Who Are You Talking To?

 

WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?
By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, January 18, 2026

WARNING WILL ROBINSON (a TV reference in case you did not know – old show)!  Since the early 1990s when I began writing Nuggets for the Noggin, I have written well over 900 of them!  The early ones have long since disappeared (before computer backups).  Many of them are still available on the blog at www.NuggetsfortheNoggin.com, categorized by the year posted and listed on the right side of the blog page.  THIS ONE, in my opinion, may be the best Nugget I have ever written, but it IS long! It applies to EVERYONE IN SALES AND WE ARE ALL IN SALES TRYING TO GET SOMOENE TO BUY A PRODUCT, A SERVICE OR JUST AN IDEA.  This may be something as simple as where you decide to go out to eat dinner. WE ARE ALL SELLING SOMETHING EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES!  So, with that said…here we go! 

“Are you talking to ME?”  This is famous movie phrase; have you ever thought about its actual meaning?  The other person KNOWS you are doing the talking but what they do not know is WHY you are talking to them and why you use the MANNER in which you are talking.  The words you use, how much you talk as compared to listening, even your body language, SPEAKS VOLUMES!  As much as you do talk, is the other person hearing and even more importantly, are they LISTENING and UNDERSTADING what you have to say? 

I can remember as if it were yesterday when I first became a licensed REALTOR® in May of 1980.  At that time, the ONLY experience I had in real estate was the purchase of one home in Wilmington, NC and attending real estate school in New Orleans, LA.  Unfortunately, at that time, and I would assume it has not improved over the past 40 years, real estate school taught you how to pass the State’s Real Estate Licensing Exam.  The instructors knew the type of questions being asked, therefore, that is what they taught.  They never taught about meeting and greeting a potential buyer or seller of real estate.  They never taught about developing personal relationships with customers. They never taught how to properly find and showing properties.  They did teach us about how many square feet are in an acre of land and oddly enough, in my thirty-three years in the real estate business, I NEVER sold anything near an acre of land, imagine that.  

It was not until I attended a Roger Butcher Seminar in New Orleans that I began to know what I did not know regarding real estate.  I was fascinated and vividly remember Butcher and what he taught that day. As an example, he talked about self-promotion in 1981 and the future of real estate, most of which has since come to past.  Until that time, real estate agents in my area listed and sold homes, very few of the agents advertised and marketed themselves; they advertised and marketed their properties.  He taught that sending subliminal messages as simple as caring around a folder beneath your arm that EVERYONE could readily see that had only FIVE HUGE RED LETTERS printed on it that read - SOLD! - on it.  He said that wherever you go, people would see it and some would ask, “What did you sell?”  That one question, according to Roger Butcher, opened the door to meet someone new and someone he could enter into his database of KNOWN PEOPLE to continually “market” himself to. 

SPECIAL NOTE:  It was not until years later and after I had taken the Marketing and Advertising courses in college, few as they were, did anyone ever really explain the difference between Marketing and Advertising.  For someone in sales, like a real estate agent, that is a critical understanding not to have learned!  Simply put, you advertise to the people in your area that YOU DO NOT PERSONALLY KNOW, and you MARKET yourself the people you DO KNOW.  The material you do for each, is very different from each other.  Advertising is using a shotgun approach where you send out into the Ether hundreds if not thousands of small pellets, HOPING to have one or more of the pellets hit something that proves beneficial to your sales career.  As Dr. John Maxwell oftentimes stated, “Hope is NOT an effective strategy!”  He is right!  Marketing is contacting the people you know, and you can be far more specific as to what you send them or discuss with them. 

One of the most beneficial discussions you could ever have with a probable buyer or seller, (read Jeffrey Gitomer’s books on selling as to the effect on your mind that the use of the word “probable” versus “potential” has.  “(Name), as you know I sell real estate. What you might not know is that I, like all real estate agents, have gone into business for themselves/myself.  As such, if I am to grow my business, which is my goal, I need the help of good friends like you.  What does that mean?  If you, or someone you know, is EVER in the need of a very good real estate agent, that you refer them to me AND you let me know that you did.  In fact, a very good way to do that is to tell them you know of such a person and ask for their permission for you to ask me to contact them.”  (That way it does not become a “cold call” which everyone hates to make!) 

