296. Framing: The Secret Weapon for Business Messaging Success (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 296 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about framing.

Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer. Hello.

Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about framing. I am so excited to be able.

To refresh this episode for you today.

Because as you know, if you've been listening to the show for a while.

Or if you've read any of my.

Books or seen one of my presentations, you know that framing is one of my very favorite concepts and I think it is the most important one for anyone in business to start with. When looking to apply behavioral economics, framing is a great place to start because it's simple and often free to apply. The way you say something matters much more than what you are saying and how the information is presented to you or how you interpret it. First off, is not the only way to interpret or present or approach it. In fact, it often isn't the way that's going to best resonate with others. So taking the time to think about it more in depth and do some flipping of the frame can be really helpful in shaping and expanding your perspective and helping you to share information in a way that's more likely to get customers to buy and employees to buy in. You'll hear lots of examples of framing as you listen to today's episode, which originally aired in 2018 as episode 16 of the podcast. I've been very selective as to when to refresh the framing episode because as I said, it applies applies to pretty much everything. So I could have made an argument for why it could be the refresh for anything so far. So what got me to finally move forward and showcase framing? It's my conversation with Rohit Bhargava, author of the Future Normal and founder of the Non Obvious Company, who I met at south by Southwest earlier this year. His approach to the world is all about reframing and looking at things a little differently and showing all the value that comes from those flipped frames. So it was a natural fit. As you listen today, consider all the frames you have in your business and perspective. Where are you suffering from a bad frame and could a tiny shift make a big difference? And don't forget that your free framing worksheet and links to past episodes, including many that weren't out when this one first aired that you'll hear me reference in the refresh today, as well as books and articles are all waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 296 all right, let's talk about framing.

When you think of a frame, you probably think about pictures. That's what most of us think about. So if you were to take a beautiful painting, your favorite one, something amazing, and you put it in a really terrible, gross frame, how would that impact your experience and your ability to enjoy the artwork itself? What if in the reverse, what if you took a really terrible painting and framed it beautifully? I don't know what magazines you like or subscribe to, but I have two that I absolutely love, Real simple and HGTV magazine. I'm all about craftiness and home decor, so I really appreciate how they combine expensive items with flea market finds or other affordable do it yourself projects to help people have a beautiful home on a budget. It's not uncommon in their pages to see generic prints or wallpaper put into a nice frame and turned into a really beautiful photo wall that can change an entire room. It looks expensive and has a great impact, even though the items inside the frames might be worth a few cents or even just a few dollars. Think back to when you were in high school. Did you put posters on your wall? I know I did, as did many of my friends personally. I was an NSYNC fan. I had the posters of a few boy bands throughout my walls, and like many teenagers, I stuck them up with tape or push pins instead of putting them in frames. They always looked a bit ragged and shabby, the corners would peel back and it was just tacky. I I think I knew it then. I definitely know it now. Those posters, the same exact ones, would have looked immediately different if they were in a frame, even just a simple one.

But why?

