75: The Power of Your Voice: Storytelling in the Age of AI with Jude Charles

ACCESS MY FREE 5 PART PODCAST SERIES COURSE HERE!
"5 Things I Would Do Differently I Were Starting My Design Business Today"

https://learn.mcclainmethod.com/free-podcast-series

Episode 75: The Power of Your Voice: Storytelling in the Age of AI with Jude Charles

In a world of AI-generated content and generic captions, how do you make your brand actually stand out? In this powerful episode, John is joined once again by storytelling expert and filmmaker Jude Charles for a heartfelt, thought-provoking conversation about what truly connects clients to your brand: your story.

Together, they unpack:

• Why your voice is the one thing AI can’t replicate
• The 3 Rules of Authentic Storytelling every creative entrepreneur should know
• How to uncover your lived experiences, values, and quirks to build trust and stand out
• Why your origin story (even the messy parts) is marketing gold
• How to attract dream clients—and repel the wrong ones—just by being yourself

This episode will change the way you see your brand forever.

More About Jude:

Listen to Jude's original episode EP 15: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2212546/episodes/13666762

Download Jude's free guide: https://judecharles.co/john

Jude On IG: https://www.in

5 Things I'd Do Differently If I Started My Design Business Today
A free 5-part private podcast course for interior designers who want real clients, real profit, and a clear plan.

✅ Price your services with confidence
✅ Land your first paying client
✅ Build a professional brand from day one
…and more.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE PODCAST COURS NOW! 

What if you could finally create the interior design business of your dreams while consistently making 6 figures and doing it all with no stress? Join Design Business Fast Track today to make your Design Business dreams a reality!

www.designbusinessfasttrack.com

Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

We don't know the power of our own voice, and I think many people are still trying to find their voice. That's the one thing that AI can't give you is a clearly defined voice. You have to know it within yourself. And what it means is that you take the time to outline what are your core values, what are your non-negotiables? And then what are your core stories? What are the lived experiences that you've had that will help someone else on their journey, including your clients. 

Hey y'all, you're listening to the McCLain Method Podcast, episode number 75.

Welcome to the McClain Method, the podcast for interior designers who are ready to stop hiding and start shining. I'm your host, John McClain designer, business mentor, author, and your branding bestie. This is not about paint colors or pendant lighting. It's about building a business that's both visible and profitable.

Inside and out. From marketing and messaging to mindset systems and [00:01:00] visibility, we cover the front stage and the backstage of your design business because your brilliance deserves the spotlight, and your business deserves to run like a dream behind the scenes. So if you're ready to be seen, get recognized, and get booked, it's time to let it shine.

Welcome to the McClain Method.

Hey. Hey my friend. How are you? Hope you're having a great week, a great day, a great month, a great year, all of that. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm John McClain, and very happy to have you here. I'm not gonna do a long intro today because honestly, the guy that I'm speaking with today does not need a long intro at all, because you might know him already, and if you do, I know you love him.

I have Jude Charles on the podcast today, and Jude is just an expert storyteller. And he has a wonderful and proprietary way, honestly, of bringing out stories from you, from me, from his clients, and then putting those into beautiful videos for us all [00:02:00] to watch. And I truly love the benefit that it has for his clients because of the marketing potential of these videos. But also we're going to talk about the exploratory ways that he does this in sort of this therapeutic way, almost that by his clients telling stories to him and then eventually to the world, it opens up a portal almost to their soul that allows them to continue doing this on smaller scale, in person, in front of clients as speaking engagements. There's so many, so many, so many nuggets in this. Grab your pencil, grab your pad. Grab your phone whatever. Just take notes and you're probably going to want to listen to this twice because there is.

So much into it. We did have Jude on the podcast on episode 15 back in the day when we first started, and he had so many truth bombs then as well. this one just takes it even further and we grow up on storytelling. And then he mentioned some specific clients that he's worked with and the success that they've had.

It is really an enlightening conversation. I do want to apologize to you first though, because [00:03:00] my microphone was malfunctioning during this episode and we did not know it until after, of course, we recorded the entire episode, so it does not sound as it normally does, and I apologize for that.

But the good news is Jude's microphone sounds perfect, and Jude, in that soothing, calming voice that he has, We will perk your ears up to storytelling and how it will help you and your business. Okay. There we go. Sit back, relax, and enjoy my great conversation with Jude Charles.

Hey, Jude, I wanna welcome you back to the podcast. It has been

a minute since you've been on way back to episode 15, but welcome back.

Thank you for having me back, John. yeah, episode 15 back when you were almost just getting started. Pretty much. but it's been a long time. We've, seen each other offline a couple times, but glad to be back on the show.

