Persuasion | Immediate Influence

“Mr. Influence” Makes a Persuasion Mistake?

A few of weeks ago, while visiting my silvery-gray-haired, frail, and feisty, 99-year-old Grandmother in the hospital, I made a persuasion mistake. Yes, I did! More about that in moment.

Anyway, my Grandmother was quite ill from dangerously high potassium levels, dehydration, and an inadequate level of nutrition due to eating irregularly. In addition to all that, she was delusional from the drugs that were administered to restore her health. Some of the behaviors were difficult for me to witness.
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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

Perceptual Persuasion

What is Perceptual Persuasion? Hold your horses! First, let me tell you a brief story.

One summer’s day, back when I was a tall and skinny teenager, sleeping late into the day after staying up all night, I was awakened by a noise outside my bedroom window. Initially, I lay there slightly startled but as the noise continued, it became apparent that someone was attempting to open my window. As you might imagine, my heart began pounding as I rose from my bed and headed toward the window.

Slowly, I peeked out the blinds to see what the burglar looked like, so that I could describe him to the police later. While peeking through a small space in the blinds, I definitely saw the burglar, and I was completely shocked! You see, the person attempting to break into my home was someone who I called “friend!”
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Measuring Your Influence

Back in August of this year, I asked my Twitter friends what topic they would like for me to discuss on my radio show “Immediate Influence.” My Twitter friend, Rafiq Phillips @rafiq in Cape Town, South Africa suggested that I discuss “How to measure influence.” I thought this was a great suggestion so I produced a show on that very topic. You can find it in the “Immediate Influence” show archives by clicking here.

Since you may not invest the time to listen to the show recording, I’ve written out some of what my guest, Wendy Y. Bailey @wendyybailey and I discussed during the show:
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A Person of Influence Seeks First to Understand

In today’s society, we have the ability to quickly and easily communicate with people, in real time around the world. As a result, we can tap into the thinking of diverse perspectives on any topic. Sometimes the topic leads to casual conversation, constructive criticism, humorous retorts, or passionate debate. No matter what form the conversation takes, if you desire to impact the thoughts, emotions, and actions of other people, you will benefit from this post that explains a basic NLP principle.

Although the NLP principle you are about to learn is basic, understanding it will profoundly impact your ability to influence and persuade people. What is this basic concept? It is understanding someone’s map of the world. Simply put, a person’s map of the world makes up their reality. Why? Our maps of the world are formed during the experiences of life and we make decisions (literally formulate beliefs) about what those experiences meant. It is the meaning we attach to any experience which drives our behavior.
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Cultivating Relationships Boosts Sales Effectiveness

Q: What is the most important step in your selling, influencing, or persuading process?

A: Great question! As a sales, influence, and persuasion trainer, I’ve often posed that question to varying groups of people. Typically, 7 out of 10 respond that “closing” is the most important step in the selling process. I respectfully submit to you that that belief is faulty. You see, my research shows that people buy, more so, because they like the seller, speaker, or candidate.

I’m curious. Have you liked a seller so much that you helped them close the deal? I have.

Now, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. Closing the deal is important! However, the relationship you establish with a client or customer is paramount. Think about it. The more deeply you bond with any client or customer, the more likely they will remain loyal and refer others to you. Make sense? In addition to that, you might receive some unexpected gifts.

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How to Deeply Influence Others and Yourself

James Van Fleet once said, “Always think in terms of what the other person wants.”

During my nearly 10 years of marriage, I’ve discovered that one of the keys to a successful relationship is thinking in terms of what my wife wants. For instance, there are times when my wife wants to watch a romantic movie when I’d prefer to watch an action movie. You might be saying,”Great! Let her watch her romantic movie and you go watch an action movie on another television.” Good idea, my rational thinking friend. However, if I were to act on that type of thinking my wife wouldn’t get what she really wanted it from the experience. Connectedness. Guess what? I want to feel that too.

In fact, everything human beings do can be summed up this way: Human behavior is driven by our desire to change the way we feel or change the way we behave. Most people take actions to change the way they feel because it’s an easier path to take. Unfortunately, many people indulge in behaviors that are detrimental in the pursuit of changing feelings. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can take complete control of your feelings/emotions in an instant. Want an example?