After Closing 4000+ Sales, I Discovered a New Method to Close Deals Faster
In this video, Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP, shares a proprietary sales technique called the 3A reframing framework, designed to increase closing rates while preserving rapport. The method teaches salespeople to respond to any objection or non‑yes statement with a short, structured reframing sequence: Acknowledge the prospect’s words, Associate the objection with a positive behavior of successful customers, and then Ask a probing question that redirects the conversation toward a sale. Liu outlines five ethical rules for using the framework: (1) Treat the prospect’s statements as valuable information, never as a threat; (2) Never openly disagree with the prospect; (3) Explicitly tell the prospect what their question implies; (4) Use “straw‑man” or third‑party references to deliver tough truths without insulting; and (5) Maintain child‑like curiosity, constantly seeking to understand rather than to win. The video provides numerous scripted examples (certifications, time constraints, spouse objections, feature dislikes) illustrating how each A, each rule, and each straw‑man technique works in real‑time calls, Zoom, or in‑person meetings. Liu also stresses the psychological insight that prospects trust what they say far more than what they hear, so the salesperson’s role is to guide them to conclude they are a good fit. Ethical use is highlighted, warning that misuse damages reputation. The content concludes with a brief promotion for acquisition.com’s scaling workshop and hiring opportunities.
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I have over 100 salespeople across our portfolio that does over $250 million a year. In this video, I'm going to teach you one sales skill that separates the best from the rest, and it's so powerful I've never taught it before. And so I'm going to cover the 3A framework of reframing, which is the skill I'm going to teach you, and the 5 rules for using it ethically. So what's reframing? Reframing is the 1 to 3 sentences that you say after a prospect says anything but yes that increases the likelihood that whatever your next thing you say gets them to buy. So here's how a reframe might sound. Someone might say, hey, how many certifications do your trainers have? Now, this is a trap question because it's basically a blind question where whatever you say in response, the prospect gets to be the judge of whether or not they accept that, and then they choose to buy or not, and you don't know what the right answer is. And so rather than answer the question, you ask a question about the question. And so you'd say something like, well, which certifications are you looking for specifically? The next version of this might be someone says, how many questions I'm gonna be able to ask via email in support? Now, whatever number you give, they might say, oh, that's not enough, or that's too many, or whatever it is. And then they say, no, for that reason, I don't wanna buy. So instead you might say, well, why do you wanna ask additional questions? How many questions do you wanna ask? Is there a purpose that you're trying to solve with this? Like, what are you most afraid of? See, that was like 2 or 3 questions in a row that can reframe without answering the question they gave me. And one of the biggest lessons that I teach in sales is the person asking the questions is the one who's in control. And so you've ever seen the Hollywood movies where they're like, I'm the one asking the questions here. It's because the person who asks the questions is the one who's in control of the conversation. As soon as they start asking the questions, you're on defense, which is not where you want to be. And the reframing process I'm about to show you has sold things as low as $100 all the way up to million-dollar-plus service packages, and it's sold them in person, on the phone, via Zoom, from stage, wherever, which way you can imagine, this works. So in a second, I'm going to give you the 3 A's framework and 5 rules for using it because this is unbelievably powerful and used the right way, it helps lots of people make good decisions. Used the wrong way, you become a very bad person, give a bad reputation for sales. So the reason I started thinking about this was I was writing and reviewing our closing manual for our closers and I had this little piece right before all the closes that says, hey, by the way, make sure that you reframe the question. Before you enter into the close. But the thing is, is I realized as I was walking through the sales floor the other day, I heard someone just immediately fire back an obstacle to overcome and it seemed very combative. And I was like, ah, they're not getting the reframe part. And I realized that that little reframe, little bubble, was one of, if not the most important part of handling sales. And so if you think about what the most productive salespeople do, the people who close the highest percentage of sales, What do they do? They ask for the sale more times than anyone else. Now here's the problem with that, is that if you ask more times than anyone else the wrong way, you'll get prospects to hate you. And if prospects hate you, they won't buy from you. And so the idea is we wanna be able to ask for the sale as many times as we possible, which means the way that we ask for the sale or how we frame our ask should not decrease