Imagine this: you have to choose between spending 30 minutes in a cage with a Killer whale or a Stonefish.

Which one will you choose? And to make it more difficult, you don’t have WIFI – so you can’t go online and search for the answer 😁

For any rational being, Stonefish seems to be the most obvious answer. And on the surface, it seems the right thing to do.

But hold on a second. Do you know that your chances of survival with a killer whale are higher than with stonefish?

Killer whales, also known as Orca, are not aggressive that toward humans, unlike Stonefish, which is way more dangerous with its 13 venomous spines.

Yikes, not just one, but 13.

Chances are you will hardly be in this situation (unless you’re secretly an Aquaman); nevertheless, now you know if you have to decide between a killer whale or a stonefish, you will pick Killer whale’s cuddle over stonefish venomous spines.

But the question arises: Why did you select stonefish over killer whale in the first place?

Perception Bias

The real reason for choosing to go with Stonefish is perception. How can anyone with their right senses want to be close to a species with “Killer” in their name?

None. At least not anyone that I know of. But as you know, the reality is different.

The lesson here is that negative information (data, insights, etc.) has far more impact than positive ones. Any bad or negative touchpoint, enables the fear & flight response from us.

And as a species though we have landed on moon, but we are not rational all the time.

We like to make quick decisions, like in the above example also, Killer whale because it had killer in its name will not get picked, and Stonefish will easily get picked.

Now you have one more reason to associate your brand with positive attributes.

Forming Perception Is a Human Tendency

Until all of us hit the Nirvana, we can’t escape this; we have to live with it; but what we can do is to; learn how to manage it and use it to for our own advantage.

And it’s not that we create Perceptions in certain situations, we are always forming them.

We easily stereotype and make assumptions about specific groups (Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc.) of people. Though we think we do, but hardly we judge individuals as they are.

Further it is not limited to only humans; we make perceptions towards ideas, decisions, other’s judgments, etc.

Perception is different for each individual,. Like we can learn from this below image.

Moreover perception of each individual changes as context changes.

Like for example in India, for national pledge and in order to enter the class it’s require to do raise hand. It’s done out of respect.

But when you go to Germany, this becomes the Nazi Sign, and it’s frowned upon.

It clouds our thinking and makes it difficult to make the right decisions – and accepting is the first step to make it works for you.

Perception in Finance

In 1999.com bubble investors were only investing in companies with “.com” in their name.

Back then, the focus was less on financials and more on “.com” in the name. Today, many organizations in VR/AR, AI, or the Metaverse are getting massive funding because these industries are in trend.

Though they still need to prove their worth to the customer (the end-user).

Or the 2022 Crypto crash & FTX collapse, where many VC firms invested in it because Sequoia or Softbank (big VC guns) also infused funding.

One possible reason could also be the charm of nerdy and quirky Sam Bankman-Fried on many investors😆.

Perception In Marketing & Sales

Marketing is all about building perception.

It doesn’t matter what you think about your business. What matters is what your customers think about your business.

It doesn’t matter what value you are offering, what matters is what is the perceived value.

Remember rise of NFTs 😆?

Take the example of Nike; it doesn’t matter if you win or lose. What matters is that while wearing it, you know you have the winner’s shoes.

This is nothing but building Perception done right.

So next time when you are starting to plan a marketing, sales or a brand strategy, start first by figuring out what is the perception that you want to build in the mind of the customer. This will make your next steps easier.

Another example with Nike; though their products don’t guarantee that you will win the game, people still buy their shoes because — they know Michael Jordan Wears them.

If you observe around you, every successful brand is doing it.

Which spectrum are you in, Creating Perception vs Living In Perception?

Start creating perception bias if you want to influence your audience to make a decision, build a brand image, start a next FTX etc.

Also, try to leverage it in your personal life. And last but not least be cautious to not get trapped in Perception bias yourself.

Remember it always start by us believing that we know what we are doing.