I have over 100 salespeople across our portfolio that does over $250 million a year. In this video, I'm going to teach you one sales skill that separates the best from the rest, and it's so powerful I've never taught it before. So, I'm going to cover the 3A framework of reframing, which is the skill I'm going to teach you, and the five rules for using it ethically.
So, what's reframing? Reframing is the one to three sentences that you say after a prospect says anything but yes, that increases the likelihood that whatever your next thing you say gets them to buy. So, here's how a reframe might sound.
Someone might say, "Hey, how many certifications do your trainers have? " Now, this is a trap question because it's basically a blind question where whatever you say in response, the prospect gets to be the judge of whether or not they accept that, and then they choose to buy or not. You don't know what the right answer is, and so, rather than answer the question, you ask a question about the question.
You'd say something like, "Well, which certifications are you looking for specifically? " The next version of this might be someone saying, "How many questions am I going to be able to ask via email in support? " Now, whatever number you give, they might say, "Oh, that's not enough," or "That's too many," or whatever it is, and then they say no for that reason; they don't want to buy.
So instead, you might say, "Well, why do you want to ask additional questions? How many questions do you want to ask? Is there a purpose that you're trying to solve with this?
What are you most afraid of? " See, that was two or three questions in a row that can reframe without answering the question they gave me. One of the biggest lessons that I teach in sales is that the person asking the questions is the one who's in control.
If you've ever seen the Hollywood movies where they're like, "I'm the one asking the questions here," it's because the person who asks the questions is the one who's in control of the conversation. As soon as they start asking the questions, you're on defense, which is not where you want to be. The reframing process I'm about to show you has sold things as low as $100 all the way up to million-dollar-plus service packages, and it's sold them in person, on the phone, via Zoom, from stage—whatever way you can imagine this works.
So, in a second, I'm going to give you the 3A framework and five rules for using it because this is unbelievably powerful, and when used the right way, it helps lots of people make good decisions. Used the wrong way, you become a very bad person and give a bad reputation to sales. The reason I started thinking about this was that I was writing and reviewing our closing manual for our closers, and I had this little piece right before all the closes that says, "Hey, by the way, make sure that you reframe the question before you enter into the close.
" But the thing is, I realized, as I was walking through the sales floor the other day, I heard someone just immediately fire back an obstacle overcome, and it seemed very combative. I thought, "Ah, they're not getting the reframe part. " I realized that that little reframe bubble was one of, if not the most important part of handling sales.
If you think about what the most productive salespeople do, the people who close the highest percentage of sales, what do they do? They ask for the sale more times than anyone else. Now, here's the problem with that: if you ask more times than anyone else the wrong way, you'll get prospects to hate you.
If prospects hate you, they won't buy from you. So, the idea is we want to be able to ask for the sale as many times as humanly possible, which means the way that we ask for the sale or how we frame our ask should not decrease rapport with the customer. The idea is we want to continue to maintain rapport the entire time so that we can then ask as many times as we darn well please.
Here's the 3A framework that I teach: the first A is acknowledge. All right, this is where you build rapport with the prospect. Version one, all right, the way that we do that is by saying what they said back to us.
Now, there are a couple of benefits from this: one is when you say it back to them, they think that you're actively listening, which of course you should, but the other part of it is that it buys you time to think about what you're going to say next. It gives you a little bit of space to process before you give your overcome or your handling of whatever their objection is. The second piece—and this is part of why this seems more natural with the most professional guys—is that you do this: this is the really sexy part.
You associate. Now, there are three associations that I'm going to show you how to do, but what you do is you associate the question they asked with the type of behavior that someone who gets the best results from your product or service would ask. So basically, when they feel like they're taking a step away from buying, you say, "That's an amazing question; that's actually a question that a lot of the best customers we have ask.
" So actually, you just say, "Nope, that means that you're. . .
" More likely to buy the third thing is that after you have made the association, you've acknowledged what they said, you've made the association, and then you ask your next question after you've properly reframed what you're going to say next. So let's dive into this. Like a lawyer in an interrogation, they never ask questions they don't already know the answers to, and you, as a salesperson, want to only ask questions that you know the answers to.
If you are ever going to answer questions, you want to know that you have the right answer before you respond. So when we do the acknowledgment, let's walk through the example I had earlier. They say, "Well, what kind of certifications do your trainers have?
" I say, "So you're curious about what our certifications are? It's a great question; it actually shows that you're a really rational person and you're making a serious decision here, which is amazing. " So what I did was: boom!
We restated it; boom! We made our association. Then, I would ask, and you can call it an "attack"—it sounds a little bit more aggressive than it is—but you basically attack the frame of the question.
