You shrink the question until the unknown has a name. “I don't know” at the close is almost never a lack of information — it's a decision with an unnamed weight on it: a concern not yet spoken, a piece not yet settled, a spouse not yet read. Arguing with it is useless and pressuring it is worse; the system's move is to make the unknown small enough to say out loud.
The short answer
The narrowing questions do the work: don't know about what — the project, the company, the investment, the timing? Each domain has its framework, and the homeowner who can't answer the whole decision can almost always answer a quarter of it. The Franklin T was built for this exact fog: two columns, reasons and concerns, written down together, converting a shapeless “I don't know” into a list with edges — and lists can be worked. So can the temperature scale: “where would you put it, one to ten?” gives the unknown a number, and the follow-up — what would make it higher — usually names the thing itself.
How it runs
Sometimes the unknown is genuine: a piece of the decision really is missing — a number they need to check, a person who needs to weigh in, information only time can deliver. The framework's honesty applies here as everywhere: a real unknown gets a real plan (what, by when, and the follow-up arranged properly at the button-up), while a fog-unknown gets the narrowing work. Telling them apart is the diagnosis skill again — and treating a fog as real loses a winnable decision, while treating a real one as fog loses the homeowner.
Go deeper
Every moment in these guides is a Spar round you can lose safely tonight instead of at a kitchen table tomorrow. Round 1 is free; the full camp is $29/month. Spar before you knock.