That was a very long introduction to why I began writing this Nugget which applies to everyone, whether you are in retail sales or not.  If you think for just a moment, EVERYONE, EVERY DAY, is trying to sell something to someone.  It could be a house in the case of a real estate agent, an insurance policy, a car, AN IDEA to a company, friend or spouse, or encouraging your children to take up a musical instrument, learn to dance, or go to college, the examples are endless.  WE ALL ARE IN SALES!  The BEST salespersons in the world are small children.  If you don’t think so, try checking out at the Super Market when you stand in line with a child in hand next to rows and rows of candy.  You will witness who the BEST SALESPERSON IN THE WORLD is during those few minutes (feeling like hours), guaranteed.  Small children are like a Dog With A Bone, (a title of an excellent book by Peggy McColl).  

Now to the meat of this Nugget!  I had never heard of the term Right-Brain vs Left-Brain in regard to people’s internal beliefs.  In this regard, I was extremely fortunate to have worked for and with a former College Professor, Dr. Tom Hill at the RE/MAX Dixie Regional Office who had taught the subject at a university.  Over time, he and I discussed it a great deal.  Our brains are split in two distinct parts, and each part has a specific role to play.  More importantly, the following provides you with a glimpse of how being a Right-Brain dominant person, as compared to a Left-Brain dominant person, influences a person’s beliefs and likes and dislikes.  The following is useful but not ridged.  Everyone uses both sides of their brain but one is typically more dominant than the other! 

THE RIGHT BRAIN PERSON (Creative • Intuitive • Big-picture thinker) 

Common Career Fits

• Artist / Illustrator / Painter
• Graphic Designer / Web Designer
• Writer / Poet / Author
• Musician / Composer / Sound Engineer
• Filmmaker / Photographer
• Actor / Performer
• Marketing or Branding Specialist
• Interior Designer / Fashion Designer
• Entrepreneur / Startup Founder
• Coach, Motivational Speaker, or Trainer
• Advertising Creative Director
• Designer

Likes

• Creativity and self-expression
• Freedom and flexibility
• Visuals, colors, music, and aesthetics
• Big ideas and brainstorming
• Emotional connection and storytelling
• Working with people and ideas
• Variety and spontaneity
• Innovation and originality

Dislikes

• Rigid rules and strict schedules
• Repetitive tasks
• Excessive paperwork or bureaucracy
• Over-analysis and micromanagement
• Being boxed into “one right way”
• Highly structured environments
• Long stretches of detail-heavy work

THE LEFT BRAIN PERSON (Logical • Analytical • Detail-oriented)

Common Career Fits

• Engineer (Mechanical, Electrical, Software)
• Accountant / CPA
• Financial Analyst / Actuary
• Data Analyst / Statistician
• Scientist / Researcher
• Lawyer / Legal Analyst
• Computer Programmer / Systems Architect
• Project Manager
• Economist
• Auditor / Compliance Officer
• Operations or Process Manager
• IT Specialist / Network Engineer

Likes

• Logic, facts, and clear answers
• Structure and organization
• Numbers, systems, and processes
• Planning and predictability
• Efficiency and optimization
• Problem-solving with defined rules
• Measurable outcomes and results

Dislikes

• Ambiguity and vague goals
• Emotional decision-making
• Chaos or lack of structure
• “Winging it” without a plan
• Subjective evaluations
• Disorganized teams or workflows
• Open-ended tasks without clear criteria

Why did I point this out?  So glad you asked!  Keep in mind, no one truly “fits inside of a box” and this a guide for you to at least think about it the next time you are face-to-face with a probable buy or seller, customer, family member or friend or even a stranger.  People give off very clear signals as to whether they are Right-Brain or Left-Brain, you MUST LISTEN, something that most salespeople, certainly not you, ARE NOT VERY GOOD AT.  First, you must become an EFFECTIVE LISTENER.  Zig Ziglar has said, “We are born with TWO ears and only ONE mouth, YOU DO THE MATH!”  Or in other words, learn to listen twice as much as you tend to talk!  Successful salespeople are EFFECTIVE LISTENERS!  PERIOD!