You say, "Hey, which certification are you looking for specifically? " The thing is, most people have never asked a question about their question. They usually ask questions because they feel like they’re supposed to, to make an informed decision, but most of the time, they don’t even know what they’re asking.
And so they’re like, "I don’t know. " It’s like, "Well, let me tell you what we do have. " Now, if the person's like, "Uh, do they have NASM and ACE certifications?
" If I don't have that for my trainer specifically, I would then say, "Why those certifications specifically? " And then they would say, "Well, I heard that they’re good. " It’s like, "Well, those are amazing certifications; I agree with them.
I'm not disagreeing. " Then I would say, "Well, we have a couple of other ones, and I'll tell you why we chose these rather than those. " And now I can answer it without failing.
Right? If I just said, "Uh, our guys don’t have that," or "They have this," I might have lost the sale right there. The thing is, this applies to basically any question that someone asks.
It could even be like, "Um, you know, I need to think about it. " It'd be like, "Awesome! What's your main concern?
" Right? Like immediately, I'm not letting them out on that or like, "Hey, what are the main variables you're using to make the decision? " Or, "What would make this a no?
" Right? These are all questions. "What are you most afraid of having happen?
" Right? If I'm deeper in the sale, obviously that wouldn't be my first one. I would say, "What's your main concern?
" Then we'd sort the question from there. But many times, people ask you questions in the sale that you don’t need to answer; you just ask more questions about their question. And as long as you're the one asking questions, you're the one who's in control, which leads me to rule number one of the TRIAA.
So here’s a little psychology for you: As counterintuitive as this seems, a prospect believes almost nothing about what you say and almost everything that they say. So the goal is not to tell them they’re a good fit; the goal is to ask them questions so that they then say, "I think I'm a good fit for this," or "Yeah, that makes sense. " That's how you can breadcrumb them to the logical solution, which is that they should buy your thing.
And by the way, if you like some of this more advanced sales stuff, we go through this in depth at our Acquisition. com Scaling Workshop. My sales director personally meets with all the companies that show up and helps them, whether it’s nurture issues, compensation issues—it’s stuff that we understand really well.
So if you are a business owner and you are looking to scale, check out Acquisition. com, hit the scale button, and my team will be in touch. A lot of beginner salespeople think that they should want.
. . and this is the worst question ever asked in sales: "Do you have any questions?
" It's literally asking them to have objections and asking them to take the wheel of the conversation. You're literally saying, "Here, take control over this because I don’t know what I’m doing. " So please don't do that; train that out of your team.
The second thing is that as soon as you start answering questions again, they're the judge, jury, and executioner of whether or not your answers are good. If your salespeople are not as knowledgeable as you or your technicians, which is often true in any kind of service business—the people delivering are not necessarily the same or as knowledgeable as the people who are selling—it sets them up for failure. I'll give you a quick overcome for this: If someone gets a little bit like, "Hey, why aren’t you answering my questions?
" you say, "Listen, it would be like you asking the secretary how your heart surgery is going to be with the surgeon. You’re going to want to talk to the surgeon. " And I'll give you a different one—I call this the mechanic version—which is, "Hey, you’re asking me what's wrong with your car, and it would be unethical for me to answer without looking under the hood first.
" And so we can give you much better answers on the inside once we start working with your business or with your whatever, right? doesn't really matter, right? But you can use that analogy to kind of get around it.
And then I say this, and this seals it. If anyone—this is how I say it—and if anyone does give you an answer on the first call without already having looked under the hood after already giving you a physical or doing an assessment, run the other way, because it means they're just trying to tell you whatever they can to get you to buy. And now I have the ethical high ground, and they can't ask any more questions about that.
Rule number two: no one can disagree with a question. I tell my team, "Be like smoke. " You can't catch smoke because all you're doing is you're basically always side shifting.
In terms of whatever they say, you're like, "Oh, let me ask you a question about that. Oh, can you be more specific? Hey, what are the variables you're thinking about?
" And that way, you're always engaging with them, and they're the ones doing the talking. Then you get to decide whether their answers are good or not and whether or not they're a good fit for the program. Now, we're not going to tell them that they're a good fit for the program; we're going to have them make that decision.
But in terms of judge, jury, executioner, you want that to be you. Here's why rule number two is so important: you can never disagree with a prospect. Now, you may actually disagree with them, but you don't want to voice disagreement with the prospect because you never win a sale by winning an argument.
Anyone who's engaged in an argument—both people lose. More importantly for you as a salesperson, you lose the sale. The objective is actually to never disagree with a prospect, and the point is to get them to change their minds.