I'm so happy to have you back. And honestly, your episode really resonated with a lot of my listeners who were reaching out to me about, I think they felt they weren't properly telling stories in their business, and it was very eyeopening for a lot of people. [00:04:00] So thank you for being so open and honest about what you do and how well you do it.

But if someone didn't listen to that episode and don't know who you are. Tell them who you are, and really just a synopsis of what you do as a business that you have. it's fantastic.

Yeah. So I. At 17 years old, I was sitting in a TV production classroom, and my teacher, Mrs. Donnelly, she taught me everything she knew about video production. She was my TV production teacher. And then at the end of the school year, Mrs. Donnelly looked at me. She was like, you should be, should be running a business.

You're very talented at video production. And I was like, okay, running a business, what does that mean? my father was a construction worker. My mom worked at a chair factory, and Mrs. Donley didn't take no for an answer though. She came into the classroom the following day and she handed me a yellow envelope.

And inside of this yellow envelope was my very first set of business cards. so I have been running a video production company for 19 years now, since 2006 when Mrs. Donnelley helped me get started. And what I do is I create [00:05:00] documentaries for entrepreneurs. I help entrepreneurs tell their story through film and video. and we, I have filmed a docuseries for our good friend, Luann Gerra, but also other interior designers and builders and architects in this space. currently filming a docuseries for Brad Levitt as we're recording this. And so, that is who I am, that's what I do. I create documentaries for entrepreneurs.

I help entrepreneurs like yourself listening, tell their story in an authentic way.

Yeah, you really do. And if you're listening and you're watching this on YouTube and you haven't seen any of the work that Jude has done, I totally invite you to go. it's really just, it's storytelling that it's fine. it's beautiful. And I think the great part of it is the people may not even realize that they have a story to tell when they come to work with you.

And I want to talk more about that in just a minute and kind of how all of that, you know, evolves for the person who actually is working with you. But one thing that you've always said is that people don't buy what you do. They buy who you are. So think I wanna start kind of with that in mind and thinking about where we are now in the [00:06:00] world with ai, good old ai, our friend chat, GPT, 

I want to talk about how, we can write things for ourselves that are not generated by ai. Because AI can write captions, they can write bios, they can write, blogs even. So on that note and on the philosophy that you have about people by who you are, how do we make sure that we're still telling our story and that we're not saying something generic that sounds the same as everyone else.

So how do we find our story in the midst of all this AI generated content right now?

Yeah, there are what I call three rules of authentic storytelling. So number one, there is the lived experience. what experiences have you had? A story is about a very specific moment in time. So what moments in time have you lived? the second is, adding emotion. So when I say adding emotion, that's speaking from the heart, and that means your tone, your quirks, even your vulnerability.

And vulnerability isn't [00:07:00] always this deepest, darkest secret. It might just mean showing who you really are in terms of what are your strengths, being confident, right? Like, one of the things that I love to talk about when I am telling stories is courage. Oftentimes, my stories will have an undertone of courage, and so you wanna have a lived experience. You wanna have emotion. But then number three, uncover the evidence. The thing that your story does. Like if you tell a story, which is about a very specific moment in time, the second thing you need to do is. tell me the lesson about that moment in time, which means that you're uncovering the evidence and your story becomes part of what's possible for someone else, And so if you have those three things, the rules for authentic storytelling, three rules for authentic storytelling, which is a lived experience, adding emotion and then uncovering the evidence. You begin to show more about who you are and not just what you do. Many interior designers would like to show, the perfect picture, right?

The end of the project, [00:08:00] but we don't know what the experience was like. We don't know, what challenges came up and how you overcame those challenges. We don't see your personality throughout the project, right? That is where you begin to show more about who you are and not just what you do, people do business with people that they know, like, and trust. And so that's how you get people to know who you are, like what you have to say, and trust that you can provide a solution to their needs. 

That sounds like a very strong foundation to build upon do we think that with that foundation is AI and artificial intelligence even able to extract that from us now? Because if it's there, it's pulling from sources right. On mine. And

When I hear you say what you're saying and the way that you explain it, I instantly think there's no way that a computer is going to extract that information from me.

or I won't even be thinking to give that information to, a bot. Right. So AI is, is there a competition at all or is it just not even a [00:09:00] competition when it comes to telling a story of yourself for yourself?

In my opinion, AI is a starting point. It is, a tool that you get to use to help you get to a point where you're beginning to tell your story. So for example, I ever work with an entrepreneur, I will do a road mapping session. In that road mapping session, I'm trying to uncover all their stories and their core beliefs, their core values. AI can't help you do that. But it can help give shape to that. Meaning you can give it the input in saying, Hey, this is our core values. This is what we believe in. This is some of the stories that we have, but it can't give that to you, right? The input still matters more than the output. AI is just an output.