Why does a little border around the edge make a difference? In my office today hangs a painting I bought when I lived in Italy. I've always loved it, but for a long time it was hung in a very simple frame. It was not expensive per se, maybe €15 at the time I bought it. Honestly, I don't know. I don't know who the artist is, if he ever made it, or what the painting is worth. But it's important to me and it has a lot of value because it reminds me of the time I spent in Rome. Side note, listen to episode eight, what is value? To learn more about how that works. Anyway, a couple years ago I took it in to get it properly framed, which absolutely cost more than the painting itself, let me tell you. Even though I got a nice discount on it, it is matted really nicely with a double border that brings out the colors in the piece and it instantly looks like a different painting. It feels better and people commented on it more when it was hanging in my office than when it had been in the previous frame. Again, compelled to ask you why, if it's the same painting, why does the frame matter? It's because our subconscious brain is evaluating each other everything very quickly. Remember those 11 million bits of processing per second looking at all the associations and it's using assumptions to make decisions. As you know, high quality frames or well placed esthetics means it must be a higher quality piece. Would be that really instant decision that your brain would make. Have you ever seen too? I really love where people will take their children's artwork and they put it into nice frames and do a collage or a photo wall and it instantly looks like it's a really amazing, beautiful piece of art versus, you know, something your child made at school. Which is could, could still be a beautiful and amazing piece of art, but it just gives it some gravitas that you don't get when it's on a basic sheet of paper or construction paper. Similarly, our brains do this same thing looking at, you know, the frame all the time in the way that words, phrases or numbers are presented. Often most of the time what you say is not as important as how you say it. You've heard different coaches or people tell you over time. I am sure you know, whatever percentage of our communication is non verbal, it's because of the way that your subconscious brain is scanning the environment. It's indicating, ingesting all of this information. Tone and facial expressions and whatever it is, all this other stuff makes a difference. And that is a big part of how framing works. If you have been listening to the show since the beginning. Thank you. And I want you to remember back to episode two, the top five wording mistakes businesses make. This is the second most popular episode and really a fan favorite. It's one of the ones I most often have quoted back to me when I meet fans of the show in person. This actually just happened to me while I was in Little Rock and the story she remembered and asked me about was related to framing. Do you remember the nail salon example for anyone who doesn't remember or who hasn't listened to it yet? 1 There's a link in the show notes, but I'm going to explain that particular concept really quickly again here. This was the example of being too literal. I love my nail salon and I have not gone anywhere else since I moved to the area almost two years ago. They are friendly and funny and always remember me. I enjoy going in, which is important since I'm there every two weeks. But they have a sign outside their building that has a serious sign framing problem. It's one of the problems I see all the time and really, truly, I mean all the time. Whenever I visit a client's physical location and there are versions of this on websites and brochures or really any business I go into, whether they're a client or not, this comes up in some iteration basically every time I see it beyond all the time. So after all, it made the top five wording mistakes for a reason. It has to be common to be in the top five. So I want you to know not to feel bad if you have this somewhere because it really is easy to fix and it can make a significant impact. Okay, they have a sign outside their building that reads voted best in The South Sound 2009, 2010, 2011. Because I'm not sure when you're going to be listening to this, I think it's important to let you know what year it is. It is 2018, and the problem with this outdated sign is that it sends a negative message to your subconscious brain, whether you realize it on a conscious level or not. When you see this message in 2018, you don't think, wow, they must be great. You think, wow, I wonder what happened to make them go downhill for the last seven years. The reason for this ending in 2011 could be legitimate. Maybe the outlet that did the rankings doesn't make those lists anymore. They went out of business. You still have the accomplishment, so you should be able to tout it, put it out there. However, you need a new sign once this gets past a certain point to keep it from getting set stale and actually becoming a negative for your business. I would say with that being 2011 as the year, you know you can have that sign up all of 2012, maybe part of 2013, but really at that point it's time to make a change because it's doing more harm than good for you. And it's a very simple shift. Instead of saying voted Best in The South Sound 2009, 2010, 2011, simply say voted best in the South Sound three years in a row. It's a tiny shift, but that new frame makes all the difference. Three years in a row could have been anytime, could have been 40 years ago for all we know. But it doesn't matter. The subconscious brain doesn't read into it that same way. It's quickly scanning. It sees the accomplishment for what it is. And the timing doesn't matter in the way that it becomes a hindrance in the other presentation. Framing is really at the heart of the concept of loss aversion, which was the focus of episode nine. Framing