The Storytelling Salesman

On this episode of the Think Bigger Real Estate Show, bestselling author and sales expert James Vander Linden (aka Jimmy Van) reveals how storytelling—done right—can drive connection, trust, and sales. Learn how to speak to emotion, not just logic, and make your clients the hero. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Justin Stoddart

Host

Stephanie Peck

What is Think Bigger Real Estate?

The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.

On today's episode of the Think bigger real estate show, we give you the supplement to your AI expertise. You and I both know that we're spending a lot of time learning how to leverage the power of AI, yet what you might be missing is that most people make buying decisions. Make decisions in life based on emotion, not facts. So today's episode, we're going to talk specifically about how to create stories that compel compel, not just people who are your clients, but also those who are your teammates. It's going to be an important episode for you as you elevate both your business as well as your lead generation business.

Again. Welcome back, everybody to today's episode. We're excited to introduce Jimmy van. Is how he's known by his friends, only by the by the end of this episode, he will call us that. I think we're getting close. But James Van der Linde is the author of the storytelling salesman, and when I saw this come across my desk, I thought, I've got to talk to this guy, because I believe so strongly that in today's world, those who again, couple all the power that AI is producing together with what James is going to bring us today, which is how to tell compelling stories that move people. This is, this is an episode that we're all gonna want to learn from. So James, please tell us your backstory. I know you're a best selling author, expert in sales, expert in helping organizations move forward using the Power Stories fill in any gaps that our audience might want to hear. Sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me on. It's pleasure to talk to you guys, and I'm going to try my best to give you the Cliff Notes version of this. So basically, my journey in terms of my professional life, happened by accident. I in the late 90s, the Internet was still kind of a new thing. I was in my 20s. I wanted to learn what it was like to build a website, just because I knew it was going to be around. And I wanted to learn how to do it. And the topic that I chose for the website was a childhood passion, professional wrestling. And I did it as a hobby. I did it for fun. But back then, in the late 90s, there weren't as many eyeballs, there weren't as much competition. There really was no social media, there was no YouTube, no Twitter, anything. It was mostly email and news groups. Before I knew it, I was generating over 50,000 unique views a day on the website. And I thought, there must be a way that I can monetize this, make money with this. So I learned how to sell my own ads. And it all started from there. From there, I ended up working in sales for many years, for several dot coms, and then I made the natural progression to my own company, created my own marketing company, and ran that for about 12 years, we did very well, nine figures a year in revenue. And eventually I just decided time to take a step back, getting a little older now I've got two kids. Didn't want to live in the big city anymore, and so I had my partner buy me out. I moved to a country town, and here I am now.

I love it sounds like very similar, at least similar story to Stephanie and I, we live in the suburbs of a big city, each of us close close in proximity to one another, but yeah, I think we feel that. And I didn't officially introduce my lovely co host is back after a couple weeks being out. Stephanie, great to have you here. Thank you. And I came at just the right time, because storytelling is something that I am so passionate about and have had so much success with. So I'm very excited to learn more from James. Why don't you kick it off? Stephanie, what? What questions do you have for James when it comes to storytelling? Obviously, you lead an incredible organization that sells a lot of real estate. You serve clients throughout the region at a really high level. What are some of your curiosities around storytelling that James can help us with today.

Yeah, so when it comes to storytelling specifically around sales, and if we're talking about real estate sales in our situation, I find it hard to

tell a story that is still relatable to everyone else. And I guess I'm always thinking, How do I tell this person's story and make sure that it resonates with someone else who may have some similarities in that situation but also have some differences, so that I can show that I can meet them where they're at. So give us some tips on that. So one thing that I learned when I started dealing with lawyers and accountants and people who were not in the nitty gritty day to day of my industry, one thing I learned dealing with them is that I couldn't speak to them the way that I would somebody in my company. I couldn't use the terminology that it would with somebody in my company, because they just didn't understand it. And so I found that I would start to generalize more often. I would put it into terms that they would understand. And that same exact method is what I would use with a new trainee if I hired, you know, a new employee entry level sales didn't know her business, didn't know the terminology. You have to explain it to them in such a way that they're going to get it and so.