rapport with the customer. And so the idea is we want to continue to maintain rapport the entire time so that we can then ask as many times as we darn well please. So here's the 3A framework that I teach. The first A is acknowledge, all right? This is where you build rapport with the prospect version 1, all right? And the way that we do that is by saying what they said back to us. Now there's a couple benefits from this. One is when you say it back to them, they think that you're actively listening, which of course you should. But the other part of it is that it buys you time to think about what you're gonna say next. And so it gives you a little bit of space to process before you give your overcome or your handling of whatever their objection is. The second piece, and this is part of why this seems more natural with the most professional guys, is that you, this is the really sexy part, you associate, all right? Now there's 3 associations that I'm gonna show you how to do, but what you do is you associate the question they asked with the type of behavior that someone who gets the best results from your product or service would ask. And so basically when they feel like they're taking a step away from buying, you say, that's an amazing question. That's actually a question that a lot of the best customers we have ask. And so actually you just say, nope, that means that you're more likely to buy. The third thing is that after you have made the association, you've acknowledged what they said, you've made the association, then you ask your next question after you've properly reframed what you're gonna say next. So let's dive into this. So like a lawyer in an interrogation, they never ask questions they don't already know the answers to. And you as a salesperson want to only ask questions that you know the answers to. And if you are ever going to answer questions, you want to know that you have the right answer before you respond. And so when we do the acknowledgement, let's walk through the example I had earlier. So they say, well, what kind of certifications do your trainers have? And I say, so you're curious about what our certifications are. It's a great question. It actually shows that you're a really rational person and you're making a serious decision here, which is amazing. So what I did was boom, we restated it. Boom, we made our association. And then I would ask, and you can call it an attack. It sounds a little bit more aggressive than it is, but you basically attack the frame of the question. You say, hey, which certifications are you looking for specifically? And the thing is, is most people have never been asked a question about their question. They usually ask questions because they feel like they're supposed to, to make an informed decision. But most of the time they don't even know what they're asking. And so they're like, "I don't know." It's like, "Well, let me tell you what we do have." Now, if the person's like, "Do they have NASM and ACE certifications?" Now, if I don't have that for my trainer specifically, I would then say, "Why those certifications specifically?" And then they would say, "Well, I heard that they're good." It's like, "Well, those are amazing certifications. I agree with them. I'm not disagreeing." And then I would say, "Well, we have a couple other ones and I'll tell you why we chose these rather than those." And now I can answer it without failing, right? Now if I just said, our guys don't have that or they have this, I might've lost the sale right there. And so the thing is, is that this applies to basically any question that someone asks. It could even be like, you know, I need to think about it. It'd be like, awesome, what's your main concern? Right? Like immediately I'm not letting them out on that or like, hey, what are the main variables you're using to make the decision? Or what would make this a no? Right? These are all questions or what are you most afraid of having happen? Right? If I'm deeper in the sale. Obviously, that wouldn't be my first one. I would say, "What's your main concern?" Then we'd sort the question from there. But many times, people ask you questions in the sale that you don't need to answer. You just ask more questions about their question. And as long as you're the one asking questions, you're the one who's in control. Which leads me to rule number 1 of the AAA. So, here's a little psychology for you. As counterintuitive as this seems, A prospect believes almost nothing about what you say and almost everything that they say. And so the goal is not to tell them they're a good fit. The goal is to ask them questions that they then say, I think I'm a good fit for this, or yeah, that makes sense. That's how you can get them, you breadcrumb them to the logical solution, which is that they should buy your thing. And by the way, if you like some of this more advanced sales stuff, we go through this stuff in depth at our acquisition.com scaling workshop. So my sales director, he personally meets with all the companies that show up and helps them deconstrain their sales, whether it's scripting issue, whether it's nurture issues, whether it's compensation issues. It's stuff that we understand really well. And so if you are a business owner, you are looking to scale, check them out, acquisition.com, hit the scale button, and my team will be in touch. So a lot of beginner salespeople think that they should— one, and this