Perception – More Important Than Fact

10 Jan Perception – More Important Than Fact

Perception is more important than fact. Fact.

How we think and feel about things is usually more important than the reality relating to it.

This doesn’t mean to say that people ignore facts, rather we shape impressions based on a whole range of factors – not least of all the media.

Perceptions – and indeed misconceptions – can be difficult to deal with and sometimes seem impenetrable to shift.

Yet one of the joys of perceptions is they can change – and be challenged. A wondrous delight of my career in journalism was being given the opportunity to take a subject people had seemingly fixed opinions on, then throw light rather than heat on them so people could gain a different, hopefully wider, perspective.

We’re all the better for standing back and take a view which often enables us to act better, shape more fulfilling lives and engender more rounded opinions.

Trouble is, we’re often too stuck in the thick of daily life to afford that chance. But if we’re going to shape a fresh road ahead, we need to gauge the direction and distance we wish to travel.

That’s why we’re starting our new 2023 CGM Business Media Club programme with perception. To set our sights on a new course we need to understand the barriers we need to overcome – including challenging some misconceptions maybe – and how to enhance positive perceptions that are seemingly in our favour.

We also need to assess the assets we have in our backpack – and those we need to acquire.

One thing for sure is that we don’t all start from the same place. Often, as the man who proverbially asked the Devon farmer for the way to London only to get the response ‘well I wouldn’t start from here if I was you’, we’re all beginning the year from differing positions. There’s no one size to fit all.

Very few of us are heading in the same direction too. Indeed, our goals are usually much more nuanced than business coaches and the like would have us believe – which they commonly condense to money and financial greed. Most of us, in one way or another, aspire to lead more fulfilling lives based on any number of factors.

So what’s all this got to do with media, marketing and communications?

Simple. The attitude with which we approach trying to achieve our dreams, to me, it comes down to two main things: Positivity – having positive mindset and outward looking approach to communicate with people who can help us achieve our ambitions, in whatever way that may be it business or career-wise, or indeed with our own family and network of friends and colleagues – and a proactive willingness to keep doing it.

This means much more than marketing and trawling widely and wildly for customers – but about the entire way we communicate and seek to connect with people.

Remember perceptions are shaped by feelings. The deeper we can connect with people the more likely we are we are to have positive relationships with them.

That’s why our opening Business Media club meeting of 2023 is about perception, not just to deal with perspective and planning but to get the all-important process right.

Our message – what we say and why we want to say it – must always come before the many and varied methods we can choose to use to communicate.

Methods change all the time. Thirty years ago, there was barely any internet or e-mail. Even 20 years ago, very few companies had websites and other that chatrooms and forums there was barely any social media. Times change. Only dinosaurs send faxes these days, no one barely uses a typewriter for letters and digital media has all but replaced analogue devices.

Yet the quality of the message must always come first – the direction of travel and the destiny is crucial and the spirit of time-honoured, often tactile skills must retain the same value.

It’s about keeping things in perspective and a matter of personal perception.

Perception – how a greater sense of perspective can you realise your dreams – is the theme of our first CGM Business Media Cub meeting of 2023 on January 27 (10am-midday). For further information and to book your seat visit our Business Media Club webpage.