So that's how I learned to kind of do things. And I'll give you an example. I had a manager. So when I was running my company, I had different divisions, and I had different managers that led those divisions. They would hire teammates, people on their team, they would train them, but I always kept an eye on things. And I remember one day I was walking the floor looking at monitors, and there was a new sales hire, and when I walked by his desk, he had a glossary of terms up on his computer, and I went up to him and said, What are you doing? And he said, Oh, the manager asked me to memorize these, and I immediately pulled them in my office, and I kiboshed the whole thing and basically told him, that's not going to work, that you're not here. This is not college. You're not here to take a test memorizing terms like that. It's just not going to work. You need to learn by doing. You need to learn by asking questions. And that was an example of where I had to take that manager out of that mindset, and I had to make him understand you're dealing with somebody who's new to this business. They don't know this terminology, they don't know these these things that you know. You have to put it in a more generalized way that they're going to get it. And so I think that they kind of figured out that's how you have to do it. And over the years, that's just, I've learned that that's how you have to when you're talking to people again that don't know the business, don't know the terminology, you have to talk to them in such a way that they're going to understand it without having to know those things.

I really love that advice, because I think that we put so much pressure on ourselves to sound smart, to be the smartest person in the room, to know something that someone else doesn't. And I know I hear Justin say this all the time, you only have to be one or two chapters ahead of somebody to be the expert. And I know that there's and you know, kind of tying back with the AI idea of how we can use that to still be relational. There are some AI tools that we can use where you actually put your content in and ask it to rewrite, write it as a third grader could understand it. And it's exactly that concept, like we we have to be remembering that we're we're not trying to overpower the conversation. We're not trying to over talk or over teach someone. That's a great way to be relatable.

Yeah, and you know what? I hate to say this almost, but there have been times that I've gone into meetings with new clients that are new to the business, don't know who we are, and I've told my sales team, talk to them like they're toddlers,

because, yeah, again, if they don't know the terminology, if they're new to the business, if they don't understand the landscape of the market, it's going to go over their head, and you don't want them to leave the meeting, and now they feel dumb, and maybe they're not going to want to do business with you, because they feel like you made them feel that way. So that's why I learned a long time ago. You have to kind of learn to generalize, and you need to understand that if these people are not from your industry, they're not going to know the things you know. They're not going to know the terminology and off more times than not, they're not going to tell you that they don't know. They're not going to tell you that they don't know the terminology. It's just not going to go anywhere. So that's how, that's how you have to you have to pivot. The part that I love about this is

we have this, this innate sense that we want to be the hero, right? And we listen to Donald Miller, for example, he talks about, in the hero's journey, we're supposed to be the guide, and they're supposed to be the hero, right? And I think to Stephanie, to your point, it is interesting how we want to sound intelligent. We want to be the one with all the knowledge. And yet, if we look at the the the adage that people don't remember anything, but how you made them feel, and if you make people feel like they understand, if you make them feel like they're smart, versus trying to get them to feel like you're smart, right? It's not to your point, James, it's not going to go anywhere, right? Like we're missing the point is that our job is to elevate them. Our job is to help edify them and make them feel like they are the hero, not us the hero. And I think that premise is connecting for me in what you're teaching us here, James, I mean, it goes back to sales, 101, right? Sales, 101, is you want to ask questions to the client, a prospective client, not be the one doing all the talking. You want to get them talking. You want them to talk about themselves, because that's human nature. And so again, if you come out of a meeting and you did all the talking, they're probably going to look at you a little bit differently than if you were asking them questions, getting them talking, then you make them feel important. So it kind of goes along with what you're saying. I've probably never had a client leave a meeting with me and say, Wow, she is so smart. I want to work

they, you know, you want them to leave that meeting and say, she really gets me and we connected, and that's why I want to work with her. Yeah. I mean, years ago, one of the one of the first clients that I ever got in in the world of sales was a client where they it was I was having a hard time getting them to respond to me. I was having a hard time getting them to respond to an email or do a phone call. And when I looked them up on Facebook to learn about them, I found out that they really like photography. And so there was a convention coming up, a trade show.