We can only do that in an agreeable way. People don't change their minds when they're in a bad mood or they feel insulted, right? We do that by asking them questions.
Now, there are ways to ask questions that seem insulting, and that's what triaa helps solve. We're going to dive more into that as we go through this, but it also means that we can ask questions about their questions. This is something that a lot of beginner salespeople don't know; they then assume they know what this person is asking about.
They have this really vague question, and then they try to come up with the "right" answer, and they fail every time. By the way, this is just the ultra mega hack: if you don't know how to answer the question, you can always ask more questions about their question. So, let me show you how this sounds in reality.
So someone says, "I need to think about it. " We say, "Totally understand. What are the main things you're considering?
What are the variables that you're considering in your decision? What's your main concern? What are you most afraid of having happen?
What would make this a 'no'? " One of my favorite questions, by the way, is, "Well then, what would it take for you to say 'yes'? " Now, let's say someone says, "I don't have time; timing is off right now for me.
" You say, "Great! Totally understand. Acknowledge that timing is kind of tough for you right now.
I think it's smart that you're already thinking about implementation. Our biggest success stories are actually people who think through the process the same way you are right now. So, what would make it a good time?
" As you work through this, these two give you the space to make the positive association. They take a step back, and you say, "I feel you; I totally understand. " Now, they're back to neutral, and then you associate with the thing that's closer to the sale, and then you move the conversation forward with the ask.
So let's do another one. Someone says, "I need to talk to my spouse. " You say, "Totally understand.
I think it's really sensible that you'd want to talk to your spouse. Super fair! Just so I understand, out of curiosity, what parts do you think they wouldn't like?
What parts do you think they would disagree with? " Now, we've moved from "I have to talk to my partner" to talking about the specific things, and once we get the prospect to name those things, then we can address those, right? We're still in the sale.
So, let's say someone says, "I hate this particular feature. " You say, "Totally get it! I hate them all too!
Just kidding. Let me just ask you a real question: why not? " Then we can get back into it, right?
All of these statements—people will make statements as though they are deal enders, and beginners will take a statement like that and think, "Oh, I guess they're not going to buy," and that couldn't be further from the truth. You just continue to ask questions about why they don't like something, and by continuing to ask questions about their questions, you can stay in it and keep asking, because that's the point. The best closers make the most asks, which leads me to rule number three, which is to tell them what their question means.
So, this is a zoom-in on associate if you're a salesperson with at least two years of experience and you're enjoying this stuff. This is just the surface of the type of training we provide our teams. If you'd like to work at acquisition.
com or one of our portfolio companies, we are. . .
Always looking for exceptional salespeople, we have a lot of roles open right now in sales. You can go to acquisition. /are and hit the business consultant button; that'll take you to the application for that.
If you're good, just apply. We're willing to be flexible on payments based on experience and whatnot, but just put in the application. The first time I had this used on me, I was actually getting pitched investment or private wealth management from somebody, and I wanted to just get out of the conversation as fast as I could because I was like, "I already have a wealth advisor; I'm good.
" The guy just said, "Oh, that's amazing! Ninety percent of the clients we have that shift over already have a wealth advisor, so it means you already know how a lot of these things work, which means you'll be up the learning curve. " I was like, "What just happened?
I thought I was getting out of this," and now I'm more like the customers that ultimately buy. I ended up not buying from that particular guy, but I did think, "Wow, that was such a powerful reframe! How can I use that in all of my selling?
" The prospect has not had this conversation as many times as you; you should never be caught off guard with the questions or the statements that they're going to make. Remember, you've had a thousand of these conversations. The fact that somebody could surprise you is ridiculous.
You have to practice; this is why we train. A prospect is trying to just throw up bombs or smoke screens to get out of the sale. To be clear, what I believe is bad selling is one of two key things: One, you sell an unqualified prospect, which basically means that you're lying to them that they're going to get a good result or that they somehow are qualified when they're really not.
This really underpins the main thing of sales, in my opinion, which we have across really all of our communication stuff in the company: state the facts and tell the truth. If you state the facts and tell the truth, and this person is qualified, then you have the ethical obligation to ask as many times as possible and get them to pull their head out of their ass so that they can see the world clearly instead of it being dark and full of shit—that's the point. Now, if you get weird about resistance, then you don't understand the job of sales.
The best salespeople are comfortable when other people feel like there's conflict. They're able to always deescalate, which is why being like smoke is so key. It's a dance, not a fight; it's seduction, not rape.
