Week 6: The Ancient Art of Rhetoric & Persuasion

Qn: Explain and exemplify how an insurance sales person would sell insurance rhetorically and how/she would hard sell the product.

During our lecture 6, we have been introduced to the application of rhetoric in film, comics and advertisement which focuses on visual aspect of rhetoric. For this journal, I will try to apply the concept of rhetoric on how to sell insurance. 

Rhetoric is a form of persuasion. From my perception, selling insurance is one tough job and requires someone who has the ability to persuade potential customers to buy his/ her product. Recently, I have the opportunity to attend some business seminars and I found that the business uses the some rhetoric techniques in order sell their products and here I would apply some of its approach if applicable. 

According to Aristotle’s approach on rhetoric, there are three technical means of persuasion which are in the character of the speaker, in the emotional state of the hearer or in the argument (logo) itself. I will discuss the application in relation to the job of insurance salespeople as follows:

1)  After getting to know the prospects background and profile, one have to arrange meeting over the phone call. Aristotle maintains that in order to appear credible, speaker must have intelligence, a virtuous character, and good will. In this case, insurance salesperson should possess all of these qualities which can be determined by the prospects during the meeting arrangement made over the phone calls.  Thus they must not sound desperate to get customers or else the prospects would doubt them. Also they must come prepared with unexpected question about the products, therefore preparation is crucial. 

2) Upon making the phone calls, insurance sales people should create curiosity among the prospects as proposed by Aristotle’s second technical persuasion. When making phone calls, salespeople should introduce themselves as a representative of an insurance company, but one must not talk about the product but instead ask them about their information and let their prospects do the talking. This fits the saying, ‘customer’s always right,’. This is because Aristotle maintains ‘that it is impossible to teach such an audience, even if the speaker had the most exact knowledge of the subject.’ If the targeted prospect is a mother, for example, they might want to consider asking about her children’s education or her future planning. This might help salesperson to connect with her, learn more about their prospects personalities and if prospects think that the salesperson could solve their problem, perhaps it could lead to another further meeting. 

      3) The third rhetoric techniques concerns in the argument (logo) of the speaker. The success of selling of insurance is determined how well the salesperson presents his/her reasoning to their prospects as to why they should buy the prduct. This involves the enthymemes, which Aristotle referred to this as the strategy of rhetoric.

According to McQuarrie and Philips (2008), rhetoric in advertising is more concerned with style than content. This can also be applied to the technique of persuasion by using the correct choice of words. This implies that a person can succeed as a salesperson as long as he/ she learn the technique of persuasion or rhetoric. He or she doesn’t have to be Giselle Bunchen or David Beckham to lure audiences to buy the product, and as a matter of fact, I have been told that even a quietest person could persuade customers and become successful in running a business if it is used in a correct manner.

References: 

Rapp, Christof, "Aristotle's Rhetoric", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/

KAY, B. (n.d). Art of Selling. Retrieved from http://www.leads4insurance.com/art_of_selling_2_II.html

European Rhetorics. Retrieved from http://www.european-rhetoric.com/rhetoric-101/modes-persuasion-aristotle/

Week 5: Gestalt Effects & Schema Thoeries

Name 3 Gestalt Theory & provide examples to illustrate your point.

From our week 5 lecture, we have been introduced to the Gestalt theory which revolves around Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler's application of ‘the whole is different from the sum of its parts’. One of the main aims of this approach is to generate awareness & insight. Below is a brief exercise to test your level of awareness before we digest the Gestalt Theory in-depth.

In the field of psychology, Gestalt Theory is referred to as ‘unified whole’. They believed that visual perception is the result of combination of different sensual elements as opposed to single element. In this entry, I will explain three Gestalt principles namely the law of similarity, the law of proximity, and the law of pragnantz.

1) Law of similarity

According to Lester (1995), ‘The law of similarity states that, given a choice by the brain, you will select the simplest and most stable form to concentrate on. This law stresses the importance of basic shapes in the form of squares, circles and triangles.’ This means that we tend to group things according to the basic formation and we try to interpret meanings from it. The law holds that our brain is able to identify patterns first rather than separate objects. The picture below shows that people would recognize the blue dot as a line.

2) Law of proximity 


This law claims that our minds would group two or more things when  they appear to be closer and we consider them as one object. From the newspaper, the law suggest than our minds would link the photograph with the story because of their proximity.

3) Law of pragnantz


This law is also known as 'figure and ground' whereby when two our more pictures are group together, we tend to see an image in a simplest manner. The figure below shows a picture of a child and an adult, but we can also see the African continent. 

References:

Gestalt Theory: Oneness and Integrated Wholeness. Retrieved from  http://www.gestalttheory.com/concepts

Lester, P.M. (1995). The sensual and perceptual theories of visual communication. Visual images with messages (52-58). California:Wadsworth Publishing.