something as a loss is more likely to get someone to take action than framing it as a gain. And if you remember from that episode and the research from Kahneman and Tversky, losses are actually found to be twice as powerful a motivator as gains. So if you lose $20, it would theoretically take finding 40 to make up for the pain felt from that loss. This is also called prospect theory, if you wanted to look it up again. There's of course a link in the show notes and the article by Kahneman and Tversky that really changed the face of economics has the same name and bringing about behavioral economics. In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes framing as the large changes of preferences that are sometimes caused by inconsequential variations in the wording of a choice problem. I have told you, it's a little bit of a heavy read. So essentially changing wording in a way that should not make a difference absolutely does. That's what he's saying, and this is how you can understand that frame. So how else would framing come into play? Here are some examples for you to help this really settle in. Our brains would find foods that are labeled as 90% fat free to be more attractive than those that are labeled as 10% fat, even though it is saying exactly the same thing thing. The frame makes a difference in what your brain hears and what you internalize, what it says about the decision you're making. You feel better about yourself choosing something that's 90% fat free than you do as saying, I'm getting yogurt that's 10% fat. It doesn't feel very good. So last week on the episode about availability, I mentioned the US Open and the battle between Serena and Osaka. When I say Serena lost, is it saying the same thing as Osaka won? There are two sides of the same coin, sure, but they don't have the same meaning in our brains. Serena lost says something about the expectations for her to win and that she did something to prevent that from happening, or, you know, that it was on her, it was hers to lose, essentially. On the flip side, Osaka won is a statement about what she did to beat the odds, the effort that went into it, and the perseverance. While they're saying the same thing, they're actually saying two completely different things. To our brains, this background matters a great deal, even though traditional economics did not always take it into account. Let's say there are two people, Steve and Sally, and they each have $5 million in their bank accounts. It's pretty great to be both of them and they should be considered exactly the same, right? What if I told you that Yesterday Steve had $1 million and Sally had 10 million? Does that change things at all? Do they have a different frame around the 5 million in their accounts? Steve is likely ecstatic at his good fortune and Sally is distraught over her loss. The frame of their stories and experiences shapes the world they live in. And this is important when you consider the frame. Framing is both about what you say and who you're saying it to. Both their background and their experience. In episode seven on change management, I talked about something I focus on with a lot of my clients and and in any of the work that I do, which is to consider the ripples in that story. I was talking about an advertisement for credit cards and how a word could be interpreted completely differently from one person to the next. While you can put the same message for credit cards in every location, should you? Was the question that I asked. And of course the answer is no. You. You need to consider the context of the frame and how someone will react. So let's say you are advertising that anyone who signs up for a new credit card today gets 100,000 bonus points. It might seem like a really great message. Put it everywhere. But what if existing cardholders are not eligible? Will they have the same reaction as everyone else if they did not get the same offer? They will likely be annoyed and irritated. So you don't want to have this promotion waving in their face. Putting this message in online banking or on a statement message could actually be a very bad idea if you can't. Especially if you can't segment people out because that person's first frame is going to impact how they hear the message. You need to consider that when you're developing your messaging and where you place it. I know this might seem really, really ridiculously simple, but you would be surprised how often this is not considered and it gets overlooked. It happens all the time. Seriously, all the time. Another study on framing was a test that Tversky did on his colleagues at Harvard Medical School and having them read statistics about two treatment options for lung cancer, surgery or radiation. I think we can all agree that people who are doctors working at Harvard Medical School probably are pretty intelligent, they have had lots of training and they should understand and have an unbiased perspective in a logical, rational world. So they were each given statistics to read about the two treatment options again for lung cancer, surgery or radiation. The five year survival rates clearly favored surgery, but it was riskier to go with surgery in the short term. So in this study, half of the doctors received the information in regards to the survival rate, saying the one month survival rate is 90% and the other half read the mortality rates saying there is 10% mortality in the first month. What do you think happened when framed in the positive, the 90% survival rate, 84% of the doctors chose it and went with surgery. What about when it was flipped around? It said the same thing. So it should be the same result, right? Unfortunately, not even those Harvard doctors were victims of framing. When framed as a loss, saying the mortality rate was 10%, only half favored surgery over radiation, which was down 84% from the other group. That's a huge difference on just flipping the information that comes first and the way that you say something, something. Another fantastic example of framing from Tversky and Kahneman is called the disease problem. I'm going to read it to you now and even though I can't hear your answers, take the time to consider which you would choose and be honest with yourself along the way. Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual disease which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the program are as follows. If program a is adopted, 200 people will be saved. If program B is adopted, there's a 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved and a 2/3 probability that no people will be saved. Which do you choose? If you are like most people, you would select the first option, Program A, where 200 people will be saved. Okay, so here is the new frame. If program a is adopted, 400 people will die. If program B is adopted, there's a 1/3 probability that no one will die and a 2/3 probability that 600 people will die. Which do you choose? If you're like most people, you would have chosen the second option, the gamble. While it might be hard to hear and believe, maybe not so much, since you know the topic of the episode. These are actually explaining the exact same outcome, just framed differently. And your choices are inconsistent from one to the next. When framed as a number saved, you want to have the guarantee of saving 200 people while framing this instead as 400 people dying. For sure. In the second option, it really just sounds terrible. So you want to go on the hope that you're going to fall in the 1/3 of having all 600 people living in that second options gamble, even though it's much more likely you're going to lose everyone. This is called optimism bias as well, and it's going to be the topic of its own episode later. Essentially, we humans overestimate the probability of positive events and and underestimate the likelihood of negative ones can be contributed to by availability, which was the topic of last week's episode. And this really comes into effect with things like playing for lotteries or gambles and risk, which is why it's really relevant and ties in here with framing. It's been proposed that there are three different categories of framing. Risky choice, which is that last example of the disease problem or the doctor's mortality rate problem. The second would be attribute framing. This is when yogurt or beef is listed at 90% fat free instead of being 10% fat. And finally, goal framing, which is when you look at trying to motivate someone with a positive like a $50 bonus instead of a penalty like a $50 fee. While they do behave a little differently from one to the next, and the inner workings are not exactly the same in the three types, for your purposes, you only really need to know that the way you say something matters. And even if the results or numbers are good, if you say them wrong, if you present them wrong and use the wrong frame, can have a huge difference in the actions people take. Remember that Dr. Situation, 90% survival rate versus the 10% mortality rate, and how that dropped the number that went with what was actually considered the better option by 34%, which is huge. Framing is absolutely everywhere. I'm going to list out some examples of verbiage that use framing, but know that this is by no means exhaustive. Once you start looking around and trying to consider the frames around you and how to flip them and how that can impact the message, you will be amazed at how frequent they are. And hint, hint, when you download this week's free worksheet, it will help you to look for frames, identify them, flip them around, and find ways to use them in your own business and personal messaging. All right, let's get into some examples. Have you ever heard commercials for Chevron with Techron and assumed that meant something? That Techron is something valuable that no one else has in reality? Basically just something they made up and gave a name to so they can make people think their gas is better? According to Cars.com there's no such thing as quote better gas. All gas has detergents that prevent clogging in the fuel injector, and no brand of gas is better quality than any other for your vehicle. This sounds good. You know, Techron sounds like it's a good thing for many reasons. And the rhyming helps you to remember. And the brain believes things it hears first, so the first thing you hear, you're going to believe it. That's how your brain works. Until you really take the time to research or disprove something. That means you're going to believe the gas is better until you take the time to research and prove that Advertisement Otherwise, think Back to episode 11 on anchoring and Adjustment. When I asked you if there are more or less than 10,000 emperor penguins in Antarctica, you most likely came up with a number that was a lot less than the actual number of 595,000 emperor penguins in Antarctica. Or if you've heard my consumers are weird talk, you would have gotten the examples of populations of countries instead of penguins. In the same way that your subconscious assumes I must know something about population populations when I provide the anchor. That your brain's going to adjust from the frame of a brand differentiator can have a big impact on the subconscious's acceptance of the statement and what that says about a company and about all its competitors. This believe first, ask questions later mentality means your brain simply accepts a lot of things it hears and incorporates that optimism bias to help you evaluate all the stimuli around you and that is impacting your perception of the world. For example, let's look at Ford. You may have seen on commercials and advertisements that Ford calls itself America's best selling brand. But what does that actually mean? How can you determine the best selling brand? What is that based on? Is that a supply and demand thing? Number of units sold? Number of units left unsold? Resale value?