The idea is that we want to always have consent from the person; we always want them to want to be there. People like you when you ask questions about them; people like you when you compliment them and you say, "Hey, that's a really smart question! Hey, that makes you just like the people who have the best success stories.
" I'll show you a little bit more about some more associations in the next rule. This leads us to rule number four: use straw men for tough truths. We've all been in a sale where someone just says something ridiculous, where you can clearly see that their beliefs around the world are so flawed that you have to have kind of a "papa talk.
" There are different ways of entering this; some people say, "Hey, can I put my coach hat on instead of my friend hat? " The thing is, in all of these reframes, you're basically getting permission from the person to give them a harsh truth. Now, if you're a younger guy and, let's say, you sell B2B, it's much tougher to do so.
If you're a 22-year-old sales guy and you're talking to a 45-year-old, you know, $10 million-a-year plumber, he probably doesn't give a damn about you trying to put your coach hat on; he just thinks you're a child, and he doesn't care at all. To the same degree, if you say, "Hey, can I share something that really worked well for me? " again, to the same degree, that puts you above him, and he's not going to like that.
I use three different strategies of straw men. A straw man in argumentation is basically like putting—I use the word "foil," normally, but people don't know what that means—but basically, it's like you put up this caricature of someone who's just like them that you can then have the tough conversation with without insulting the prospect. So, I'll give you three different ways that we do this.
The first way is when you make the association. This is us going deep on association here. This is where someone says, "Whatever it is—totally understand that you're coming from that direction.
I would ask those questions too. " Now we make the association. So, number one, you can say, "It's so funny you ask that because I had someone just earlier today who asked the same question.
Can I share with you what I just shared with them? " The thing is, because I'm now talking about a conversation I had with someone else, I can now be brutal as to this other person, but I'm not saying it to the prospect, so it's not insulting. The second way that you can do this is that you do it in reference, and I.
. . I said it earlier to a successful past customer: "That's so crazy!
I totally understand. You know what? That actually makes you just like Sarah, who had a similar plumbing business and actually crushed it with our marketing agency.
So now we've made the association, and she asked this question too. Boom! And then we handle the objection.
" All right, and so these straw men are particularly important when you are going to answer a question. Everything up to this point has been basically sidestepping, being like smoke, but sometimes you will have to make the answer. If we do need to give them an explanation or kind of break their belief when they're saying, "I don't have time," you're like, "Oh, it's not really a timing thing; it's a priorities question.
" But if you say that to somebody and you don't have as much rapport, you're going to lose the sale, right? That is the logical thing. Everybody has the same amount of time every day; it's really just a question of priorities.
However, if you say it at the wrong time, they're going to be like, "Screw you! " By doing the straw man or putting the foil up, or the car that you can then attack or talk to in front of this prospect, it creates a third party that's neutral. The third way of using the associate is that you can appeal to authority.
If you're in a business where the CEO is edified or seen as a respectable person or an expert in the field—either can be fame, influence, or expertise—it doesn't really matter which one, but as long as they have some level of expertise. Instead of appealing to your authority, you appeal to theirs. For example, "It's so funny that you ask that; Alex just told me this thing earlier today.
Can I share it with you? " Right? And then the person appeals to someone else's authority and then shares it.
They're the messenger, saying, "I'm not saying this; he said it, and I'm just sharing it with you. " These sound like tiny sidesteps, but this type of triple reframing is what separates beginners from pros. When you do it this way, people actually like to be sold by you because they feel like they're being heard.
You make associations that are saying, "Hey, that's smart. Hey, that's reasonable. Totally understand why you'd say that.
" These are all things like "That's a rational decision. Hey, I think that's a fair point. " Those are all things that someone wants to hear.
They're like, "Hey, he's listening. He thinks I'm intelligent or rational. He's not discarding my decision.
" Everybody wants to be validated, right? So it's the same thing as the angry boat, but just in a sales conversation. In the angry boat for customer success or customer service, if someone's upset, you don't disagree with them and say, "Hey, it wasn't that big of a deal; sorry we were five minutes late.
" It never works because you're disagreeing with them; you're invalidating the reason that they're angry. So you have to get more angry. You have to go above, and that's where you say, "Hey, that's a totally reasonable concern," rather than saying, "That's a stupid question.
" Right? You might feel that way, but you don't say that. The reason I realized this, especially with the association, is I heard my sales guys, and they were having a tougher time using some of the closes.
They were like, "Yeah, you know, some of them sound a little tough; they're a little harsh. " I was like, "No, no, no. " When I realized that, I was like, "Oh, it's because they're not prefacing it with this.
