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Crocodile Brain

In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff stresses going after the “crocodile brain.” Allegedly, the three basic parts of the brain are the neocortex, mid-brain, and crocodile brain.

Proponents of this croc brain idea (or at least the ones I’ve come across) hold an evolutionary presupposition that this is how the brain evolved. The croc brain being the original brain of our earliest ancestors, the mid-brain forming next, and then the neocortex (which is highly involved in rational thinking).

I don’t hold the same presuppositions. I actually think you could use the basic traditional Christian understanding of the soul and come to some of the same conclusions about how the mind works. Klaff makes the point that the three parts of the brain work independently and together. That is, they are distinct but can’t be fully separated. This is how Jonathan Edwards viewed the soul. He presupposed and argued that the soul consisted of the mind, the will, and the affections. These three work independently and together. They are distinct but can’t be separated.

I make that point simply because Klaff’s main point is that when you’re pitching an idea, you should go for the croc brain as much as possible. I think you could just as easily say, “Go for the emotions or affections first” and get the same result. I’ve come to accept the idea that we rarely make decisions with reason/rationality first. It’s more likely that we make decisions based on our gut/emotions and then use our rationality to make arguments after the fact that we made the right decision.

Klaff’s simple description of how the croc brain operates is as follows. The crocodile brain is concerned primarily with boredom, danger, and complication. The croc brain says, If the idea is boring, ignore it. If it’s dangerous, fight or run. If it’s complicated, radically summarize it (p. 14).

If you’re going to make a pitch or presentation (or even preach a sermon) with this in mind, you need to remember the main points:

  1. People are going to ignore you if possible
  2. They’re mainly worried about the big picture rather than intricacies
  3. They will respond emotionally first, especially is something scares them
  4. They’re worried about the here and now with a short attention span that craves novelty
  5. They want concrete facts rather than abstract concepts (p. 16)

We want to use the intellectual mind to pitch and preach things with a lot of details and abstract concepts. But people will primarily pay attention to things that touch their emotions, deal with their fears, offer some type of novelty, and are more concrete/image-based than abstract.

While I don’t believe there’s really such a thing as a croc brain or a lizard brain (I’ve heard that term used of the same concept), I do know that Jesus, when he described the kingdom of heaven, didn’t give a theological treatise. Instead, he said things like, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.” So often he went straight to emotionally-loaded imagery and narrative rather than giving logical syllogisms.

Pitching an Idea

In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff summarizes his basic outline for pitching an idea like this:

“For [target customers]
who are dissatisfied with [the current offerings of the market].
My idea/product is a [new idea or product category]
that provides [key problem/solution features].
Unlike [the competing product].
My idea/product is [describe key features].”

Here’s what that looks like if we use it to describe the book we’re working on:

Recognizing Christ in Fight Club is for Christians who are tired of being told to avoid secular culture. Our book equips 21st Century Christians to engage secular content with the purpose of seeing and worshiping Christ in places where others tell you not to look. Unlike books that tell you to withdraw from culture, like The Benedict Option, our book teaches the average Christian how to see the glory of Christ in movies, songs, novels, TV shows, and culture in general. And our book does this without compromising biblical authority or the importance of the Scriptures.

Frame Control

In his book, Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal, Oren Klaff describes the concept of “frame control.” In every conversation or meeting someone is going to control the frame. The person who owns the frame has ultimate control of the meeting. This applies for one on one conversations and for meetings involving multiple people.

The three major frames are:

  1. The Power Frame
  2. The Time Frame
  3. The Analyst Frame

When someone uses their authority to hold control over you or to be bossy, they’re coming at you with a power frame. When someone tells you to make it quick because they’ve only got fifteen minutes to hear your pitch, they’re using the time frame. When someone is only worried about hearing analytics, figures, and numbers, they’re using the analyst frame.

There are three counter-frames to use in order to defeat those frames:

  1. The Power-Busting Frame
  2. The Time Constraining Frame
  3. The Intrigue Frame

The power-busting frame uses unexpected moves to out-power the power frame. Let’s say you’re in a meeting and the main person you want listening to you is looking at his phone the whole time. You can’t get his attention. Klaff recommends doing something like playfully taking away the phone and then making a funny remark like, “you’re not going to see anything like what I’m showing you on a phone.” Then hand it back. It will shock the person you’ve done this to. That’s why it’s important to be playfully and not act like a complete jerk. But there’s no doubt all eyes and ears will be on you at that point.

The time constraining frame counters the time frame. If you’re arriving at someone’s office and they tell you something like, “make this quick, I’ve only got ten minutes.” You bust this frame by countering with something like, “good, I’ve only got ten minutes.” Don’t let them control the frame of time. Klaff says he once pushed a meeting down a minute because he and the other person got in a bidding war for time frame control.

The intrigue frame counters the analyst frame. If you’re making a pitch or doing a Q&A and someone only wants to get into minutia like facts and figures and numbers, you counter with the intrigue frame. This involves meeting their attempts at analyses with narrative. Tell a story. Tell a good story. Tell an emotional story. Tell an intriguing story. Then stop before the story’s over and tell them you’re not going to tell them the end of the story until the end of the meeting.

The final frame-buster is the prize frame. It’s important against all competing frames. The prize frame counters all other frames because it reminds the person or group you’re meeting with that you hold the ultimate prize. Instead of going into a meeting as if the people listening to you have what you want. You approach it as though you have something they want. And you don’t deviate from that mindset. This means you’re always willing to walk away if the other side won’t give you want you want. If they lowball you on an offer, don’t let them get away with it. You hold the prize.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough by the way. It’s now listed on our Recognizing Christ Recommends page.