisco air traffic control, 260 miles away, the trick to getting out of there is to climb fast and merge quickly into the traffic pattern. We expected an aggressive takeoff. It was no big deal when we found ourselves accelerating hard into a steep climb. “The Legacy 600 is a ‘muscle car’ of a jet. When it’s under full power, you feel it. So we’re heavy and deep in this full-power ascent, we’re having casual business conversation, and I would estimate that our altitude was 9,000 feet when abruptly the jet surges and then nosedives. “We dropped 1,000 feet in a few seconds. “My seat is facing forward, toward the cockpit. The door is open, and I can see the pilots. “We are all clinging to our seats and cursing, a Klaxon is howling, and one of the pilots is saying, ‘It’s the TCAS! It’s the TCAS!’ But I didn’t even know at the time what a traffic collision-avoidance system was. “I’m trying to figure this all out, and I’m thinking this is it—I’m done, Soy un perdedor.... “As we’re plummeting in this nosedive, I look through the door into the cockpit and see both pilots with their hands on the throttle. Then the plane rolls into a steep climb, and I see the pilots fighting, literally slapping each other’s hands off the throttle. The climb is short—just five seconds—and then the plane goes into a nosedive again. “Anyway...” And I go right back into my pitch. Why does this strategy work so well? The most extreme explanation is that the audience becomes immersed in the narrative. They take the emotional ride with me. Sure, they know that we obviously survived, but I’ve piqued their curiosity —why were the pilots fighting? They want to know. When I do not tell them, the intrigue spikes high enough to shock them out of the analyst frame. In my experience with this approach, the opposing analyst frame gets crushed by emotional, engaging, and relevant narratives like this. Attention redirects back to me, allowing me to finish my pitch on my agenda, my timeline, and my topics. After I finish the pitch, I complete the narrative arc by explaining the whole story: “It turns out that the sudden dive was caused by the traffic collision- avoidance software built into the autopilot system. It had detected another airplane flying into our ascent path, and the computer had taken evasive measures just in time to avoid a crash. This was a very close call, and I am fortunate to be able to share this story with you now. “The reason the pilots were fighting over the controls was because the copilot did not know the computer had taken over. But the pilot, older and more experienced, knew this and was pulling the copilot’s hands off the controls. The collision-avoidance software was doing its job.” This true story has everything I need in an intrigue story—it’s brief; it has a tight timeline; it has danger, suspense, and intrigue (what were those pilots doing?)—and it happened to be perfectly relevant to a pitch I was making to the operators of an airport, which you will read about later. Perhaps, in a broader sense, this is why we tell each other intriguing narratives—to participate in powerful emotional experiences involving high-stakes situations that we hope we will never have to face ourselves. A short, personal narrative like this is important to your audience because it reveals something about you, your character, and your life. As you think about your intrigue story, don’t be afraid to make it very personal. As long as it’s relevant to your business and has the six elements described earlier, it will serve you well. Stop the Analyst Frame Cold The key to using an intrigue frame is to trust in its power to stop the analyst frame cold. Remember, the person using the analyst frame will break your pitch into pieces and ultimately crush it if unchecked. The analyst frame filters your deal like this: 1. It focuses on hard facts only. 2. It says that aesthetic or creative features have no value. 3. It requires that everything must be supported by a number or statistic. 4. It holds that ideas and human relationships have no value.  Do not let your audience go there—keep audience members focused on the relationship they are building with you. Your intrigue story breaks this analyst rule set in an entertaining way and replaces analytical thinking with narrative discourse. Breaking the Analyst Frame with Suspense Consider the movie Jaws for a moment. This 1975 Steven Spielberg film is a classic, and decades later, it is still doing a brisk business on DVD. Why does this story work so well? In the first part of the film, Spielberg doesn’t show you the shark. The great white lurks below the surface, creating a sense of terror and suspense. Where is it? When will it strike next? How big is it? We see someone in the water, minding her own business. Then we see her as a victim, screaming, kicking, getting pulled under, and eventually disappearing in a froth of red water. This predator is unseen, and we have no idea when it’s going to strike next. This creates great tension, and we are riveted to the action. Now let’s reimagine Jaws. Let’s assume that the shark is fitted with a GPS transponder and that we know its exact location at all times. We know where the shark is going, where it’s been, and what it looks like. When it comes time to hunt the shark, Police Chief Martin Brody and the crazy shark hunter, Quint, know exactly where to go and what they’re up against. Strapping a GPS transponder on the shark strips away the mystery and the intrigue. Telling the story this way would have wiped out nearly a billion dollars in box office revenue. If you know where the shark is at all times, you have no tension, no suspense, no blockbuster. The same can be said for your narrative. Use the elements of surprise and tension, and as you approach the most interesting part of the story, move away from it and leave the audience intrigued—until you are ready to reveal. Clearly, this technique made Spielberg one of the most successful directors in history. It works for me in business settings, and it will work for you. The Prizing Frame: Reloaded Prizing is a way to deal with threatening and fast-approaching frames that are likely to push you into a low-status position. When you prize, you frame yourself as high value in the eyes of your target. Prize correctly, and your target will be chasing you. Establishing a prize frame is the very first thing you need to do when you are on someone else’s turf, ready to begin your pitch. When you get to the end of your pitch and it’s time to get a deal, your success depends on how well you establish your frames at the beginning and how strong those frames actually are. For a moment, think of the alternative to having strong frames. One is to sell harder by making more calls and being more pushy. In fact, our business culture has a fascination with the idea that a sales