124: The hard but necessary effort to be curious

[During - Persuasion & Marketing] Our penultimate session

Thank you, Lynn Casey

“Facts don’t win, not even with engineers.”

I’m a big fan of anyone who name-checks Robert Cialdini and Richard Florida, and then connects the dots of those leaders in ways students find compelling. Behavioral Economics and the sciences measuring creativity have likely had the most profound impact on the art of persuasion. Clarifying human behavior is one of the murky yet fascinating challenges we all face in marketing whatever it is we aspire to market. So it was a thrill to welcome Lynn Casey (LinkedIn) into our second to last session of the Persuasion and Marketing course at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Lynn brings decades of expertise as a CEO in public relations, and independent director of corporate boards (Xcel Energy and Surly Brewing boards, among others). Her through line: The business of persuasion is entirely about human relationships. At its most effective, persuasion begins with understanding, with unabashed curiosity in the other person, in the tribe and culture they represent.

We talked about the important differences affecting persuasion across the generations. From Lynn’s experience, Boomers tend to prefer authorities and factual appeals—contrasted with the classroom’s preference for emotional narratives, and mistrust of authority. The practice can’t be one-size-fits-all. But it’s clear any successful appeal begins in the hard, patient work of relationship. Much of our current political divide, Lynn noted, seems to be rooted in a lazy disinterest. Getting to know others, especially in our fragments technological ecosystem, is difficult.

I’m reminded of Bill Bernbach’s paradigm, written long before the Internet:

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

But let’s flip that on its head a little, and suggest: People won’t believe you unless they think they know you, and they can’t know you unless you’ve made the effort to get to know them.

Thanks for your time and passion in getting to know us, Lynn!

Next week the class will be presenting their final projects—their take on the art and science and history of persuasion and marketing. And we’ve got a surprise guest lined up.