Perception is the guiding factor for everything we do in life. The way we observe things shapes our reality, and is the leading cause for our behaviors. For example, we have an alcoholic father with two sons. Both kids grow up and watch their dad make horrible mistakes. One son says, "because my dad drinks and does horrible things, that means I will too." The other son says "because my dad drinks and does horrible things, that means I will never touch alcohol."

So we have two people in the same exact environment but take two totally different life paths based on their perception of alcohol. Perception is a strong and misunderstood tool. Now in our sales and marketing we can use this tool to our advantage. We can help reshape the belief of our customers on how they view our product. We can influence how they look at it, and cause them to take drastically different behaviors towards it. 

So how can we use perception and bend reality to get our customers to take the action we want them to? We reshape their beliefs. You see they already have a fixed belief on how they think something works or what it is. That is their model of the world and view on reality. We can reframe or present them with new information. Metaphors and stories are one of the easiest tools to use to do this. 

When we tell stories, this information typically goes over the conscious mind, and pierces the unconscious mind.  But we are not telling stories just to tell stories. We are telling the story in a way that gives them the emotional state needed, to receive the information we are giving them. This pulls them out of the day dreaming state most people are in, and gets them in a state where they are able to actually interpret and not just have the info going in one ear and out the other. 

Let's look at a great example of changing perception on a global level. 2020 introduced one of the most annoying and biggest problems the world has ever seen. The corona virus. Vaccine manufacturers wanted to exploit profits as much as possible, so they began pumping out information that was later proven to be fake about the virus and it's vaccines. 

They used one of the most powerful fear tactics of influence/manipulation known to few, guilt tripping. They instilled the idea that if you did not get your shot, you would be responsible for the death of your loved ones if you got them sick. It was a very powerful tactic that got huge percentages of the world to get shots that were proven ineffective for the most part. Regardless of your beliefs about the situation, we are looking objectively about what they did on a global scale to change the perception of the shot.

So now that we know we can get people to take the actions we want them to by getting them to believe something new, or seeing something in a different way, let's use this to make some money and help our customers. 

We can artificially create value by getting them to believe it is real. Some people say this is disingenuous and deceiving. I strongly disagree with that. If by getting them to believe in something means they have more success and satisfaction with their purchase, I would argue that it would be wrong not to use this. 

A lot of times people won't even make the purchase if you do not do this. For example if we are selling a life insurance policy to a guy, we must use this to get him to view it in a different light, especially if he is hesitant about it or has not had the best experience with other agents in the past. 

We cannot tell him that we are giving him a 30 year term policy that will pay out 200K if he dies. We must tell him what it will do for him. We must present the same information, in a completely different way. It is better to be different than it is to be better. If we know his problem is that when he dies, his family will lose the house, we will use that in our wording. We won't say it is a 30 year term policy through so and so company, instead we will say "Now John God forbid when something happens to you, and it will, your wife can call me and I will come back here and hand her a check to make sure the whole house is paid off, which means your family gets to keep their beautiful home, and not be living on the streets mourning you.

He now has belief in what the product will do for him, even though that money could be used to go gamble at a casino. 

So I hope you go out there in your career and use this. Influencing someone's perspective and beliefs about something, is extremely powerful and will give your customers' a new identity, and help them even more, simply by changing the way you frame new information. 

Happy Hustling Prosperitan,
Mason VanMeter.