People, and I was able to get a meeting with them, and all I did was ask them about photography. I didn't ask them anything about the business. I didn't ask them anything about their budget, anything. I just talked to them about photography. And by the end of that that meeting, I had the deal. I mean, people want to talk about themselves. That's just, that's how it is. They want to talk about themselves. And if you will ask them questions about themselves and get them talking, they're gonna, they're gonna feel a lot more comfortable

with you. Stephanie, you posed a question to me last week when we were talking about having James on the podcast, which I think is an interesting one, which is we want to tell the stories of previous clients, because that's where people connect. To say, Boy, that's me, and you help someone like me, that means you can probably help me, but doing that in a way that that that doesn't break confidentiality, right? Is that? Is that how you would word that Stephanie or, yeah, or even kind of feeling like we're exploiting our clients story? I don't want their story to be my marketing piece, but it is an important piece of how I attract new clients is by saying I had this client in this situation, and someone else is going to say I'm in that situation too. And look at how they were able to come out of that. With your help. I need your help also. So I find that because I am dealing with a very intimate transaction with someone's home, and you get to know their story, whether that's a celebration or a hardship. You know, sometimes it's it's a divorce, it's a financial hardship, and I want to tell that story to be able to help others in that situation without it feeling like I'm exploiting their lives.

Yeah. I mean, this, this book, is an example of that. So I generalize everything the best that I can. I mean, the last thing I'm going to do is mention names. I'm not going to mention company names. I'm not going to, you know, oh, here's their here's their mailing address. I generalize it the best that I can, because that those aspects of the story aren't relevant, you know. So in my example, if I'm talking to a new sales hire and I'm telling them a story about maybe something they're having difficulty with, with landing a client, as an example, it doesn't matter who the client was that I was dealing with. And so that's an aspect of the story that I leave out. All you have to do is kind of get to the meat of it and the part of it that is relevant to them. And so in that respect, it's not that hard to get away from the confidentiality aspect, because it's just not relevant.

One thing that I've found that matters probably more to people, that I think is sometimes overlooked. To me, you can speak to this, James, is that people we oftentimes, again, go back to what I how I started off this episode, is that people are very interested in telling the facts and the figures and right. So in real estate, right? Sold a home for that was this size, for this much and this amount of time is very common. What we hear, and what I think we miss when we do that is is, let me tell you how my clients were feeling when they weren't sure if they could sell this home to get what they want out of it. So it's how they how they felt before and how they felt afterwards. Again, we're motivated by emotion, and people will make decisions to get out of a feeling of being stuck or being concerned or being scared or being worried. They'll move towards a place and a person who can help them to feel, to get rid of that feeling, exchange it out for a good one, right? So I think when we're telling these stories, it's, it's it's more important than, to your point, talking about the specifics of of the person and who they are, and more about what was going on on the inside of them, right? For sure, and like you just said, facts and figures, again, that really wouldn't necessarily be relevant to their situation. So, like, my background is not real estate, but I know a thing or two about real estate. I've got some investment property, but I imagine that if you're talking to a prospective client, because you're looking to list their house, do they care that you sold somebody else's house for X millions of dollars? If the person's house that you sold is not identical in every way to the to the person's house that you're looking to sell, if not, then it's not really relevant. So I would always try to look at the aspects of the story that's going to be beneficial to the person that you're talking to, as opposed to, oh, this other person. You know, I sold theirs for 10 million. Yours is worth one, but I sold theirs for 10 just not aspects of the story that are really relevant, they're not really going to help you with whatever point you're trying to get across.

What would you say is one of the best ways to find what is relevant? I think maybe I know the answer. Maybe just answered in my own head. But what are your thoughts like? How do you actually find out what is relevant to somebody?

Well, it starts with asking questions. And I've always been so encouraging to anybody that's ever worked for me, or even, you know, people that come to me with a business idea, looking for advice or looking for investment oftentimes, it seems, but you have to ask questions, because if you don't know what people are thinking, if you don't know what their roadblock is, if you don't know what their challenge.