What must you know to become a successful Salesperson?  You must know whether YOU are a Right-Brain dominant person or a Left-Brain dominant person.  Why?  Think of Oil and Water, the two do not mix well together.  As a Right-Brain person, you approach a probable buyer or seller who happens to be a Left-Brain person, you start out by being on opposite pages!  Never a good starting point.  That is why it is so critical to engage a probable buyer or seller in conversations NOT related to whatever it is you are trying to get them to buy or agree with you that it is a good product, service, idea.  Once YOU KNOW who YOU ARE, you can then discover the dominant brain type the other person is operating from.  You can then learn to adjust on the fly, so to speak, to adapt what you say to better match the dominant side of the brain of the other person.  Failure to recognize this subconscious difference will make completing the sale or dialogue far more difficult than it need be and will increase the possibility of failure.

THE DIFFERENCES DO NOT END AT THE

LEFT-BRAIN; RIGHT-BRAIN CONCEPT!

Here is a clear, practical breakdown of the three main learning / communication styles: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.  Most people use all three, but, like the Left-Brain vs Right-Brain concept, ONE is usually.  DOMINANT The following are examples of each. 

Visual Learners (Learn by seeing, also use words related to sight)

They Learn Best By

• Pictures, charts, diagrams
• Reading instructions
• Watching demonstrations
• Color-coding and visual organization

Common Traits

• Notice details, layouts, and colors
• Good at visualizing outcomes
• Often say: “I see what you mean”

Strengths

• Strong memory for faces and images
• Organized thinkers
• Good planners and designers

Struggles With

• Long verbal explanations
• Phone calls without visuals
• Listening-only instructions

Helpful Tips

• Use diagrams and flowcharts
• Write things down
• Highlight key points
• Watch how-to videos

Auditory Learners (Learn by hearing, uses words related to hearing)

They Learn Best By

• Listening to lectures
• Group discussions
• Explaining things out loud
• Podcasts and audiobooks

Common Traits

• Strong verbal communication
• Sensitive to tone and rhythm
• Often say: “That sounds right”

Strengths

• Remember conversations well
• Learn languages easily
• Good speakers and listeners

Struggles With

• Silent reading
• Visual clutter
• Written instructions without explanation

Helpful Tips

• Read aloud
• Use voice notes
• Participate in discussions
• Teach others verbally

Kinesthetic Learners (Learn by doing, much more difficult to identify)

They Learn Best By

• Hands-on activities
• Physical movement
• Trial and error
• Real-world experience

Common Traits

• Energetic and action-oriented
• Learn through muscle memory
• Often say: “Let me try it”

Strengths

• Excellent at practical tasks
• Learn skills quickly through repetition
• Strong physical awareness

Struggles With

• Sitting still for long periods
• Long lectures
• Abstract concepts without application

Helpful Tips

• Take frequent breaks
• Use physical tools or models
• Practice immediately
• Learn by building or doing

Most People Are a Blend, examples:

• Visual + Kinesthetic → Designers, builders, athletes
• Auditory + Visual → Teachers, presenters
• All three → Leaders, coaches, entrepreneurs

As a tip, listen for wards like “look”, “see”, “visual”, “visualize” to identify a Visual Person.  Listen for words like “listen”, “silence”, “hear” to identify an Auditory Person.  I cannot give specific tips as to how to identify a Kinesthetic Person primarily because they are more difficult to identify other than to suggest that it is a “feeling” type aura that they give off.

