Transcription
Every human being, whether we realize it or not, is a puppet. And when our strings are pulled certain ways, it makes us engage in certain behaviors. Imagine if you had the power to pull the strings in just the right ways to persuade someone to do something.
Unlike manipulation, persuasion doesn't involve any malicious intent. We are simply understanding the psychology behind basic human behavior and molding our message in a way that pulls the right strings. You might not realize it, but every single time you turn on the television and watch the commercials, companies are paying millions of dollars to persuade you to buy their products. Some companies and marketers do it better than others, but in general, there's almost always somebody trying to persuade you to purchase something or behave in a certain way.
If you understand some of the basic psychology that governs human behavior, you might find pleasure in identifying when a person or company is trying to persuade you. You have probably heard the old saying, "I could sell salt to a slug." Many of the most effective marketers in the world are people who understand these basic psychological concepts.
Once you know how the psychology works, you can use it to sell more products, boost sales for your business, or you could even use it for something as simple as getting your partner to eat seafood when you know they don't like seafood. If you want to be extremely persuasive, then you should understand all the basics of psychology. But even if you only understand one or two concepts, the impact that you can have can be quite profound.
One of the most powerful psychological techniques is molding your target's perception. Every day that you turn on the TV and see commercials with people singing to you, a company is trying to persuade you to buy their product. Our perception of something always determines our experience with it.
Do me a favor and imagine for a second that you just walked into a store. You turn to your right and see an employee offering samples of wine. Now there are four glasses of wine on the table, and behind each glass there is a tag indicating the price per barrel of the wine. You walk over to the table, and you're handed the glass of wine that has the price tag with the highest dollar amount behind it, and the price is significantly higher than the other three choices. You take a sip of the wine and declare it to be the best you've ever tasted. After that, the employee hands you the glass of wine sitting in front of the lowest price tag. You take a sip of that wine, and the employee says it tastes awful, and the first wine tastes significantly better. Imagine how shocked you are when the employee tells you that all four glasses had the same type of wine in them, and the only difference was the price tags placed behind each glass.
Our perceptions shape our reality, and one of the most powerful techniques for persuasion is perception molding. What's really neat is that a person's perception can be changed with something as simple as a sentence. Imagine your girlfriend or boyfriend hates camping, and you've been trying to get them to go for years with zero success to show for your efforts. Imagine they're about to get home from work, and you want to ask them again. Research shows that a person's perception can be changed with something as simple as words. To change your partner's perception to one of open-mindedness, you could mention something about how your daughter didn't like vegetables, but for some reason now she likes them. In psychology, this is called priming. You're priming your target for a specific mindset. If you're trying to get your partner to go camping, the goal would be to prime them for a mindset such as open-mindedness that would make them more likely to respond favorably to your question.
You can use simple sentences to prime a person into a particular mindset, and it is used all the time by marketing professionals. That's why when you see many popular marketers advertising on YouTube, their video usually starts with them sitting on a beach, walking through a mansion, or driving a Ferrari. After seeing the video, you think to yourself, "Man, I'd love to be relaxing on a beach or driving that incredibly fast car." Once they have you in a mindset that is favorable for their message, they eventually pitch their product. There are more steps to the process than that, but the basic starting point for making the sale is getting the target into a mindset that is favorable for the marketer's message.
Let's take another look at how perception shapes our reality. Imagine your mother tells you that her friend from work is coming over for dinner. She says that her friend is very rude, unfriendly, arrogant, and obnoxious. Before you've even met this person, you already have expectations set in your head for how this person will be when you meet them. When your mom's friend arrives for dinner, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, and because you had the expectations of this person being unfriendly, rude, arrogant, and obnoxious, you behave towards this person in a way that seeks to confirm your pre-existing expectations. After your mom's friend leaves, you conclude that the woman fit all the expectations that your mom had implanted into your head beforehand. Imagine if, before the woman came for dinner, your mom had told you her friend was friendly, light-hearted, and energetic. Imagine how different the outcome would have been. This goes to show the power of a person's perception and how you can use it to persuade others.
Setting your target's expectations for something and changing their mindset before pitching your product, service, or idea are two powerful techniques that you can use to be a better marketer. But this basic psychology can be applied in everyday life when you're trying to persuade someone. Imagine what could happen if you had an important interview and succeeded in changing the interviewer's mindset into one that would make it easier to persuade them to hire you. Imagine if you use the psychology behind expectations for your resume to make the interviewer hold a very high image of you before you even set foot into the interview room.
When used individually or with other basic psychology techniques, this information can dramatically improve your marketing skills in everyday life. Until next time, thanks for watching, and if you enjoyed this video, please take just a moment of your day to like, share, and leave a comment.