" If you preface with this, you can say almost anything, and this allows you to cut to the heart of the matter way faster instead of dancing around it because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. This leads me to rule number five: retain childlike curiosity at all times. One of my favorite ways of training this concept is actually training a physical thing that you do with your body.
Even if you're on a sales call, and they can't see you, your tone will change based on how you're standing. If you're smiling or not, your voice will come out differently. By the way, I encourage you to have a mirror if you're on the phone next to you in your sales booth, and if you do Zoom, obviously you can see your own little image there.
But I like to have people say, "Huh? " and you say it just like that. "Huh?
That's so interesting you'd ask that question! Can I ask you a little bit more about that? " Like if someone says something really nasty to you, right?
If you retain that way, the goal is to seek to understand, not to win. The way that I try to keep this—if you're a sales guide—put a little sticky note above your camera or wherever you look while you're selling, which is "Keep the human number one. " All right?
This is a really powerful frame that I actually learned from Leila for having hard conversations on the team, but it applies to sales. If you genuinely believe that the product you have is going to help this person, and this is a qualified prospect that you're talking to, then you want to understand their concerns. Concerns so that you can help them get over them because you know this is the right decision for them.
And so, this is a frame that I like to think about: let's say you could travel back in time, but you're in a different body, and you see your old self, and you know what the future's going to be. You might say, "Okay, I have to convince this person to buy Nvidia 10 years ago," or "I have to buy Apple stock," or "I have to buy Bitcoin. " Whatever it is, I don't really care.
The thing is, you know that this thing is going to go through the roof, but the person you're talking to doesn't know you from Adam. Think about how you talk to that person. Now remember, they don't know who you are, even though you know you would have absolute empathy for your old self and be like, "Listen, I totally understand.
This seems totally crazy, but let me walk you through what I think is going to happen. " Right? Let me ask, "What are your main concerns?
What are you most afraid of? What would it take for you to say yes? What would it take for us to take the next step together?
" It allows you to make sure that you're focusing on the prospect rather than the product. You don't close sales by being right; you close sales by making the prospect right. The big understanding here is that you want to understand them, not beat them, because as soon as it feels combative, you've already lost the sale.
If they feel like you won an argument logically, you've lost the sale. The point is to make money, not to be right. We want them to feel good about the logical decision that we're helping them make, and if anything, you want to be a hero in their journey.
You're like, "Hey, I'm just the guide here. I'm just going to share the information that I think will help you make a good decision. " "Ah, that's a great question.
Can I provide a little bit of context on that? Just from someone that had this experience earlier today. " Right?
All of these things are what will allow you to give those hard truths to close the deal. The reason the association is so important is that it gives the prospect a label to then live up to. This is a 2011 version of selling, but if you say, "Hey, you seem like a really honest person," or "Hey, that's a really smart decision," or "Hey, that's a really smart question," if I then give them that label, when I get closer to the close, I might bring that back up and associate smart people with this thing.
"Hey, you must be a good family man," right? Because you had some spouse objection. "Fine, seems like your family is really important to you.
I think that's awesome; it's super admirable. " Now, when I get to the end of the sale, I can bring up the fact that this is a family man, and because he's a family man, he should buy. It allows me to pair whatever their obstacles were with things that I'm going to bring up in the close.
Pro tip: my universal response for almost anything—I walked through the sales floor, and one of the guys was on the phone. I said, "You should come," and I just walked through the room. Then the guy was like, "Ah," and so my sales guy was like, "So, you coming?
" and the guy was like, "Yeah," and it was super weak. Right? He was obviously not sold yet.
So, I actually was like, "Give me the phone. " I hopped on the phone and said, "Dude, what are you afraid of? " When you ask, "What are you most afraid of?
" it gets you to the heart of the issue as fast as possible. Now, if it's the first objection, I would want to ask, "What's your main concern? What's your main issue?
What are the variables you're using to make the decision? " That's like kind of understanding, so you can triage. But when I'm further along in the sale, I'll usually ask, "Hey, what are you afraid of, man?
What are you afraid of having happen? " If someone's like, "I just need more time," then you say, "Totally understand. What would make it a 'no'?
" By doing that, it still keeps you in the sale because, at the end of the day, you want to make a good decision. I'm the source of your information. The best possible decision we can make is here, but again, you can only say something like that if you have rapport in the sale, and you've continued to demonstrate that throughout.
If I said something like that and I didn't have rapport, they'd be like, "No. " So, it's not going to work. If you liked this very mini training, you're going to love the four-plus compilation of my best sales trainings all put together at once.
Click it. Enjoy!