Is, how are you ever going to help them resolve it? And I find, especially when you're dealing with a new employee, they don't want to ask questions. This is something I found over and over again. They don't want to ask questions because they think that they're going to come off the wrong way. They think I should know the answer to this, like I shouldn't go to my boss and ask this. So I would always encourage I would always tell everybody there's no stupid question, and you have to ask, because if you don't, how am I going to know what your problem is and and so that's where I would always start, is, is, is I would encourage them to ask me questions, and if they're too shy or nervous or whatever, then I ask them until I have a good understanding of where they're at. And then from there I can, I can help them and tell whatever the relevant story is to help them get where they need to go. Stephanie, how have you done this when you're sitting across the table from a client, do you go into like try and perceive how they're feeling about something? I know you're really good about reading body language. Do you ever ask questions, or do you feel it would be relevant in getting down to those that more emotional perspective versus just the facts and figures. I'd love to hear your process, because you're a master, you know, in this domain. What can you teach us about that process, of what questions have been really helpful for you to ask that actually uncover the real situation of where someone's at?

Yeah, and, and I'll even back up, because the first thing I do before meeting with a client is I look them up on social media, and I get to know them through social media, because you you can, you can tell, I know we're not supposed to judge a book by its cover. You can tell by the way a person dresses and by the type of posts that they make, what what their personality style is. So I go into it with that where I'm already sort of identifying, Is this person a driver? Is, you know, what's the marital, marital dynamic between the two? So that I know how to conversate with each of them. But my most important question is, every time I ask them a question about their goals, and then I follow it up with questions like, you know, how is that important to you? What will that do for you when you reach that goal? How will you feel about that so I take the question, and then I go deeper with every question. So if I'm asking them, you know, okay, you want to, you want to sell this house so that you can buy an acre out of the city? Great. I can easily go on to RMLs and find every property that has an acre out of the city, but I still don't understand them. And so when I follow that up with, you know, what, what will your life look like when you accomplish that goal, when you get that property, or when you're able to move to that other state? And then they start telling and that's where I can start going into my storytelling mode of, you know, I actually have another client that was in this exact situation, and here's how it went for them, and then they feel so connected to me. So it's not about I sold another home that's worth a million dollars, and your home is worth a million dollars. It's about their situation. Boy, I love that. That's exactly No wonder you sell so much real estate. Stephanie, no mystery anymore, that there was before. But James, what would you add to that? I mean, that's that's a beautiful illustration of your principles that you teach tied into the real estate industry. Is there anything else you'd add to that? I utilize social media for every prospective client always, and I have for years, and as a matter of fact, I've noticed now with the new business that I'm building, when I reach out to prospective clients or service providers. Even LinkedIn, you can see who's looking at your profile. And I've noticed that after I reach out or have a phone call with somebody the next day, if I check LinkedIn, they looked at my profile. So it's it's always something that that you should do in my world, business to business. It's key, because, yeah, you want to know who you're dealing with. You want to know, you know, do we have any mutual contacts which can be beneficial in helping you get that conversation started to begin with? So you want to look at that, and you want to look at who are they working with. I also like to look at Facebook to get a sense of who they are on a personal level, like what you're talking about. And I always do that. I never go into any conversation blind. I like to know who I'm dealing with and and what they're about, because it helps you paint the bigger picture of what they're what they're looking for, and what their needs might be. I

love it. Go

ahead. Stephanie, I was just going to share a quick LinkedIn story because I actually I was having a meeting with someone who's a pretty high profile CEO in this area, and I, I don't use LinkedIn a lot, and then I I learned through that process that you can see who's been looking at your profile. And I thought, Oh, I wonder if that you know, how did that come across? And I actually thought I.