Profits?

The point is, it's an empty claim that can't be validated at all, and there are questions about its validity in several articles when you search on Google and personally, I'm not a big fan of this particular claim. But the point is, this is a frame. By calling themselves America's best selling brand. It means something to your brain and it sticks in there whether you wanted to or not, whether you recognize it or not. You now have this frame when you think of Ford and it impacts the way you think of other car brands as well. They're not America's best selling brand, whether you know what that's based on or not. And it impacts you whether you realize it consciously or not. Along those same lines, I want to tell you a story. If you follow me on social media, you know that I travel a lot, often for work, but my husband and I also travel a lot for fun. While we are out and about, I take a lot of pictures of interesting signs or advertisements I see see. I know they're going to be content for the blog or podcast or book or speaking engagements at some point and my husband is thankfully very patient. While we were on a trip a few months ago, we walked past a daycare center. Its name was on a sign outside the building, which is not uncommon, but it's the name itself that caught my eye. This facility had chosen to name itself a V G Daycare. As in Average Daycare. As in mediocre. As in we're just okay. My question is why? Why, oh why would you do this? This creates an entire frame around your business that you cannot undo. People will never want to pay you more. People are going to assume you're middle of the road. You do not put in the extra effort. And honestly, who wants that with a place that's watching and teaching their children? Maybe you think it's a joke, but it's not a good approach. Consider instead, if they had started their business under a different name. Really? Any other name? Or better yet, let's say I'm now going to seize the opportunity and open up a daycare next door to theirs. I'm going to call my facility Best Daycare Ever or A plus Daycare or Little Geniuses Daycare or Better Than Average Daycare. Truthfully, almost anything I choose to call my daycare will be better than the name they have. And so I have a better frame. And for you faithful listeners out there, you did you recognize what other behavioral economics foundations concept I snuck in right there? That's right. Relativity. If you've not listened yet, that is episode 12 and of course it's linked in the show notes. Putting my company with the better frame next to their poorly framed business will help boost my sales. They will actually help me to get more business. We might have the same experience and background and rates, but it doesn't matter. That poor choice of framing via a bad name decision will negatively impact their business as long as they have it and possibly beyond that. If you have a name like that, or you know someone who does, I urge you to make a change and tell them to do the same. But please share this episode with them. Or even if that's in your messaging beyond your name, it can really impact you Next week I'm going to really dig into the science behind choosing the right numbers and how to use statistics in your messaging. So I'm not going to get too deep into number frames today, but I'm going to tell you one more example that does use a number frame to give you a little hint of what you can expect next week. It seems like every toothpaste in the world is labeled as saying that four out of five dentists agree that. Or you might see four out of five doctors recommend, which sounds like a good thing. But what is that really saying? Does that mean that one in five dentists would not recommend using your toothpaste? Are they saying that no, no toothpaste is better than using yours. And consider that four out of five means 20% of dentists would not recommend the product. Does that sound worse to you? What about saying that 80% of dentists recommend your product? Why does that sound so much worse than four out of five? It's about framing. And again, this number framing is going to be the topic for next year week. I get these questions a lot. There's a lot of nuance to it and different ways you want to present. Sometimes percentages, sometimes decimals, sometimes something like 4 out of 5. So I'm dedicating a full episode to that next week, so make sure to tune in to that. While every industry uses this tactic, some are more notorious than others. An article from today which quoted Barbara Corcoran outlined the most misleading terms in real estate and what they really mean. This is of course linked in the show notes, but I'm going to read some of them here. First is cozy, which means too small. You've probably heard that charming means too old. Original condition means appliances are 50 years old. Needs TLC means it's a dump. AW conveniently located means noisy, efficient. Kitchen means it's too small to fit two adults. A one car garage means you can drive your Chevy in but can't get out. Usable land is no trees. A beachfront steal means no hurricane insurance available at any price. Country living is too far from anywhere to drive to. Work Must see inside means the outside is ugly Unique would mean hard to sell. This means if I was to put some of these together and you might have seen these if you've ever gone shopping for a house, if a home was described as must see the inside of this cozy, charming home with plenty of usable land for anyone interested in country living. That sounds nice. I would like to see that house. It sounds a lot better than. Yeah, the outside of this house, which is too far from anywhere to actually drive to work, is super ugly and it's quite small and really old and there's no privacy since there are no trees on the property. You want to come check it out. This is also getting into the concept of priming, which is going to be the topic of episode 18. The way you explain something actually sets an expectation and can impact the way someone feels about the whole experience experience. So that well worded frame can actually help someone to fall in love and see the charm of what will be their dream home. But that poorly worded frame could repel someone from a home that they otherwise would have loved. It's a very significant balance. This is why you always want to actually check something out. Go test drive a car. You know, it's not just in real estate. And I'm not trying to pick on real estate. It was just a fun article that I found, like I said from today. But when something sounds really good, when something sounds, oh, amazing, you feel yourself settling in. This happens on restaurant menus. This happens with cars. This happens in any experience. So just try to be looking for those frames as a consumer and then as a business. Look at ways that you can be using that to help people to see, see the benefits in what it is that you provide. And as always, use good judgment, use these powers for good. It's about helping people to see the opportunity that is around for them versus trying to trick anyone. That's not something that we ever want to do in our businesses. It becomes a bait and switch. It's just a bad place to be. Please don't do that. So when you're using this in your business, just consider that really in many ways, all the adjectives included into a description could be considered the frame. When something is described as all natural, you assume it's better or organic or farm fresh. But does that actually mean or say anything or is it just their name or tagline? What about orange juice? Simply Orange is a brand that came out a few years back and they have very nice commercials narrated by Donald Sutherland explaining how they have nothing but oranges in their orange juice and that they're never from concentrate. But what about other juices in the bottles next to them? They could be using the exact same process as Simply Orange, but you don't know for sure. You assume that Simply Orange does something more puts in extra care than Tropicana or the store brand, but they might not. If you tout something you do, even if everyone else does it, the implication on the brain is that you are the best at whatever that thing is. I just started re watching Mad Men. I only watched the first two seasons or so. I don't remember exactly where I dropped off the first time around. It's been quite a while, so I'm starting it over in the very first episode. Don Draper is dealing with the tobacco industry and they want to do some ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes, but struggling with the fact that they can no longer claim they're healthy. I love watching this show also. It's very interesting to see the way they do the ads and the messaging. And now I have this new behavioral economics frame on everything, so it's fun to watch. In that meeting, Draper realizes that everyone has the same problem. So he's struggling with not being able to make these health claims. But then you realize no one can say that. And he says to the client, this is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal. We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want. He then asks, asks them how they make their cigarettes, and they start to list out the process. The client said, we breed insect repellent tobacco seeds, plant them in the North Carolina sunshine, grow it, cut it, cure it, toast it. And then he's stopped by Don, who lands on the line, it's toasted. To which they say, but everyone else's tobacco is toasted. And he says, no, everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes is toasted. This is a frame. And once someone makes a claim, even if it's something every single one of their competitors could make, it becomes theirs. Everyone else is second in line. And if they try to say it, they will either make themselves look silly or remind people of the brand that was there first. When I worked at the credit union, Becu in Seattle was our biggest competition. They were gigantic compared to us, though. Much smaller than the big banks. And people in the area loved them.

