Have you experienced someone persuading you without many words? You may think it’s not possible to persuade without long dialogues but, I say most of us have experienced this in some or the other way. Do you remember any time when you just walked out of an ice cream parlor, with an ice cream in your hand wanting to enjoy it to the fullest, or stopping at a traffic red light for a few minutes, or sitting outdoors at a restaurant enjoying your meal. If yes then we go ahead. Now do you remember the time when a beggar (typically a street kid dwelling in that area) standing in front of you staring at your ice cream, or at your meal, or looking through the window glass of your car? I am sure we all have experienced it some or the other time. It’s very interesting how they manage to persuade us without exchanging many words and we end up giving some money or part of our meal to the beggar. So what makes us give money to beggars even when we know that begging should not be promoted? I feel they have a simple yet mysterious way to persuade us. According to my observation there are 3 ways they achieve it: 1) Entertain: They entertain us with their distinct talent. Visual - Street kids performing various stunts on the road without any safety measures and then asking for money. Display of talent (and something we cannot do) makes us appreciate their efforts. 2) Sell: They sell us a concept or an idea, even to con us sometimes with their stories. Visuals - People begging with medical prescriptions or a family stranded with a bus ticket and no money to return to their hometown. 3) Create Empathy: They add sentimental value to their state of being on the street. We start sharing or recognizing emotions experienced by another sentient. Visual - The sole expression on a street kid’s face, while we are having our meal or the ice cream is enough to make us donate some money or food itself. Now imagine the beggar as a ‘seller’, and us as the ‘buyers’. Beggars get a limited time window to approach and convince us to buy their concept, also to persuade us to shell out cash for their efforts. Unlike professionals, they do not make calls, set appointments, and conduct meetings. In fact, they do not have any value products and services to sell. All they have is visuals and how they reach to our brain, further to persuade us to pay (donate) for them.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 11:02:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015