The Framemaking Sale

This essential guide reinvents selling for today’s B2B market, showing sellers how to overcome stalled deals and customer indecision 

Business-to-business commerce is broken. Today’s customers find themselves overwhelmed by too many options, too much information, and too many obstacles. The result is often an inability to execute any but the safest of purchase decisions, frequently resulting in no decision at all. Could this be the death of sales as we know it?  

Traditional sales methods are all carefully designed to change the way customers think of sellers—to win customers’ business by first gaining their trust. But Brent Adamson and Karl Schmidt argue the real key to B2B sales success is to focus on boosting customers’ confidence in themselves and their ability to make large-scale, collective decisions on behalf of their company.   

Through a combination of powerful research and data, real-world examples, and practical tactics from some of the world’s best leaders and sales professionals, The Framemaking Sale provides a blueprint for a completely new approach to selling. Using the authors’ unique Framemaking method, this book offers a paradigm-shifting perspective on buying and selling with confidence, empowering sales teams and customers alike to thrive in this new world of selling.  

• “As AI continues to reshape the world of B2B business, the need to revolutionize sales has never been more urgent. The Framemaking Sale offers a compelling path forward with practical advice and techniques to turn every seller into a decision coach. It is a blueprint for reinventing sellers’ role in today’s world.”
   
  Alyssa Merwin Henderson, VP sales solutions, LinkedIn
• “This book offers a fundamentally smarter way to engage with buyers—one that prioritizes trust, relevance, and internal alignment. If you care about driving revenue in a way that’s both human and high-impact, this is the book to read. It couldn’t have come at a better time.”
  Latané Conant, chief revenue officer, 6sense
• “The Framemaking Sale focuses on a critical shift in how we think about leading customer-facing teams. Increasing decision confidence, focusing on the buyer, and leading with empathy and trust is the magic of this new way forward. Data-backed thinking, with lots of context and practical guidance—the best kind of book CROs must read.”
   
  Kara DelVecchio, chief revenue officer, Bloomberg Industry Group
• “A masterclass. The Framemaking Sale accelerates the much-needed evolution of how people sell to align with how people buy in today’s world. Adamson and Schmidt get behind the data and shine a light on the future of sales.”
  Dean Curtis, CEO, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Data Services
• “Finally! The Framemaking Sale equips you to transform a sales process into a cheat code to create confident buyers. It could not come at a better time.”
   
  Tim Hardin, president, Decisiv
• “Everyone claims to be focused on the customer, but this book is cutting edge in shifting the mindset of sellers to help customers make better decisions. This is a must-read book for the selling profession.”
   
  Mike Etzel, VP commercial excellence, Cargill Inc.
• “The Framemaking Sale will leave you wide-eyed, questioning everything you thought you knew: Should we really stop trying to gain customer trust in our solutions? Should we no longer highlight our product’s superiority? Is thought leadership actually a bad thing? A must-read for anyone looking to truly understand the evolving landscape of B2B sales.”
   
  Jeff Lowe, chief commercial officer, SMART Technologies
• “The uncertainty of a rapidly changing environment, an abundance of data, and the complexity of integrated solution selling has led many customers to feel safer taking no action on buying decisions. The Framemaking Sale provides a powerful, clear path forward to inspiring confidence in customers to make the high-leverage decisions needed to propel their own businesses forward.”
   
  Zak Lowe, VP sales, Land O’Lakes
• “Next level! The Framemaking Sale is a way to continue our team's growth and development focused on being better and being different by finding ways to help customers be confident in not only your solution but confident in themselves, especially when it requires significant change to how they have always done things.”
  TJ Stoffer, SVP sales N.A., Electrolux Group
• “As more buyers choose to go it alone, sellers face a pivotal moment—evolve or be left behind. The Framemaking Sale is the answer to this new reality: a bold, evolutionary framework that redefines how sellers create value and drive growth. This book is the blueprint for those ready to lead in the new era of selling.”
   
  Randy Kobat, president, Repair on Demand
• “With compelling data, relatable metaphors, and humor that is uniquely Adamson, this book presents an opportunity for sellers to make their numbers with practical application of how to build a customer’s confidence in their own decision making. Rather than mourning the death of human-to-human selling, read this book to celebrate the rise of the modern seller.”
   
  Hang Black, author of Embrace Your Edge
• “If you want to become the one seller or sales team a customer actually wants to talk to, then this book is a must-read; an instant best seller and lightning in a bottle. In The Framemaking Sale, Adamson and Schmidt have futureproofed the concept of seller relevance. It will, I’m sure, become the blueprint for modern B2B sales success.”
   
  Alex Ayers, sales director, Gamma
• “The Framemaking Sale isn’t just another book about sales and marketing, it’s a go-to-market blueprint for thriving in a world where customers increasingly prefer to buy without sellers. Adamson and Schmidt arm you with the tools to become the seller buyers actually want to talk to. This is a must read for any commercial leader serious about making sales matter again.”
   
  Ray Wizbowski, chief marketing officer, ECI Software Solutions
• “Selling—and importantly, buying—has become complicated and messy, leaving buyers uncertain, unconfident, and resistant to the very sellers who are able to help. Adamson and Schmidt don’t just diagnose the problem, they give sales leaders a powerful framework for enabling better buying decisions and building customer confidence at scale. This book is both timely and actionable.”
   
  Patrick Armstrong, chief revenue officer, ReSource Pro
• “For over two decades, I’ve wrestled with questions about how to truly enhance buyer decision confidence. Adamson and Schmidt have not only addressed these questions—they’ve delivered a masterclass. The Framemaking Sale is an essential read for anyone serious about building a resilient, high-performing sales organization.”
   
  Matthew Smith, head of strategy and implementation, Veritex Bank
• “This might be a more important book than The Challenger Sale. I’m serious. Expect ‘Framemaking’ to become common language amongst B2B sellers and marketers for years to come.”
   
  Matt Heinz, founder & president, Heinz Marketing
• “In the relentless arms race of better and more content, our customers are caught in the crossfire. My differentiation has become just one more problem for my customer to resolve. The Framemaking Sale resets the relationship between buyers and sellers. If you're not helping your customer find the signal, you’re just more noise!”
   
  Barry Parsons, chief commercial officer, Acteon
• “The Framemaking Sale focuses customers on developing their own internal self-confidence and the required courage to make informed, complex decisions. Disciplined research and compelling data to prepare commercial teams to excel in next-generation market capture.”
   
  Michael Kleppinger, president commercial operations, clinical research group, Thermo Fisher Scientific PPD
• “I’ve been a fan of Adamson and Schmidt for years—and they have done it again! The Framemaking Sale exposes the issues of today’s ‘selling’—or I should say ‘buying’ environment.  Understanding how buyers need to consume information to make a purchase decision is our responsibility as members of the sales discipline, to add value in every interaction.”
   
  Bill Sisson, executive general manager, LexisNexis
• “The Framemaking Sale details how our current, long-trusted way of selling through logic is fraught with ‘no decisions.’ The opportunity for B2B sales today is to find ways to directly, positively, and productively impact customers’ self-perception, helping them feel more confident in their ability to navigate decisions and achieve positive outcomes. The Framemaking Sale shows us exactly how that’s done!”
   
  Sheevaun Thatcher, VP revenue enablement, Demandbase