is the worst question ever asked in sales, is, do you have any questions? It's literally asking them to have objections and asking them to take the wheel of the conversation. You're literally saying, here, take control over this because I don't know what I'm doing. So please don't do that. Train that out of your team. The second thing is that as soon as you start answering questions, again, they're the judge, jury, and executioner of whether or not your answers are good. And if your salespeople are not as knowledgeable as you or your technicians, which is often true in any kind of service business, the people delivering are not necessarily the same or as knowledgeable as the people who are selling it, is that they basically set themselves up for failure. And I'll give you a quick overcome for this if someone gets a little bit like, hey, why aren't you answering my questions? You say, listen, it would be like you asking the secretary about how your heart surgery is going to be with the surgeon. You're going to want to talk to the surgeon. And I'll give you a different one. I call this the mechanic version, which is, hey, you're asking me what's wrong with your car, and it would be unethical for me to answer it without looking under the hood first. And so we can give you much better answers on the inside once we've started working with your business or with your whatever, right? With your body. It doesn't really matter, right? But you can use that analogy to kind of get around it. And then I say this, and this seals it. And if anyone— this is how I say it— and if anyone does give you an answer on the first call without already having looked under the hood after already giving you a physical or doing an assessment, run the other way because it means they're just trying to tell you whatever they can to get you to buy. And now I have the ethical high ground and they can't ask any more questions about that. Rule number 2: no one can disagree with a question. I tell my team, be like smoke. And so you can't catch smoke because all you're doing is you're basically always side shifting. In terms of whatever they say, you're like, ooh, let me ask you a question about that. Ooh, can you be more specific? Hey, what are the variables you're thinking about? And that way you're always engaging with them and they're the ones doing the talking, and then you get to decide whether their answers are good or not and whether or not they're a good fit for the program. Now, we're not going to tell them that, that they're a good fit for the program. We have them make that decision. But in terms of judge, jury, executioner, you want that to be you. Here's why rule number 2 is so important. You can never disagree with a prospect. Now you may, you may, you know, actually disagree with them, but you don't want to voice disagreement to the prospect because you never win a sale by winning an argument. Anyone who's engaged in an argument, both people lose. And more importantly for you as a salesperson, you lose the sale. And so the objective is actually to never disagree with a prospect. And the point is to get them to change their minds. And we can only do that in an agreeable way. People don't change their minds when in a bad mood or they feel insulted, right? And so we do that by asking them questions. Now, there are ways to ask questions that seem insulting, and that's what AAA helps solve, and we're gonna dive more on that as we go through this. But it also means that we can ask questions about their questions, which is something that a lot of beginner salespeople don't know. They then assume they know what this person is asking about, and so they have this really vague question, and then they try and come up with the quote right answer, and they fail every time. And by the way, this is just the ultra mega hack, is that if you don't know how to answer the question, you can always ask more questions about their question. So let me show you how this sounds in reality. So someone says, I need to think about it. We say, totally understand. What are the main things you're considering? What are the variables that you're considering in your decision? What's your main concern? What are you most afraid of having happen? What would make this a no? And one of my favorite questions, by the way, is, well then what would it take for you to say yes? Now let's say someone says, I don't have time. Timing is off right now for me. You say, great, totally understand, acknowledge, timing's kind of tough for you right now. I think it's smart that you're already thinking about implementation. Our biggest success stories are actually people who think through the process the same way you are right now. So what would make it a good time? And so as you work through this, these two give you the space, make the positive association, they take a step back, you say, I feel you, I totally understand, now they're back to neutral, and then you associate with the thing that's closer to the sale, And then you move the conversation forward with the ask. So let's do another one. Someone says, I need to talk to my spouse. You say, totally understand. I think it's really sensible that you'd want to talk to your spouse and super fair. Just so I understand, out of curiosity, what parts do you think, now I'm here, what parts do you think they wouldn't like? What parts do you think they would disagree with? And so we've now moved from I have