Stories on Reframing (Part 1)

Some of you have asked me for some stories on “reframing”. Well, I thought I will start off 2013 by relating some true experiences using reframing:-

Story No. 1 - Salesman using “reframing”  to sell his product

My schoolmate, Yip Chee Seng informed me that three months ago, he received a call from a salesman who wanted to sell him a subscription for cable television channels. The salesman informed Yip that if Yip subscribed for 24 months of cable service, he will receive the decoder for free. Yip told the salesman he wasn’t interested as he has already an existing subscription. The salesman tried to persuade him but to no avail. Three months after that phone call, Yip received another call from the salesman.  This time the salesman started out by saying, “Congratulations, Mr Yip! You have won a decoder for FREE!!!” Initially, Yip was excited as he had never won anything before. After a while, reality sank in and somehow the voice sounded familiar. Yip asked the salesman, “Wait a minute, the decoder is free?” The salesman replied, “Absolutely! There is no charge at all”. Yip then asked, “But I need to subscribe for 24 months?” The salesman quietly replied, “Yes”. Yip asked, “How is this different from the offer you gave me 3 months ago?” The salesman went absolutely quiet. The conversation ended there.

What can we learn from the above? Did the salesman reframe correctly? Well, I think he did. Did the salesman get a desired result? Well, the answer is “No”. Yip was put off. Firstly, Yip felt that he had being misled. Yip felt that the salesman wanted to play a fast one on him. Even though the reframing was done correctly but it was not done appropriately. What the salesman should have done was that he should have dropped the first call he made to Yip and started out by saying by “Congratulations, Mr Yip! You have won a decoder for FREE!” You see, by dropping the first phone call and making the second one, Yip would not have been alerted about the salesman’s real intention. By making the first phone call, Yip was already on guard and very much alert on the salesman’s intention. Of course, ultimately, it would be up to Yip to decide if wants to accept the offer or not.

Story No. 2 - Reframing by inserting “positive pressure”

A few years ago, I was involved with a non-profit organisation. The organisation wanted to raise funds by selling dinner tickets. For some reason, the tickets were selling rather slowly. Almost all the volunteers including me were pretty lacking when it came to selling stuff. We were pretty straight forward when we approached our potential “purchasers”. Many of them were too polite to say “no”. They would make excuses such as “let me think about it” or “I need to ask my spouse first”, etc. Then one of our members by the name of Allan came and joined us. Allan was a seasoned salesman. He is a successful businessman selling office equipments and stationaries. I told Allan about our uphill challenge in selling the tickets. Allan said, “No problem. Come with me and you will learn”.

Allan made an appointment to see a mutual friend of ours. This mutual friend of ours was a thrifty guy and in my heart, I was saying to Allan, “Good luck in dealing with him, buddy”. Allan and I went to see this friend of ours. Allan started out by telling this friend about the reason for the charity dinner and the purpose of the organisation. Well, no big deal there. I have done exactly the same thing. Then Allan asked our friend whether he would be interested in purchasing the tickets. As expected, our mutual friend replied, “I need to check with my wife first whether we have plans for that evening. I also need to check my diary and blah, blah, blah”. I looked at Allan’s body language and facial expression. Not once did Allan showed any disappointment or was he disheartened. I could see Allan was rather emphatic with our mutual friend. Allan was nodding his head in agreement with our friend indicating he agreed and understood our friend’s predicament. Allan did not interrupt our friend when he gave his reasons about not purchasing the tickets. After our mutual had finished his speech, Allan simply said, “There are only 2 tickets left. I thought you would like to have it before I sell it to other people”. Suddenly, our mutual friend reached for his wallet and bought the tickets immediately. Instead of asking our mutual friend whether he wants to purchase the tickets, Allan reframed his statement and intention by limiting our mutual friend’s options. When you have so few options, it is quite easy to decide, isn’t it?

It is interesting how a human being acts and reacts. When a person is put under pressure, suddenly the person is able to make quick decision. A lot of times, we tend to take things for granted. We think that the person or the thing will always be there when we need it. A perfect example was something that happened to me recently. I was procrastinating about packing my personal items for relocation to Sydney. I had a lot of things on my mind such as what to pack and which items I should store in KL. That was just that - merely thinking and thinking but no physical action on my part as I am just merely procrastinating. To me, it felt like I still have got a lot of time in my hands. When we finally appointed an International Movers to ship our things to Sydney, it dawned on me that the actual duration was pretty restricted. The Movers gave us just one week to get everything identified and packed. It would have been easy if it was just one place but we had three places to pack and move! When it came to making decision on what to take and what to discard, suddenly I found courage and became decisive. I disposed a lot of stuff which under normal circumstances, I would not have thrown away. I read that humans tend to make rational decisions when under pressure. Perhaps, Allan could have read that when he used his reframing and positive pressure on our mutual friend!