Here is the GIANT take away from all of this.  To become a success in selling a product, service or idea, YOU MUST understand WHERE the other person is coming from within their mental makeups.  If you continue to be at odds with those traits and beliefs, you will find selling them your product, service or idea, very difficult to accomplish.  I am not suggesting you become someone you are not.  On the contrary, remain true to yourself internally and never violate your own principles, honesty and/or integrity!  Rather, adjust the words you use, your body language and your listening skills to better match those of the person(s) you are working with to buy or sell a product, service or idea.  Convincing groups of people, more than two at a time is more difficult than you might imagine because everyone will have their own internal beliefs and makeups and in such a case you must become more generic in your approach.

There is another potential WALL BUILDER between you and a successful sale or presentation and that is AGE DIFFRENCES!  This one is HUGE in my book because the older I become the more I realized what I had learned in the late 1970s comes home to roost!  While in the U. S. Coast Guard, I served at a time when the Coast Guard was the first military service to routinely recruit women into a heretofore all male military.  The Coast Guard realized that the “old boy’s network” would no longer work as it had for over 200 years.  WE HAD TO CHANGE.  They brought in a trainer named Dr. Morris Massey.  I can honestly say that from the over 1000 books I have read and an untold number of seminars I attended, this one training session with Dr. Massey was the most profound AND memorable seminar I have ever taken!  The lessons learned have stuck with me for over 50 years!  That should be all you need to know that THIS IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND!

“You are what you are because of 
what you were when you were ten”
Dr. Morris Massey

Meaning of the Quote

The quote suggests that core patterns AND beliefs were formed in childhood—especially up to age 10—have a lasting influence on who we ARE when we eventually become ADULTS!  If you learn nothing else from this Nugget, please learn and memorize that!

By around age ten, many of the following are already taking shape:

• Beliefs about yourself
  Am I capable? Am I valued? Am I safe?
• Emotional habits
  How you handle fear, anger, confidence, and failure
• Coping strategies
  Do you withdraw, fight, joke, work harder, give up?
• Moral framework
  Right vs. wrong, responsibility, honesty
• View of authority and rules
  Trust, rebellion, obedience, independence

These don’t lock in your destiny—but they set default settings.  That means when your subconscious mind takes over, especially in sudden changes in events or opportunities, your default settings tend to take over, intentionally or not!

Why Age 10 Matters

Around that age:

• The brain is highly plastic (moldable)
• Experiences feel intense and personal
• Children begin forming identity, not just habits
• Lessons learned emotionally stick deeper than facts

Therefore:

• Encouragement → confidence
• Chaos → hyper-vigilance
• Responsibility → leadership
• Neglect → self-reliance or insecurity

Important Clarification

This quote does NOT mean:

• You can’t change
• Your past controls your future
• Childhood trauma defines you forever

It DOES mean:

• Early experiences shape your starting point
• Awareness lets you reprogram patterns
• Growth requires understanding where behaviors began

Awareness is the beginning of freedom.

Why People Quote This Today (remember, I learned this in the early 1970s, still in my head in 2026!)

The quote is often used in:

• Leadership development
• Psychology & counseling
• Parenting philosophy
• Personal growth and habit change
• Coaching and mentoring
• SELLLING – SELLING – SELLING; BUYING, BUYING, BUYING!

Because when adults understand why they react a certain way, they gain the power to respond differently.

Critical Understanding:

Dr. Massey pointed out the various developments in OUR environments going back to the early 1900s and how everything changes over time, usually in increments of 10-years.  This is important, if you were ten back in 1920, you and your family had just gone through WWI when thousands of people had died in battle, plus everything was scarce.  You had certain values ingrained in your head influenced by war and scarcity.  Then if you were ten in the 1930s, again scarcity was abundant, no jobs, it was a depression, it was also the age of alcohol prohibition.  If you were ten in the late 1940s, again War took its toll on your beliefs.  If you were 10 in 1955, as I was, television was in its infant stages.  A program called Father Knows Best became very popular and described 1955 to a “T”.  Let me explain why this was important to this ten-year old!  The Father worked, wore a suit and tie.  The Mother was a Housewife, did not work outside the home.  Two children played with the neighbors, outside the home and everyone appeared to be happy!  Everyone, Mom, Dad and the Kids all had dinner at the table, no TV, no cell phones.  They talked to each other about the day’s events. TIMES WERE GOOD!  The 1960s jumped out at us with the Vietnam War, the murder of JFK, “free love and the drug trade more or less began to flourish”.  You can go through the various decades and ascertain what the environment was like when someone was 10 during those years to determine what their beliefs were influenced by and why they might think and act like they do decades upon decades later.

