Picture the outcome

I had a quick glance this morning at the book that is permanently left open on my coffee table...

It's my book of goals.  There I am ...sailing my Princess 58 in the Mediterranean en route to some playboy resort...someday!  And it's that picture that helps get me at the desk for another day working on the business!
Visualising your goals isn't a new thing of course, and seeing success in the form of specific tangible outcomes is what many people have attributed their success to. And a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research has shed some new light on this. Report authors Julia Belyavsky Bayuk (University of Delaware), Chris Janiszewski, and Robyn LeBoeuf (both University of Florida) carried out experiments to examine consumer behavior when it came to the goal of saving money. Some participants were asked to focus on a firm plan, some were asked not to plan, and some were asked to focus on why they should save...rather than how.
With an interesting question being raised over the traditional belief that a clear plan is always best, the How-focused group did less well, particularly when dealing with unforseen issues.  The authors concluded that "Planning is more effective when people think abstractly, keep an open mind, and remind themselves of why they want to achieve a goal'"

This same principle of focusing on why...Picturing the outcome...Showing you what  you will achieve... is what we see elegantly demonstrated by the best communicators. It's what CEO's do when sharing the vision.  It's what presenters do when imparting a message. It's what salepeople do when talking up a case history. The technique they use is simple story telling. Engaging our attention....shifting our thinking from where we were or are... to where we will be and what we will find there.
It's also happens to be a technique that we are introduced to very early in life. We eagerly learn it! We enthusiastically practice it! We passionately and imaginatively use it! Then we grow up. Lose our imaginative outlook on life. Get all self-conscious...and stop!!
For a master-class example of storytelling from the conference stage, watch Sir Ken Robinson persuading a Ted conference why we must alter our approach to education. The standing ovation shows that he was successful http://tinyurl.com/7swydn
Right...I wonder what the weather forecast is for St Tropez this week-end?

For tips and advice on persuasive communication browse the Resource Centre at http://www.persuadability.co.uk/

What you see is what you get!

Last Friday I thought I'd bring out my cherished Pierre Cardin burgundy leather "RHS" monogramed A4 executive organiser...rather than save it for special occasions. Gratefully appreciated as a gift (from myself) at our HP Foods annual sales conference in 1988...it nicely complimented the gold-plated, personally inscribed Cross pen and pencil..."earned" at a previous year's event! Yes we were a bit pretentious in those days... but we also knew that these eyecatchers worked for us in front of customers. Put it this way if the Trading Director of Tesco coveted them... they were working!

The psychology of this didn't overly concern us back then. But as it happens... one of our selling commandments was "Thou shalt always use a pen when presenting!"  That regularly involved persuading a sales representative to throw away his chewed Bic ball point and invest in a Parker Flighter. Flashing the Cross clearly helped with it's subliminal message "This is what you could aspire to one day....perhaps?"  

Subliminal influence has been a subject of much debate over the years. Most people think straightaway of subliminal advertising and the subsequently discredited claims of the Cocoa Cola cinema ad of the 1950's.  These days subliminal advertising is banned although this seems to have been forgotten by the Conservative Party in their pre-election advertising. But in fairness it wasn't deliberate or mischeavious ...according to an article in Marketing Week.

In fact it was quite the opposite. While intending to present negative messages about Gordon Brown they had unintentionally promoted a smiling likeable Gordon...as subsequent consumer research was to prove.

Maybe the advertisers hadn't seen Derren Brown's famous stunt where two executives designed a logo. The design having been subliminally implanted by carefully sighted ad' hoardings and the like passed en route by their taxi.

These examples plus numerous scientific experiments illustrate the power of visual communication.

People's minds are made up by what they consciously see...often they don't bother to read the text or hear the words.

Their minds are also made up by what they unconsciously see. We know that the sub-conscious channel of the mind is highly responsive to sensory stimulii. We also know that this route to the mind diverts thought away from the critical reasoning areas...encouraging a more creative imaginative outlook on issues.

Compelling reasons why presenting from behind a lectern and reciting from bullet pointed texts is such an ineffective way to communicate.

Get out from behind the lectern.  Communicate wth your body language.

Use areas of the stage to anchor different moods and then trigger emotional response.

Illustrate your meaning with graphics...or photographs....or animations....or  video.

Communicate with your audience through all the senses...consciously and unconsciously!

For more tips and advice on persuasive communication please visit us at http://www.persuadability.co.uk/

 

The map is not the territory!