They still do.

They're a great credit union. They came out with campaigns saying they were a member owned, not for profit credit union. And their current ads say, at Becu you own it, which is great, but these are the foundations of being a credit union. All credit unions are not for profit. All of them are member owned and saying you own it would be an accurate statement for any credit union out there. But once Becu put that in their ads, I knew it was completely off limits for my messaging and the brand at my credit union at Verity, I had to avoid that phrasing in my marketing or advertising because putting that out there would just send people to Becu because they had a bigger budget and they were there first they had this frame now that was associated with them. Regardless of who would say it. When you look at incorporating framing into your business, remember all the iterations. Framing is in the words you use, those descriptive words, the adjectives. Framing is the way you present numbers, which we'll talk about more next week. The frame of the person receiving the message matters too. What's their background? What do they need to hear or what should they definitely not hear? And remember the frame can be really helping someone to consider something that they might not otherwise know is important to them. With that home. Remember, someone could really love this home that they're they're coming into. And even if you think it's small, calling it cozy, maybe someone's looking for a cozy home, maybe they don't want as much square footage. Being able to present the best attributes of something that is within the realm of truth, of course always can help people to see see the joy of life things they could have this simply orange or explaining the benefits of Chevron's gas or whatever it happens to be. Being able to understand that message and frame it in a way that helps. Looking at the 90% fat free versus 10% fat and how that matters and being able to help people to get to what is the best choice for them. This is a really fun concept to play with and an easy one to find examples of in the world all around you. You will start to question say what does that mean? I wonder why they said it that way, which is something I do all the time and I would love to chat with you about it if you see anything interesting you have a question about.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about framing today? For me, as I said at the top of the show, I love all things framing. My favorite thing about it is how easy it is to start testing with and implementing immediately. You can reframe your email subject lines now, or the header on your website or your next social post, or what you say to the next person you meet with. It's something you can implement immediately and see great Benefits without having to spend anything. How great is that? To keep you from having a paradox of choice around which reframes to try first, here are the top three I recommend. Starting with the first is if to when. So we tend to say if a lot, but it doesn't imply an action. It doesn't get people to move forward. Whereas if you can say when, it's more of that implied endorsement that something is going to happen. So if you were to say, you know, if you're interested, let me know, that kind of ends there.

