Perceptual Persuasion Defined

Last week, if you visited my blog, you read a post titled Perceptual Persuasion, in which I revealed my experience of being betrayed by a friend.  I hadn’t thought about that incident in many years – and I don’t know what reminded me of it.  What I do know is that I wanted to tell you what I hoped would be an interesting and true personal story to begin that post.

Why?

My intention was to ethically influence and persuade some of my readers to open up to me, and I knew it was imperative that I go first.  You see, I needed them to perceive me as an open, authentic, and caring person.  However, I knew that simply telling them that I am open, authentic, and caring would not have worked as effectively to convey that message as illustrating the behavior.

Sure, I could’ve requested testimonials from friends, peers, and colleagues, but I decided that that was impractical.  Additionally, I believe that people tend to trust their own experience more than someone else’s. As my friend and colleague, Blair Warren would say, “People sometimes believe what they are told, they never doubt what they conclude.” (sic)  Have you concluded that I am an open, authentic, and caring person?  If you’ve been reading my posts, you probably drew that conclusion a while back.

Anyway, by displaying the behaviors of openness, authenticity and caring I gave you an experience of what I mean by Perceptual Persuasion.  Now, I’ll define it.   Let’s start with the word perceptual.  Perceptual means, based on, or involving perception.  And perception is the process, act, or faculty of perceiving.  Though the dictionary lists a few meanings for perceiving, I’ve decided to list only the following one for brevity’s sake: To become aware of in one’s mind; achieve understanding of; apprehend.

Pretty straightforward, right?

Let’s take a look at persuasion.  As you know, persuasion is the act of persuading.  To persuade someone means to cause (another) to believe or feel sure about something: assure, convince, satisfy, win over.

Therefore, Perceptual Persuasion is the skill, or the ability, to enable someone to achieve understanding about something or someone to the point that they believe or feel sure about it.

Think back to the hypothetical scenario in the previous post.  Remember, you were rushing back to your desk to grab your iPod, when you noticed your friend (who had stolen from you a year ago) walking away from your desk in the opposite direction?  Now, as you arrive at your desk, heart racing, you notice an envelope with the Apple logo on it, laying next to your iPod.  Curious, you tear open the envelope and find a greeting card with the words, “Just because…” signed by your friend, and you also find a $100 gift card to buy more music!

Surely, an act of such kindness and generosity would soften your heart.  Or would it?  That aside, I’d like you to recall your initial response (thoughts) to the hypothetical scenario.  Would you agree that that initial response was triggered by your perception of your friend?  That perception was based on whether or not you believe people can truly change.  In this instance, clearly you’d have further proof that people can change and you would be more persuaded that your friend was worthy of your trust.

So now you understand that Perceptual Persuasion is the ability to cause a feeling of certainty about an event, person, product, or service to the benefit of your readers, audience, customers, clients, and yourself.  How can you begin to utilize your understanding of Perceptual Persuasion now?

With your success in mind,

Ron