"Neanderthals mating with humans!"  was a headline in last Sunday's  New York Times 
And instantly my mind was reacting.  With an amazing sudden grasp of anthropology I was explaining to myself the origins of man... and picturing the different evolutionary examples that I regularly see at the local shopping centre.

Of course my assumptions on evolution were flawed..if not to say rather facile. As was my reading of the headline. It said something quite different.
But I'm going to forgive myself... because we all do it.  We read a headline or hear a sound-bite and we get it all around our ears...rather than accurately into the grey matter between them!
Often that is down to ambiguity in the headlines and here are some great examples of that..
Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft!
Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told
Prostitutes Appeal to Pope
Sex Education Delayed, Teachers Request Training
And a lot of miscommunication can be blamed on the ambiguities of the English language. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the 500 words used most in the English language each have an average of 23 different meanings!
As a quick example of this ask yourself what does the word mean mean?
Another factor is how in recent times we have evolved different ways of absorbing and sharing news and information. When I was a kid we poured over the Newspapers, sat engrossed by the Radio or TV or was entertained by the wonderful British Pathe News at the cinema. And we shared it around on the telephone...but mostly face to face.
Today of course many of us are satisfied with the "bits" of news we see on-line. And we share it around through emails....posts on Facebook...IM's ...or text messages. And with a language that is cryptic going on coded!
One particular concern I have in all this is...the trend towards e pitching. The "dumbing down" of business presentations or proposal pitches into a click of the [send] button as another pitch document is e-mailed to a prospect!! Accompanied by the hope that the prospect team get our meaning.... and if they don't that the 100 Powerpoint slides we created will impress them and do it for us!!
I'm often reminded by a pal of the three rules of selling:
Talk to the People. Talk to the People. Talk to the People. 

And it's not just because of media constrictions and ambiguity that we should. It is also because as individuals we will always see things differently! One of the Presuppositions of NLP is "The Map is not the Territory!" Meaning that we each have a perception of the world and life (our map) that is based on our own personal beliefs, values, emotions, experiences....and this perception will differ from reality. 

So to make sure that your meaning is understood....and with a slight para-phrase of the "3 rules"
Rule 1: Get in front of the people.
Rule 2: Remember that they each have their own map.
Rule 3: Talk with them as individuals...not at them as a group.
Rule 4: Question them....understand their map... and walk it! 

For more tips and advice on persuasive presentation please visit us at http://www.persuadability.co.uk/

It's how you say it!

I'm off to the polling station soon....."to exercise my franchise!" as we quaintly put it.

 Everybody has talked about how close the polls are and maybe a lot of that is just down to a lack of understanding of what is in store for us. We've had the TV debates...but I for one was still not clear what Dave, Nick or Gordon are planning for us. I thought maybe an outside view from The New York Times would help.

Well it's enlightened me!! Particularly about the scale of our financial problem summed up in an off the cuff quote attributed to Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England when saying “whoever wins will be out of power for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be.”
The article then goes on to suggest that "When these issues have been discussed at all in the campaign, it has usually been in the context of which of the parties could get away with being most evasive in setting out deficit-reduction plans that economists say fall far short of the cuts that will be needed."
So where will that leave us when we inevitably reflect back on the election campaign. We have had innovation in the form of those wonderfully entertaining TV debates which pitched Nick Clegg from chorus line to super-stardom! We were treated to the brilliant personal brand campaign - "Dave!"  Beginning with his "jogging to front door" the morning the election was called...and steadily building through to his 36 hour marathon vote catcher the day before polling. And just to show you don't have to stage things and spontinaeity works best...we revelled in Gordon's brief encounter with Mrs Duffy on the streets of Rochdale!!
And all of that... just so they could be evasive and not tell us what they really needed to???

But then that is the particular nature of politics. It's not what you say but how you say it!
Barak Obama was once accused of delivering "empty rhetoric" by one political pundit...yet he is widely accepted as being a great speechmaker.
Audiences respond to charisma and congruent delivery. These presentational qualities register subconsciously.  The persuasive language techniques used also register in the same subconscious way.  The audience intuitively feel good with the messenger and with the message.
But stay clear of empty rhetoric otherwise you could sound like this hilarious Peter Sellers' "Speech in the House" recorded back in 1958 http://tinyurl.com/29xf3ul
Right then. Time to go and vote. So who does it for me on charisma and congruence?