to talk to my partner to now we're back in the sale talking about the specific things. And once we get the prospect to name those things, then we can attack those. We're still in the sale. So let's say someone says, I hate this particular feature. You say, totally get it. I hate them all too. Just kidding. Let me just ask you a real question. Why not? And then we can get, we're back into it, right? Like all of these things is people will make statements as though they are deal enders and beginners will take a statement like that and think, oh, I guess they're not going to buy. And that couldn't be further from the truth. You just continue to ask questions about why they don't like something. And by continuing to ask questions about their questions, you can stay in it and keep asking, because that's the point. The best closers make the most asks. Which leads me to rule number 3, which is tell them what their question means. So this is a zoom in on associate. If you're a salesperson with at least 2 years of experience and you're enjoying this stuff, this is like just the surface of the stuff, the stuff that we train our teams on. And if you'd like to work at acquisition.com or one of our portfolio companies, we are always looking for exceptional salespeople. We have a lot of roles open right now. In sales. And so you can go to acquisition.com/careers and hit the business consultant button. That'll, that'll take you to the application for that. If you're good, just apply. We're willing to be flexible on payments based on experience and whatnot, but just put in the application. So the first time I had this used on me, I was actually getting pitched investment or private wealth management from somebody and I wanted to just get out of the conversation as fast as I could because I was like, I already have a wealth advisor, like I'm good. And the guy just said, oh, that's amazing. 90% of the clients we had that shift over already have a wealth advisor. So it means you already know how a lot of these things work, which means you'll be up the learning curve. And I was like, what just happened? I was like, I thought I was getting out of this and now I'm more like the customers that, that ultimately buy. And I ended up not buying from that particular guy, but I did think, wow, that was such a powerful reframe. How can I use that in all of my selling? And so the prospect has not had this conversation as many times as you. You should never be caught off guard with the questions or the statements that they're going to make. Remember, you've had 1,000 of these conversations. The fact that somebody could surprise you is ridiculous. You have to practice. This is why we train. And so a prospect is trying to just throw up bombs or smokescreens to get out of the sale. And again, to be clear here, what I believe is bad selling is one of two key things. Is one, is you sell an unqualified prospect. Which basically means that you're lying to them that they're going to get a good result or that they somehow are qualified when they're really not. Which really underpins the main thing of sales in my opinion, which we have across really all of our communication stuff in the company, which is state the facts and tell the truth. If you state the facts and tell the truth and this person is qualified, then you have the ethical obligation to ask as many times as humanly possible and get them to pull their head out of their ass so that they can see the world clearly instead of it being dark and full of shit, which is up their ass. Help them make a decision to help themselves. That's the point. Now, if you get weird about resistance, then you don't understand the job of sales. The best salespeople are comfortable when other people feel like there's conflict, all right? And so they're able to always de-escalate, which is why be like smoke is so key. It's a dance, not a fight. It's seduction, not rape, all right? The idea is that we want to always have consent from the person. We always want them to want to be there. And people like you when you ask questions about them. People like you when you compliment them and you say, hey, that's a really smart question. Hey, that makes you just like the people who have the best success stories. And I'll show you a little bit more about some more associations in the next rule. Which leads me to rule number 4, use straw men for tough truths. So we've all been in a sale where someone just says something ridiculous, where you can clearly see that their beliefs around the world are so flawed that you have to have kind of a papá talk right now. There's different ways of entering this. Some people say, hey, can I put my coach hat on instead of my friend hat? So the thing is, is that in all of these reframes, you're basically getting permission from the person to give them a harsh truth. Now, if you're a younger guy and let's say you sell B2B, much tougher to do. So if you're a 22-year-old sales guy and you're talking to a 45-year-old, you know, $10 million a year plumber, he probably doesn't give a shit about you trying to put your coach hat on. He just thinks you're a child and he doesn't care at all. To the same degree, if you say, hey, well, can I share something that really worked well for me? Again, the same degree, that puts you above him and he's not gonna like that. And so I use 3 different strategies of straw men, and straw men in argumentation is basically like, basically