Marketing professionals can get so caught up in the latest media, technologies, and metrics that they overlook the basics of persuasion. Regardless of whether you’re trying to persuade someone to invest millions in your company, buy a widget, or go out for a drink after work, for you to succeed, says communications expert Nicholas Boothman, you must make the person think three things: “I trust you”; “You make sense”; and “You move me.” During his keynote speech at this week’s National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment (NCOF), cosponsored by CHIEF MARKETER sister publication “Multichannel Merchant,” Boothman discussed how to achieve that.
The three goals tie in to what Boothman described as humans’ three brains. The reptilian brain is the most elementary. Upon encountering someone or something new, the reptilian brain will decide on one of four courses of action, Boothman said: “Do I ignore it, do I eat it, do I shag it, or do I run for it?”
The midtier brain is the limbic system. It handles emotions and involuntary actions, Boothman said. The most sophisticated of the three brains, he continued, is the neo cortex, which tries to make sense of the emotions.
Continuing with the theme of threes, Boothman noted that people process information primarily via sight, hearing, and touch. One’s immediate response to someone’s message can be broken down as being 55% visual, 38% to the tone of voice, and only 7% to the actual words. Similarly, just over half of all people learn to trust a person or a message primarily by sight; another third learn and judge primarily in terms of movement and touch, or kinetically; and only a small percentage by sound.
This is why when presenting a message it’s importance to do so in a positive manner, even if what you’re communicating is negative. By inserting “not” into a message, Boothman said, you make it more difficult for the human brain to envision and process. “The brain cannot process negative images,” he said. For instance, you can easily picture a person kicking a dog, but try envisioning someone not kicking a dog; you end up with a person doing something, albeit something that isn’t kicking, with a dog. In other words, a void or a vacuum isn’t something that can be envisioned.
All language, Boothman said, is processed unconsciously—via the limbic brain—except for negative language, which people must process consciously. He gave as an example a neighbor of his who wanted to discourage people from feeding the horses on his farm. When he posted a sign that said, “Please do not feed the horses,” the neighbor complained, even more people fed the horses than had before he’d put up the sign. Boothman advised rewording the sign to eliminate the “not”: “We only eat apples and carrots,” read the new sign. And sure enough, fewer people fed the horses.
Underscoring the importance of visuals and imagery in persuasion, Boothman said, “The quickest way to get what you want in the world of business is by metaphor and story. PowerPoint fades fast; ‘once upon a time’ is forever.”
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