I
confess that I read things, see life, and business, a lot differently
than most people do.
For
me, people in sales and marketing are heroes. Without them there
is no company, no hiring of Uncle Joe to work in Engineering,
the Lab, or the Front Office.
"If
I can persuade, I can move the universe." - Frederick Douglass
Douglass
is one of my heroes. He was a black slave who escaped to freedom
in the 1840's and became a well known abolitionist and orator.
People
who can't persuade are impotent....
The
Definition of Persuasion
Persuasion
is the purpose and intention of communication.
You
tell your spouse, "My, you look gorgeous..."
Why?
You
have an intention.
Are
you simply broadcasting the news to her? ...Newsflash: Jane looks
absolutely smashing, film at 11.
No.
You
are communicating a message to her that has at least two purposes.
Sharing a fact with her, and, persuading her of that fact, and
perhaps there are other reasons as well.
"Eat
your food, young man." My Mom never gave up on getting me
to eat vegetables. She was persuasive and had multiple intentions.
She
wanted me to eat so I wouldn't be hungry, she wanted me healthy
for lots of reasons, she wanted me to have a better life.
"Honey
the dog is outside." Another newsflash?
Of
course not. It's a message of multiple intentions most of which
are persuasive the least being, "hey at least I put the dog
out," or perhaps, "see I do pitch in, I put the dog
out," or perhaps, "I put the dog out, let her in later
on because I'm off to bed."
"I
love you." Certainly that isn't a persuasive message...
...but
it is. One of the most intentional persuasive messages there is.
It
might mean, "You are great and mean the world to me and please
know that," where you are trying to create a bridge from
your feelings to hers.
It
could mean something in the future. She doesn't know you broke
her necklace and when you tell her tomorrow, you'd like her to
have built up a set of messages that create an image so she doesn't
take your life when you tell her what happened.
Or
it might mean, "Let's go to bed," or, "I appreciate
you," again with the purpose of creating an image of you
in addition to sending a message of appreciation. One thing is
for sure there are covert
messages happening here...
Does
all persuasion have these covert aspects?
Is
All Communication Designed to Persuade?
This
isn't to say that all communication is intentionally designed
to persuade other people to your way of thinking. That is simply
not the case.
Life
would be much easier if people would communicate with the intention
to persuade. Most people simply communicate without thought or
plan and then that message, however it is received becomes persuasive
for something, about something, in the person's mind. i.e. People
Babble.
It's
extremely hard to create a message with or without intention that
doesn't persuade.
"It's
78 degrees outside." Oh my, the weatherman says it will be
a nice day, I won't need a jacket.
No...The
weatherman said it was 78 degrees. You made up the rest. But it
was a persuasive message because it got you to change your behavior.
The weatherman personally might not care what you wear to work.
He might have simply been "reading the weather" to get
paid. But his message still persuaded.
Negotiation
and Persuasion
"Dear
God, Please let Daddy get a new heart. I really love him a lot."
People
attempt to persuade God. In fact a lot of people attempt to persuade
and negotiate with God asking for more and offering less than
in any other negotiations they enter into.
In
the Bible Abraham bargained for the Cities of Sodom and Gommorrah.
"Lord,
if there are only 20 just men in the Cities won't you spare them
destruction?"
"OK
Abraham, if there are 20..."
"....if
there are 10"
"Yes,
Abraham..."
And
then Abraham finally hit God's least acceptable result. He (God)
made sure those that had an ounce of possibility in them, were
out of town and then he went nuclear...and this wasn't all that
long after he wiped out the entire earth with a flood.
The
Bible says that God has a temper, but it also shows on numerous
occasions that He can be successfully bargained with.
In
the New Testament, The Apostle Paul took the Jewish Religion and
the story of Jesus to the Greeks and Ephesians and a bunch of
other people on his tours north and west of Israel. His entire
purpose and message was persuasive.
Paul
would compliment those with different religions on their religiousness
and devotion to their Gods, he'd build rapport and then come in
with a message about the Unknown God and then record that he "successfully
persuaded many that day."
He
was good.
Was
Paul being ETHICAL using covert
persuasion?
The
Root of Persuasion
Persuasion
is what caused us to develop language in the first place. As a
species we needed stuff. We learned to speak so we could ask for
help in getting that stuff.
And,
persuasion is simply the stuff of life.
What
is Subliminal Persuasion?
Subliminal
persuasion is the experience you have when you aren't completely
aware of everyone popping 20 dollar bills in the collection basket,
you have a 10 but for some reason you decide to dig for another
10 and make it twenty.
