Oren Klaff Quotes

For [target customers] Who are dissatisfied with [the current offerings in the market]. My idea/product is a [new idea or product category] That provides [key problem/solution features]. Unlike [the competing product].

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.

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.

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.

who believes that we feel decisions in our body, not our mind. There’s a whole side to us that computers don’t have and the “rational economic man” economists like to talk about doesn’t have either. Our bodies “know” the situations we meet in life and how we should respond.

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

Seizing Situational Status Here are the steps involved in elevating your status in any situation. You will recognize some of these actions from framing, and for good reason. Frame control and status are closely related, as are the pitch techniques you will learn in Chapter 4. 1. Politely ignore power rituals and avoid beta traps. 2. Be unaffected by your customer’s global status (meaning the customer’s status inside and outside the business environment). 3. Look for opportunities to perpetrate small denials and defiances that strengthen your frame and elevate your status. 4. As soon as you take power, quickly move the discussion into an area where you are the domain expert, where your knowledge and information are unassailable by your audience. 5. Apply a prize frame by positioning yourself as the reward for making the decision to do business with you. 6. Confirm your alpha status by making your customer, who now temporarily occupies a beta position, make a statement that qualifies your higher status.

Our bodies “know” the situations we meet in life and how we should respond.

Broadcasting weakness by seeking validation is often a death sentence.

As you are pitching your idea, the croc brain of the person sitting across from you isn't 'listening' and thinking, 'Hmm, 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.

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.

Your pitch is first going to register in the target’s croc brain. And as we discussed in Chapter 1, the croc brain would like to ignore you. But if you are dynamic enough — giving new and novel information — you will capture the croc’s attention. Once that happens, the croc is going to have one of two primal reactions: • Curiosity and desire, or • Fear and dislike.

There are limits to the human attention span, which is why a pitch must be brief, concise, and interesting,

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.

Attention will be given when information novelty is high and will drift away when information novelty is low.