Читать книгу Media Selling - Warner Charles Dudley - Страница 138

This technique is based on the concept that verbal or written communication creates images, or pictures, in our heads that we cannot erase with mere language. If you tell people “do not think of an elephant” and then ask them what kind of an animal popped into their mind, they will invariably tell you they had an image of an elephant. They simply cannot think of a no elephant, zero elephant, or nothing elephant, as instructed.¹⁹ Because we think visually, in pictures, you want to put positive pictures in your and your customers’ minds.

Imagine if after losing a basketball game a coach uses a negative frame and says to his team, “Do not miss free throws! We lost the game because we missed too many free throws! You’re a bunch of bums!” The team will get a picture implanted in their heads of missing free throws and will continue to miss free throws. On the other hand, it would form a positive image if the coach were to say after losing a game, using a positive frame, “Make your free throws. Free throws win ball games.”

Always use positive frames in your inner dialogues with yourself and in external dialogues with others. When you use a positive frame, you put a positive spin on things and you create optimism in yourself. An example of a positive frame would be an offer by a gas station of a “cash discount” instead of informing consumers of a “credit card surcharge.” Positive framing is a very valuable sales tool as we will see later in Chapters 11 and 13.