Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal

In this book, the author Oren Klaff, introduces a new method for pitching ideas. Through psychology, neuroscience and personal anecdotes, he explains the tactics and techniques needed to successfully pitch anything to anyone.

Frames

The mental structures that shape the way we see the world are called frames. The common label for this would be perspective. They are psychological referencing systems that all people use to gain a perspective and relevance on issues.

Understanding how to harness and apply the power of frames is the most important thing you will ever learn.

When you talk to someone, you’re talking the most primitive part of the brain, the crocodile brain, and not our highly evolved neocortex. The neocortex tries to persuade the croc brain, which is afraid of almost everything and needs very simple and non-threatening ideas to decide in your favor. Anything that is not a crisis it’s marked as “spam” by the croc brain.

When you pitch, you want to make sure it gets recognized as something and out of the ordinary so that your message doesn’t trigger fear alarms. Make the croc brain feel safe by presenting clear, visual, and novel information. In general:

• It likes facts clearly explained.
• It likes high contrast options.
• It likes to get to the point fast.

When frames come together, the first thing they do is collide. They don’t blend or merge. The stronger frame always wins.

When you are responding ineffectively to things the other person is saying and doing, you are being frame-controlled.

Here’s a list of the major types of frames that you will encounter. Learn how to meet these oncoming frames, win the initial collision, and control the agenda:

Power frame: One of the most common frames in business. People with power frames have a massive ego and high status. They don’t care what others think and that’s why they are also the most vulnerable.

To overcome the power frame, you will have to cause a frame collision, using a shocking but not unfriendly act. Use defiance and light humor. The key is to perpetuate a small denial during the encounter and make clear that it is your meeting, that they are following your agenda, and everything will be on your timeline. Remember not to abuse the power you now hold.

Time frame: They are used very often by your target to disrupt your frame. You need to establish that your time is also important and avoid getting treated like an annoyance. When you encounter a time frame, quickly break it with a stronger prize frame of your own or use an even tighter time frame.

Prize frame: A typical situation is when the decision maker doesn’t show up to the meeting. What you do in these cases is to reframe what your audience does and says as if they were trying to win you over. The message that prizing subconsciously sends to your audience is that they are trying to impress you, that you are the prize. Make them want to chase you.

Analyst frame: This frame can destroy your pitch because it lacks any kind of emotion or connection to people. When you are pitching and someone asks you to show hard facts, supported by numbers and stats, it’s the analyst frame coming after you. It only values hard data and ignores the value of relationships and ideas. When you encounter an analyst frame, break it with a solid intrigue frame.

Intrigue frame: It’s the most effective way to overcome the analysts frame because it hijacks higher cognitive function and switches back to the more primitive systems of the target’s brain. Our brains are unable to be analytical (cold) and narrative-engaged (warm) at the same time. This is the secret of the intrigue frame. Make sure you have a great story prepared just in case.

Status

In every social encounter, status plays an important role when it comes to frame control. The way others see you is critical. In just a few seconds, you can tell who in the room is the dominant alpha. If it turns out that someone else is, then you are the beta. The question you should ask yourself is: Can you switch out of the beta position and take the alpha during this short social interaction? When you do it, your power to convince others will be strong since you hold high social status, even if that is temporary.

When you take the high-status position in social interaction, you feel it, and it is also felt by your audience.

When you lack high status, it doesn’t matter how well you make a point or argument. You will not gain the attention needed to make your pitch heard.

Good news is that your social value changes with the environment you are in, or the environment you create. In order to elevate your social value in any given situation, you can do it by redirecting people into a domain where you are in charge, using local-star-power. The ability to create and sustain local-star-power is going to mean the difference between success and failure.

Phases for Pitching your idea

The most important scientific discovery of the twentieth century can be pitched in five minutes.

Phase 1: Introduce yourself and the big idea (5 minutes)

Research has shown that the first impression is the result of the average of available information about someone. So just tell one great thing about you. That’s it.

When explaining your big idea, frame it against the 3 market forces; what’s the economic trend, the social change or the disruptive technology. Let your audience know how your idea is moving away from the standard way of doing things, challenging the status quo, and how you saw the opportunity.

Phase 2: Explain your “secret sauce”(10 minutes)

You should be able to briefly describe the unfair advantage you have over others. To do so, describe what they really want and the immediate consequences of making a decision or not. Create tension and desire.

Phase 3: Offer the deal (2 minutes)

Describe to your audience what they are going to receive once they decide to do business with you. In clear and concise terms, tell the audience exactly what you will be delivering to them, when and how. If they play a part in this process, explain what their roles and responsibilities will be. You can’t afford to be ambiguous here.

Phase 4: Frame stacking for hot cognition

During this phase, you want to make your target decide in your favor even before they fully understand the deal. We have a natural inclination to like or dislike something without knowing much about it. This is called hot cognition, and you can make it happen by stacking frames:

• Intrigue: Build a narrative and put your target to ignite hot cognition. Make them wanting for more.
• Prizing: Flip the frame. You are the prize. They are trying to impress you.
• Time: The train is leaving the station at such date and time. There’s a timeline that everyone has to follow.
• Moral Authority: You want to work with people with the same values.

Neediness: The deal-killer

Every time we experience disappointment, our natural response is to fix it with validation-seeking behaviors. This ends up broadcasting neediness.

Showing signs of neediness is about the worst thing you can do to your pitch. It’s incredibly bad for frame control. It erodes status. It freezes your hot cognitions.

Nobody likes needy people. Neediness is a signal of threat that the croc brain wants to avoid. Follow the basic formula for eradicating neediness:

• Want nothing
• Focus only on things you do well
• Announce your intention to leave the social encounter
• Ignore topics unrelated to your pitch

Summary

The key message of this book is:

In every social interaction, people talk to each other to the most primitive part of the brain. When this happens, there’s a collision between different perspectives or frames. Only one prevails. If you want to persuade, convince and ultimately sell anything, you need to harness and apply the power of frames.

Want to read the book? Get Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal.

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