A
significant percentage of the actions you take are because something
you were not consciously aware of caused you or primed (prepared
you unconsciously) to act in a specific fashion.
"Subliminal"
can mean "invisible" or "covert"
but it can also mean...what it means...stimuli that you are not
aware of.
In
the last decade more research has been done on subliminal and
supraliminal messages than the previous century before.
We
now know that audio subliminal messaging is a great scam and that
most video messages designed to subliminally persuade, don't work,
because they simply don't work in how the brain accepts information.
But
scientists and researchers in subliminal persuasion now know what
does prime and persuade people at the unconscious level.
We
can cause someone to drink X over Y or X over not drinking at
all.
And
those things can be done while looking at a computer screen and
having an image of the word "drink" revealed at a duration
too short for conscious awareness to pick it up, even if you're
"looking for it."
The
research in subliminal messages is nothing short of mind blowing
in potential. The ability to change short term behavior can assist
in changing long term behavior. The ramifications are beyond measure
in society.
Propaganda
and Persuasion
Propaganda
is persuasion on a large scale.
I
used to tell audiences, "I have propaganda at the back of
the room. Please feel free to pick it up, check it out and ...."
One
day a Jewish man came up to me and he was angry. Suggested that
I was supporting evil by just using the word "propaganda"
in a sentence.
Why?
Because
I used the word, "propaganda."
I
told him that while I could appreciate his point of view, I was
speaking only from a scientific point of view. There is nothing
special about the word "propaganda." It's a message
crafted to persuade more than one person. It's designed to persuade
many about something I or the creator feels passionate about.
It
certainly could refer to Hitlerian propaganda about the creation
of a superior race, but that is a really narrow minded view of
a term that covers a lot of ground.
Commercials
are propaganda. Marketing messages are propaganda. What your teacher
teaches your kids and my kids teacher teaches my kids, is propaganda.
The
man who came up to me was propagandizing his ideology to me. Now
I wasn't going to tell him that, because I had learned over the
years that logically debating with a disgruntled audience member
can put you in the psychiatric admitting room at the hospital.
It's a waste of time.
Fact
is...Propaganda is a necessary tool in a free society to differentiate
yourself or your company or your religion or political ideology
from another.
Propaganda
is news with a spin and intention, and all news has a spin and
all spun news has an intention.
When
I took journalism at the University of Wisconsin 25 years ago,
I found the most difficult factor in writing news articles was
being "objective." Today, of course, there is no such
thing as objective news. Walter Cronkite is long gone from the
news stage and the era of trying to get it "right" without
a message attached to it is simply no longer possible due to how
our world "runs."
If
you want to watch your favorite TV shows and read your favorite
newspaper, your favorite church publication, your favorite company
newsletter, you will have to wade through "spin." They
can't afford to publish without it. It's no longer possible to
compete with objective news. Whether CNN, Fox or Al Jazeera, they
all have an agenda. And that is the only way it can work in the
21st century.
Propaganda
and subliminal persuasion in no way demands that Kevin Hogan gets
something out of you being shaped by a message I send. The same
is true for you sending messages.
Can
YOU really use propaganda!?!?
The
Outcome of Stimuli
But
the fact is that all stimuli creates and alters context.
It
all means something.
Few
people grasp the gravity of this.
They
want me to teach them the "right words" or "sentence
fragments" or "language patterns."
And
I smile.
Sure,
there are some persuasive words and patterns of language. But
for the most part those things are teeny tiny in getting your
message heard, listened to, believed, accepted and evangelized
upon.
Priming:
A Powerful Subliminal Message
Put
one of those smiley faces on your refrigerator for a week. See
how your family's behavior changes that week (assuming they use
the fridge as much as the people here do.)
And
put one of those smiley faces in the bathroom....
And
sit back and watch subliminal persuasion go to work....
About
the Author:
Kevin Hogan is the author of Covert
Hypnosis, a guidebook that Dr. Joe Vitale (star of "The
Secret" movie) has said to be "the
most powerful stuff I've EVER seen for selling, persuading, and
motivating." Kevin is the nation's leading body
language expert. He is a dynamic, well-known international motivational
and inspirational keynote speaker, consultant and corporate trainer.
He has trained persuasion, sales and marketing skills to leaders
in the government of Poland, employees from Boeing, Microsoft,
Starbucks, Meespierson, Auntie Anne's, Cargill, Pillsbury, Carlson
Companies, Fortis, Great Clips, the State of Minnesota, 3M, The
United States Postal Service and numerous other Fortune 500 companies.
He recently spoke to The Inner Circle and at the Million Dollar
Roundtable (MDRT) convention.