putting, I use the word foil normally, but people don't know what that means, but basically it's like you basically put up this caricature of someone who's just like them that you can then have the tough conversation with without insulting the prospect. So I'll give you 3 different ways that we do this. So the first way is when you make the association, so this is us going deep on associate here, okay? So this is where someone says whatever it is, totally understand that you're coming from that direction, I would ask those questions too. Now we make the association, so 1 of 3. So number 1, you can say, it's so funny you ask that because I had someone just earlier today who asked the same questions. Can I share with you what I just shared with them? Now the thing is, is that because I'm now talking about a conversation I had with someone else, I can now be brutal as fuck to this other person, but I'm not saying it to the prospect. And so it's not insulting. The second way that you can do this is that you do it in reference, and I said it earlier, to a successful past customer. That's so crazy. Like, totally understand. You know what? That actually makes you just like Sarah, who had a similar plumbing business. And actually crushed it with our marketing agency. And so now we've made the association and she asked this question too. Boom. And then we, and then we handle the objection. All right. And so these straw men are particularly important when you are going to answer a question. So everything up to this point has been basically sidestepping, being like smoke, but sometimes you will have to make the answer. And so if we do need to give them an explanation or kind of break their belief when they say, I don't have time, You're like, oh, it's not really a timing thing, it's a priorities question. But if you say that to somebody and you don't have as much rapport, you're gonna lose the sale, right? Like that is the logical thing. Everybody has the same amount of time every day and it's really just a question of priorities. But if you say that at the wrong time, they're gonna be like, screw you, right? And so by doing the straw man or putting the foil up or the caricature that you can then attack or talk to in front of this prospect, it creates a third party that's neutral. The third way of using the associate is that you can appeal to authority. So if you're in a business where the CEO is edified or the CEO is seen as a respectable person or an expert in the field, so it either can be fame or it could be influence or it could be expertise. It doesn't really matter which one, but as long as they have some level of expertise, instead of appealing to your own authority, you appeal to theirs, which is, it's so funny that you asked that. Alex just told me this thing earlier today. Can I share it with you? Right? And so then the person appeals to someone else's authority and then shares it. They're the messenger. They're not saying, I'm not saying this, he said it and I'm just sharing it with you. These sound like tiny sidesteps, but this type of AAA reframing is what separates beginners from pros. And when you do it this way, people actually like to be sold by you because they feel like they're being heard. You make associations that are saying, hey, that's smart. Hey, that's reasonable. Totally understand why you'd say that. Like these are all things like that's a rational decision. Hey, I think that's a fair point. Those are all things that someone wants to hear. They're like, hey, he's listening. He thinks I'm intelligent or I'm rational or he's not discarding my decision. Everybody wants to be validated, right? So it's the same thing as the angry boat, but just in a sales conversation. So in the angry boat for customer success or customer service, if someone's upset, you don't disagree with them and say, hey, it wasn't that big of a deal. Sorry, we were 5 minutes late. It never works because you're disagreeing with them. You're invalidating the reason that they're angry. So you have to get more angry. You have to go above. And that's where you say, hey, that's a totally reasonable concern, rather than saying that's a stupid question, right? Like, you might feel that way, but you don't say that. And the reason I realized this, especially with the association one, is I heard my sales guys and they were having a tougher time using some of the closes. And I was like, They're like, yeah, you know, some of them aren't— they sound a little, you know, tough, they're a little harsh. And I was like, no, no, no, it's— and when I realized that, I was like, oh, it's because they're not prefacing it with this. If you preface with this, you can say almost anything, and this allows you to cut to the heart of the matter way faster instead of dancing around it because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Which leads me to rule number 5, which is retain childlike curiosity at all times. So one of my favorite ways of training this concept is actually training a physical thing that you do with your body, even if you're on a sales call and they can't see you, because your tone will change based on how you're standing, if you're smiling or not, your voice will come out different, which by the way, I encourage you to have a mirror if you're on the phone next to you in your sales booth, and if you do Zoom, obviously you can see your own little image there. But I like to have people