Perception is reality

This quote phrased from Greek philosophy by Lee Atwater has bearings on marketing, sales and business dealings with customers in general.

Whether you want to sell your product, educate your customer, help a potential customer, persuade an employee or negotiate a contract, what really counts is how your 'opponent' see the world and how their outlook, knowledge, feelings and goals etc. impacts on their decisions. It does not matter what the truth is - to all stakeholders “Percetion IS Reality”.

Epistemology

The philosophical discussion on epistemology, has an indirect bearing here. 

You may argue that there is no reality, or that reality is defined by agreement by most people on the same or near same perception. However for marketing, sales and business in general what defines reality is not important.

For business purposes it merely counts, that what the customer perceives as the truth, is in fact the truth, so either you persuade him to believe in your truth, or you use his perception of the world to frame the value of your product, persuade him about the right course of action etc. In effect we need to understand the way the target group for our purposes perceive the world or at least the context we operate in.

However epistemology does indirectly have an impact, for how do we know, that which we think we know? 

We rely on sensory input, seeing (a version of reading), hearing, smelling, feeling by touch, tasting. Then we apply interpretation, and we infer a perception about the world. That is our reality.

How do we interpret? - from past experience of causal relationships. I.e. the hammer falls towards your foot, because you have been hit by a hammer before in that exact way you know it is going to cause pain. Maybe you haven't been hit exactly by a hammer falling, however you have been hit by something of the same weight and density, so you know the hammer is going to hurt as would a stone, but a bag of water with equal weight but different density would not.

This is how you perceive through experience, memory and inference, and you might be wrong, but until changing perception, this is your world, your reality.

Pragmatism

Most people are not concerned with what they know or how they know, what they think they know. They simply perceive and act accordingly.

Fact, proof, logic and argumentation simply fades when opposed to reality, and a contradiction to perception is ludicrous and not accepted.

And this is the way we are programmed through human evolution, and if someone argued that the sun would not rise tomorrow, maybe you would consider it. If they argued that it would not rise every 3 days out of the week from now on, you would probably reject it straight off. This is related to experiencing the same pattern over and over again, and only reading about or experiencing the particular phenomenon very infrequently. 

So preaching your message, you should hinge it on something the audience understands well, has experience with, and which generally fits into their perception of the world.

In marketing & sales

Communicating effectively requires taking the vantage point of the customer.

Just stating what good product features you offer is not relevant if these do not connect with the customers perception.

Understand your customers perception and thereby their reality and you can speak directly into their needs and in a way that resonates with the customers knowledge and reality.

In a perfect situation speaking directly into the decision maker's perception and adding value to him through his personal goals and interests is the optimal path.

Uncovering this extra layer of perception from the customers business to the personal level is increasingly difficult.

In negotiations

In general it is accepted as the optimal and most sustainable solution in the long run, if a situation with mutual benefit is achieved - a win-win situation. Understanding the other party's perception of the situation and finding a way to get them what they perceive as valuable, and at the same time achieving value from your own vantage point, is therefore the goal.

This also directly purports that rationality is irrelevant, only what the other party understands and perceives is relevant, and you have to uncover this perception and find the mutual benefits in the negotiation.

In management

Employees' perceptions matter as they are the resource that in most cases drives your business - no people no business. Over and above that understanding the heterogenous, fragmented and diverse personal goals of the employees also has high importance. Through understanding the perceptions and the personal goals you have to find a way to align the interest of the business and the interest of the employees. This is not an easy task, and in many cases it will be impossible, however when it is possible it is the preferred state, which brings the best possible results.

Having specialist knowledge of a technical area does not mean that your outlook, understanding and experience, i.e. the perception, makes you see the world facing the business as it really is. I.e. management which has goals for the business as a whole has the task of understanding this reality fully in order to design actions to achieve this goal in the most optimal way. Understanding the perception of the employee and communicating through this to align goals and purveying the true perception or a version thereof is the task of management.

In general business

Think about your own perception in operational management, when you decide on actions in executing the strategy and when devising the strategy.

You are sure about your perception, but how sure are you that this does in fact equal reality, and that your plans and actions will result in the desired outcome?

The more facts you can gather describing the circumstances in which you make decisions and the more causal relationships you can build and model between facts, decisions and outcomes, the more certain you can become about what constitutes the reality facing the company - and thus making decisions based on reality (or close to it) instead of perceptions, and thus maximizing the outcomes from your decisions. 

That is why Fact Based Management is important, so as to ensure the maximum security of outcome as the available cost effective information allows.

Perception is reality

So in order to market your products, get the optimal prices, ensure efficiency in the staff and make sure alignment secures content and fun for all employees - you need to adhere to the quote from Lee Atwater “ Perception is Reality”. 

In short you need to use the fact that, perception is reality for all animals of the human persuasion, to arrive at "Profit & Fun".