Why is this important in understanding the Sales process.  Let’s assume a real estate salesperson was 10 in the 1980s and they are selling to someone like me who was 10 in 50s.  Do you think there might be a clash of ideas, beliefs and culture and far more importantly a hesitation to trust someone who does NOT think and believe as they (I) do?  ABSOLUTELY!  Plus, you must also now consider that there is a trend towards less scrupulous people taking advantage of people in their senior years.  TRUST BECOMES EXTREMELY CRITICAL when there is such a massive age gap.  You can see it daily between how your own children think and behave as influenced by the culture-of-the-day as THEY approached 10 years old as compared to when YOU, their parent(s) were 10 years old.  Do you think there might be a conflict?  DAH!

As discussed earlier, as a person who is trying to sell a product, service or idea, YOU MUST CONSIDER THESE THINGS, OTHERWISE YOU HAVE VERY SOLID WALLS UNINTENTIONALLY BUILT UP BETWEEN YOU AND THE PERSON YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL TO!  This is serious business.  Therefore, IF, and that is a BIG IF, if you want to become successful in selling your product, service or idea, here is the basic rule of thumb to follow:

TRY TO BECOME THE PERSON YOU ARE TRYING TO CONVINCE TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT, SERVICE OR IDEA!

A parting thought about Mirroring!  What is it and why might you even want to consider it?  If you were to look into a mirror, hopefully you would like the person looking back at you.  When you are face-to-face with someone you want to buy your product, service or idea, do you think it would be an easier sale if YOU looked and acted like they looked and acted?  Absolutely!  I learned mirroring from an FBI trainer.

It was suggested that if you use the same type of words, the same speed of speech and even the same or similar body language of the person you are interviewing, that person(s) begins to think they are looking at themselves in a mirror and you create an almost instant trust between you and that person.  Using the same type wording except for foul language and using the same speech speed should be obvious. If the customer talks slow, so should you.  Using the same body language could be very helpful but could also be very annoying when it becomes obvious to the buyer(s).  If your buyer sits back in their chair, try it, do the same.  If the buyer leans on an elbow, try it.  As time passes and the conversation is flowing, make a body adjustment and see if the buyer(s) do the same thing.  If so, you are on the same page as the buyer and you have a certain but limited agreement, the trust is beginning to build and that is a good thing no matter what you are trying to sell.  Beware, this can be counter productive if what you are doing ever becomes obvious to your customers; do NOT make it obvious.  Be selective in what you attempt to mirror.  I have conducted hundreds of job interviews (I was the hiring person).  I did not want to hire everyone I interviewed.  I used the mirroring process quite often and I can tell you with CERTAINTY, IT WORKS!

There you have it folks.  Notice, I said nothing about knowing your product or service details or what to say to promote them.  It is ALL ABOUT FIRST KNOWING WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO!  IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT IF YOU WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL SELLING ANYTHING!  It goes without saying that you must also be proficient knowing all about your product, service or idea as well but first and foremost, KNOW THE “REAL” WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO AND…KNOW THE REAL YOU!

Above all else, remember this Jeffrey Gitomer quote: 

PEOPLE LIKE TO BUY; THEY DO NOT LIKE TO BE SOLD! 
PEOPLE WILL DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE THEY KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST!
Jeffrey Gitomer

 

BECOME THE PERSON YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL TO!
BECOME THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU WOULD
KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST!
NUFF SAID!
Gymbeaux