say, "Huh?" And you say it just like that, and "huh?" also buys you 2 or 3 seconds before you say your next thing. Say, "Huh?" That's so interesting you'd ask that question. Can I ask you a little bit more about that? Like, if someone says something really nasty to you, right? But if you retain that way, the goal is to seek to understand, not win. And the way that I try to keep this, and if you're a sales guy, put a little sticky note above your camera or wherever you look while you're selling, which is keep the human number 1, all right? And so this is a really powerful frame that I actually learned from Leila for having hard conversations. On the team, but it actually applies to sales, which is if you genuinely believe that the product you have is going to help this person and this is a qualified prospect that you're talking to, then you want to understand their concerns so that you can help them get over them because you know this is the right decision for them. And so this is a frame that I like to think about. So let's say you could travel back in time, but you're in a different body and you see your old self. And you know what the future is going to be. And you might say, okay, I have to convince this person to buy Nvidia 10 years ago. And so, or I have to buy Apple stock or I have to buy Bitcoin, whatever it is. I don't really care. The thing is, is you know that this thing's going to go through the roof, but the person you're talking to doesn't know you from Adam. Think about how you talk to that person. Now remember, they don't know who you are, even though you know you, you would have absolute empathy for your old self and be like, listen, I totally understand. This seems totally crazy, but let me walk you through what I think is going to happen, right? Let me— let's like, what are your main concerns? What are you most afraid of, right? What would it take for you to say yes? What would it take for us to take the next step together? It allows you to make sure that you're focusing on the prospect rather than the product. And so you don't close sales by being right. You close sales by making the prospect right. And so the big understanding here is that You want to understand them, not beat them, because as soon as it feels combative, you've already lost the sale. If they feel like you won an argument logically, you've lost the sale. The point is to make money, not to be right. And so we want them to feel good about the logical decision that we're helping them make, and if anything, you wanna be a faceless hero in their journey. You're like, hey, I'm just the guide here. I'm gonna just share the information that I think will help you make a good decision. Right, ah, that's a great question. Can I provide a little bit of context on that? Just from someone that had this experience earlier today. Right, like all of these things are things that will allow you to give those hard truths to close the deal. The reason the association is so important is that it gives the prospect a label to then live up to. And so, this is a 201 version of selling, but if you say, hey, you seem like a really honest person, or hey, that's a really smart decision, or hey, that's a really smart question. If I then give them that label, When I get closer to the close, I might bring that back up and then associate smart people buy this thing. Hey, you must be a good family man, right? Because you had some spouse objection. Fine. Seems like you're a family man. Family's really important to you. I think that's awesome. It's super admirable. Now, when I get to the end of the sale, I can bring up the fact that this is a family man and because he's a family man, he should buy. And so it allows me to pair whatever their obstacles were with things that I'm going to bring up in the close. Pro tip, my universal response for almost anything, so I walked through the sales floor and one of the guys was on the phone and I was like, you should come, and I just walked through the room and then the guy was like, uh, and so my sales guy was like, so you coming? And the guy was like, yeah, and it was super weak, right? He was obviously not sold yet. So I actually was like, give me the phone. And so I hopped on the phone and I said, dude, what are you afraid of? And so when you ask what are you most afraid of, it gets you to the heart of the issue as fast as possible. Now if it's the first objection, I would wanna ask, what's your main concern, what's your main issue, what are the variables you're using to make the decision? That's like kind of understanding so you can triage. But when I'm further along in the sale, I'll usually ask, hey, what are you afraid of, man? Like, what are you afraid of having happen? And if someone's like, I just need more time, then you say, totally understand, what would make it a no? And so by doing that, it still keeps you in the sale because at the end of the day, like, you wanna make a good decision, I'm the source of your information, So, the best possible decision we can make is here. But again, you can only say something like that if you have rapport in the sale and you've continued to demonstrate that throughout. If I said something like that and I didn't have rapport, they'd be like, no, fuck you. So, it's not going to work. If you liked this very mini training, you're going to love the 4-hour+ compilation of my best sales trainings all put together at once. Click it, enjoy.