Right?

Thinking about the end of your email, let's say. Or if you have questions, let me know instead. If you can frame it with a when to say when you're ready, here's the next step. When you want to have a conversation, here's my email. Right. Like those are some things. When is that implied that something is going to happen? A very, very simple shift. And it's not to say that you should, should never say the word if because that's going to be almost impossible to remove. But when you do have one, especially at the end of a pitch, at the end of an email, any of those ifs, look to how you can transfer those and reframe them to a when. The next is anyone versus everyone. We humans are a herding species and so we don't like to be alone. So leaving this as an anyone feels very singular, very much like there's no one else out there doing this thing. So if you can instead reframe to an everyone statement, it feels safer. Especially when you're getting someone to take an action, to buy, to do something, they want to be part of that.

Herd, part of the crowd.

So you'll notice that when I talk about, you know, a guest who's on.

The show, let's say for Rohit Bhargava, who's going to be here on Friday.

And we're talking about his new book, the Future Normal. I won't say, you know, if anyone wants to get a copy of Rohit's book, go check out the show notes. I'll say for everyone who is ready.

To go get their copy of Rohit's.

Book, check out the show notes. It's a little difference, a tiny reframe, but it makes a difference. It feels a lot safer. The third thing to try is to transition to incorporating instead of ending something on a sentence in a question. So if you want someone to take action, questions are more likely to get someone to do something. We like to resolve those questions as they exist. So talking about, you know, times at the end of an email. You know, send me times that work for you. Not really helpful, but if you include a couple of times and then say which of these works best for you? Or do any of these work for you? Or or instead of saying let me know if you have questions, I will tend to end my emails with you know, what questions do you have or what haven't I answered yet for you? How can I be more helpful for you? Ending in a question is much more likely to get someone to respond. So if you get ghosted on emails a lot, consider how you can end on a question that will make it more likely for that conversation to move forward.

So there you have it.

Three simple reframes the if, when, anyone, everyone and period to question mark. That can be making a real big impact right away. Focus on those you know. It could just be one, maybe it's all three for the next week and let me know how it goes for you on social media. You can find me as the brainy.

Biz pretty much everywhere.

I can't wait to hear all about your reframe success and to get more tips and ideas for using framing. Remember that it has a full chapter in part two of my first book, what your Customer Wants and Can't Tell youl. And of course it's very heavily featured in what your employees need and can't.

Tell you as well.

If you want to expand your thoughts on this concept and dig in even more on framing and how to apply it to your messaging, go ahead and flip to chapter five in your copy of what your customer wants and can't tell you. And of course, don't forget about your free framing worksheet which is linked for you in the show notes along with related books and articles and other related past episodes. They're all in those show notes for you atthe brainy business.com 296 and just like that, episode 296 on framing is done. Join me Friday for a brand new.

Episode with Rohit Bhargava about the future.

Normal and non obvious thinking. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then. Thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.