Sales Tips - How to Use Framing in the Sales Process

Master sales people are adept at using a strategy called framing to communicate with prospective clients. Framing ensures their sales messages 'cut through the clutter' and distinguishes them as the credible sales resource for their product or service.

Framing is not a difficult skill and it is one that you can master too. Here are the main ways you can immediately apply framing to increase your sales performance:

The As If Frame: Great whwn people are focusing on why things can't happen. Ask a question such as "If you did buy, how would you ahve turned that around?" They may respond with something like "I don't know" but be persistent. Just ask again with "Well, what do you think it might be?"

This type of frame is fantastic for getting people to adopt a possibility mindset and outlook and to move them away from all the reasons why it couldn't happen.

The Pre-frame: Probably the greatest secret of the best sales people in the world. Objection handling never becomes an issue when you can skilfully use preframing to get the other person to focus on the value. By doing this you skillfully stop them focusing on any percieved negatives before they ever become an issue. By communicating the positive side of any percieved negatives in your sales presentation then you will be dealing with the objection in advance. It might go something like this:

"John, at this stage it might be natural to think that our widget is more expensive than your existing supplier. We appreciate that initially this may seem to be the case. In reality, when you take into account our running costs are 30% less then the extra capital cost is repayed by month 4 and over the 5 year life of the project will save you roughly £42,000. Have I explained that OK?"

The Re-frame: As second runner up to the pre-frame when dealing with objections because here the prospective client has already taken a stance and formed a view - a feeling. The reframe is used to try to demonstrate that there are benefits they may not have sufficient knowledge of that would make the objection not valid. If you are successful with your pre-frame then you should not get these about your product or service. It is likely, however, that these can be long standing feelings, stances views of the industry e.t.c that your prospective client may have had for some time. In that case work at effective reframes that will move them forward.

The worlds greatest salespeople understand the importance of reframing and how it can dramatically increase their sales success. How can you use these in your sales presentations?