About D Forbes-Edelen
Creator of the CRRRI Framework—helping knowledge experts answer their clients' biggest objection: "Why do I need YOU when AI is faster, cheaper, and always available?"
The Relay Race That Changed Everything
In high school, our relay team kept losing races by fractions of a second. As team captain and anchor leg, I noticed something: the win or loss often came down to the baton pass. I led our team to practice one tiny but powerful change until we couldn't get it wrong—a smoother handoff.
That small shift turned close losses into consistent wins.
It wasn't about running harder. It was about changing the handoff.
Decades later, as a sociology instructor and PhD-level researcher, I would discover that same principle applied to something far more consequential: how women navigate the gap between what they're capable of achieving and the methods they're told to use to get there.
From Academic Research to Personal Crisis
My PhD research centered on Robert K. Merton's Strain Theory—specifically, how people respond when they're blocked from achieving culturally approved goals through approved means. I studied the patterned reactions to social strain when marginalized groups face this fundamental tension: you want the success, but the "right" way to get there doesn't work for you.
My original goal was to apply this research to health promotions and messaging. But life had other plans.
When my husband suffered a stroke, everything stopped. I left the marketplace to care for him, my dad, and my mom. My research went dormant. And when I finally tried to re-enter the professional world, I found myself living the exact phenomenon I had spent years studying.
The Researcher Becomes the Research Subject
I had believed my competence and hard work would speak for themselves. I had been the team player—giving my best ideas, labor, and loyalty—while others took the credit and cashed the checks. The system was never built for women like us.
When I stepped back into the marketplace, I froze when I had to name my price. I overexplained and overpromised to prove my value. I discounted myself into exhaustion.
Sales "advice" made it worse: scripts that felt fake, pressure tactics I'd be ashamed to use, mindset tips that blamed me for struggling.
Then it hit me: I was experiencing the same blockage I had studied in my PhD research. I was a marginalized person (woman re-entering after caregiving) unable to achieve an approved goal (financial success) through approved means (traditional sales tactics that felt inauthentic and manipulative).
The Birth of the CRRRI Framework
The relay race lesson came rushing back: What holds women back in sales isn't effort—it's how we're taught to "pass the baton" in conversations about money, value, and self-worth.
That's when I dusted off my dormant PhD research and applied Merton's Strain Theory in a completely novel way—to sales and marketing.
The result is the CRRRI Framework (pronounced "cry")—a research-validated approach that identifies your natural response pattern when you face the strain between sales goals and sales methods.
Who I Help Today
I work with knowledge experts—marketing consultants, copywriters, course creators, content creators, and anyone who sells information as a service—who are facing a critical question from their clients: "Why do I need YOU when AI is faster, cheaper, and always available?"
How you answer this question will determine if you're still in business 12 months from now.
Using the CRRRI Framework, I help you discover what makes you more indispensable to your clients in this AI economy and how to communicate it so clearly that your clients will know they'll actually NEED, WANT, and VALUE your expertise MORE, as AI gets faster, cheaper, and more available. The result: your clients understand why they need you. You stop competing on cost and command premium pricing again.
Why This Framework Works
The CRRRI Framework reveals your behavioral archetype and shows you exactly what makes you more indispensable to your clients in an AI economy. It helps you communicate that value so clearly that your clients will know they need you more than ever.
Because you're not less valuable in an AI economy. You're MORE valuable. You just need to show your clients why.
The Handoff That Changes Everything
Just like that high school relay race, success in sales isn't about running harder. It's about changing the handoff—the way you transition from proving your value to claiming your worth.
If your clients are already asking "Why do I need you when AI is faster, cheaper, and always available?"—you don't have to lose them. You have to show them why they need you more than ever.
The Research Foundation: Merton's Strain Theory
In 1938, sociologist Robert K. Merton published "Social Structure and Anomie," introducing Strain Theory to explain how social structures create pressure (strain) that influences individual behavior. Merton observed that society defines certain goals as desirable (wealth, success, status) while simultaneously prescribing legitimate means to achieve them (education, hard work, following rules).
Society's definition of success and what individuals should strive to achieve. In sales: closing deals, growing revenue, building client relationships, achieving quota.
Socially accepted methods for achieving those goals. In sales: proven methodologies, best practices, established processes, conventional tactics.
The tension that emerges when goals and means don't align—when you're expected to achieve results but the prescribed methods don't work for you, or when the methods available don't lead to the outcomes you seek.
The Five Modes of Adaptation
Merton identified five ways individuals adapt to the strain between cultural goals and institutionalized means. Each adaptation represents a different relationship to both goals and means:
The most common adaptation. Conformists accept both the goals society prescribes and the legitimate means to achieve them. They work within the system, following established paths to success.
Retreatists withdraw from both cultural goals and institutionalized means. They step away from the competitive arena to find their own path.
Rebels reject both existing goals and means, seeking to replace them with new alternatives. They don't just adapt—they seek to transform the system.
Ritualists abandon or de-emphasize the goals while rigidly adhering to the means. The process becomes more important than the outcome.
Innovators accept the goals but create new means to achieve them. They want success but reject or modify conventional methods, finding creative alternatives.
Discover Your Sales Superpower
Take the CRRRI Sales Superpower Finder to identify your archetype and start building your bridge income today.
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