Someone like that is really going to respect the fact that I did my research on them before going into that meeting. So I kind of got out of my own head on that. So that was just kind of my funny story about, you know, online stalking someone before you meet them. Yeah, I think especially in, especially in the business world, I think they respect it. And, like, I just had a phone call just the other day with with a potential partner, and immediately they went into, oh, you used to work here, and you used to work here, and you used to work with this person, and you've got two kids, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I knew, Okay, you did your research and and I respect it. I respect that they want to know who they're dealing with going into the call. So, you know, that's one of the definite benefits. There's a lot of negatives about social media, let me tell you. And you guys probably know this, but that's one of the absolute benefits. So I think if I were to take maybe just some key takeaways from this, I think it really listens to think bigger real estate show is connected to real estate in some form or fashion, and I and in most cases, they're selling real estate hands on, and they want to know, how does this help me to sell more real estate? Right? Let's just maybe pour out some of the and maybe Stephanie can even help us with this kind of distill out some of the key takeaways. If you were listening to this episode, what are the things that you would start to do differently? Now, for you, you might already be doing them, but for our audience, what would you instruct them to do based on what we've talked talked about today.

Are you talking to me or to Stephanie? Stephanie, Oh, me, yeah, I was gonna let the expert take it. But when it comes to real estate, when it comes to real estate, I'm you're definitely way more knowledgeable

than I am. Well, I'd say, key takeaways is know who your audience is going into each appointment, if you're if you're talking to the masses. So if you're posting on social media, or you're putting information on your website, make it, make it a story that someone can relate to. So you know your audience on social media, even if I have 3000 Facebook friends, I know I can probably put them all into categories. So I'm going to say, Who am I talking to in this moment? I'm talking to the person that is in XYZ situation. So I'm going to tell this story of how I helped somebody overcome that. So I think the biggest thing to change, if you were to take something away from today, is really think about who your audience is, and consider what's important to them, whether that's your one on one appointment, or social media or video or YouTube, something that you're putting out to the masses.

Yeah, you know what? I'll go one step further. So right now, in in Toronto, as we're doing this, and all over the all over but in Toronto, the real estate market, especially the luxury market, is really hurting.

You know, properties over four, five, $6 million there's it's dead right now. And I happen to have a property that I've had listed for a year because I left Toronto and moved to the country. So I've had my house in Toronto on the market for a year, and haven't, haven't hardly even had any showings. And when we first were looking to list, I had every agent in the universe coming to me, and very quickly, probably because of my sales background, very quickly, I was eliminating agents as an option, and a lot of it was because all they did was talk about themselves. You know, I would have meetings with them, and all they did was talk about themselves and talk about, oh, I, I just sold this house for this, and I just sold this house for this, and I have a cottage out here, and I have a condo downtown, and me, me, me, me, me, and I just left the meeting thinking, I'm just a number for you, like you didn't really give me any kind of indication that you're gonna be able to do any be able to do anything for me. And so it all goes right back to again, the storytelling, and it goes right back to actually asking the customer questions and knowing what the customer wants. Maybe some people are impressed when they hear about, you know, the nice property that you have and the nice car that you have, but that's for me personally, that's never been anything I've cared about. If I want to lease a Ferrari, I can, anybody can, so stuff like that doesn't really matter to me. I chose the agent that I chose because I had more of a personal connection with them and and they spoke to me more on a personal level. Now, we haven't sold the house, but the market sucks, so that's, that's a big reason why, but, but, yeah, I had so many agents that that were coming out of the woodwork. And I'm sure you guys are, I'm sure you guys know the tricks. You know, putting a letter in your mailbox saying I have a client interested, when they really don't just to get the listing. But meeting with so many agents, and again, I chose the one I chose because I had more of a personal connection based on how they spoke to me, which comes down to understanding your story, connecting to you more deeply through other stories that they've been successful in serving right. So I love it. Great takeaways. I want to thank both you, James as well Stephanie, for pouring into our audience today and helping us to learn the power of storytelling When coupled again, with all the.

AI tools that you see out there, when you learn this skill set and start to do as instructed by both Stephanie and James, you'll see yourself start to elevate. You'll see yourself start to get more and more of the business that you aspire to get more people attracted to wanting to be business than you, because the stories that you're telling and it really is a pathway for you to be have a very defensible value proposition in a world of significant disruption and change. So I want to thank you both for being here, and thank all of our listeners for tuning in. Look forward to seein on the next episode, and until then, I encourage you to go think bigger, which is our mantra here at Think bigger real estate. So take care, everybody. Thanks for the time.