It's just a tool that helps you get the output, but you have to give it the right information. AI is just a starting point. It's kind of like a power drill. Like a power drill is a tool that helps you, to build things faster. But you still need to be a craftsman, 

right? That education or that who you are is the thing that AI needs. It's not just AI is gonna give you that information. So I agree with you that it's just a computer, right? 

Yeah,

it's just a tool [00:10:00] that, you're able to use, you give it input, and then you wait for the output.

But it's only an output source. It's not an input source. 

and I love what you just said, is like kind of lean on it for little things here and there, but don't ever use it as the sole end all be all for how you will start to tell your story or how you will start to market your company or how you will do anything. Honestly, like, I think it's fun to sort of bounce ideas off of this, bot sitting there, but it's a lot more fun to bounce ideas off of Jude Charles than it is to a robot.

So for me, that personal touch is never going to be replicated with something that is on a computer You know, the emotion, the feeling that you're emoting through your words speaking now, and the feeling that you probably hear when someone is telling you a story or you're doing your roadmapping session and someone is talking about their business and their past and so forth.

Emotions don't show themselves in artificial intelligence. Emotions show themselves when you're having that one-on-one connection, which is what I think can only be pulled from that personal touch that you bring. And I like what you said is that [00:11:00] it's there to help us, but not to take over.

It shouldn't be the thing that we lean on for everything. And something that you said last time was that I think it was like storytelling invites people into your world and,

right.

there's a lot of content out there right now. There's a lot of things that we see other people doing. We might see someone saying this part of their story or someone is saying this about their business, or someone is saying this about, as a designer, your client process, right.

How do we cut through all that noise and how do we make ourselves stand out when it comes to storytelling? Because we might not even know all the power that we have in our own story. And I think that's the beautiful thing about what you do as with your company, is to, extract that from people, but how do we set ourselves apart from what everyone else is doing in the world when we feel like they're doing a great job at it already?

Why don't we just replicate that?

Right. Yeah. you are only one person earlier I talked about lived experience,

Mm-hmm.

We all are living, let's just say hypothetically, if we all lived in Florida, in Pompano Beach, Florida, where I'm from, we all may be from there where we're all living different. [00:12:00] Experiences we're, we're all experiencing life differently even though we're from the same place.

So yes, you can try to replicate what someone else is doing, I think it's more important to come up with a clearly defined voice. And how do you do that? How do you come up with a clearly defined voice of knowing who you are, what you're about, and what makes you different? I start with core values.

I start with, who are you when challenges show up, right? Who are you at your best? What are your strengths? how do you want someone to feel when you leave the room? All of these things lead to your core values. And so there's core values, there's core beliefs, like what does time mean to you? What are relationships to you?

What does money mean to you? That's core beliefs. That's part of core beliefs, but ultimately, like, it's one thing you, you said something that I think was critical, which was we. Don't understand the power we have. I recorded this podcast, not too long ago, I think, 2020. End of 2024. I recorded a podcast with a woman, and I think podcast was something like how to, how to, [00:13:00] grow your Etsy business. I got an email from a running a drapery business in Canada and she sent me this email and she said, the first line is what got me, John. She said, my dad died a week after walking me down the aisle. I was like, okay, where is she going with this email? So I go on to read the email. She told me her uncle just recently passed away, which is her dad's brother.

Her dad had died in 2010 after she'd gotten married and her dad's brother had just died. She felt like she was losing this connection to her dad. And so on a trip to go between job sites, she is feeling sad. So she decides to open up her podcast app and she looks up my name. Now, John, I don't have a podcast.

I've been a guest on yours. she for some reason decides to click on this, how To Grow an Etsy Business podcast. And she's listening to it. It's an hour long. She tells me how like, you know, she's thinking of her dad. Her dad used to wear this hat, this hat.

And then on the hat it said, life is good. But [00:14:00] she was like, her dad never used to wear hats up until about a month Before he passed away is when he started wearing a hat. And so she's listening to this podcast, She gets to the end of the podcast and the podcast host asks me, Hey Jude, what, what books are you reading right now? I happen to tell her just two random books that I'm reading. And then she's like, there's this book I want to send you. And she said, the name of the book life is Good. For many people that don't know life is good as a brand. This woman that ran the drapery business didn't know that life is good as a brand, but by listening to this podcast, she said, even though it was the last two minutes of the podcast, she got exactly what she felt like she needed, which is to feel this connection to her dad again. And that came from simply me showing up to tell my stories on podcasts. I made a commitment in 2019 that I would step out of the shadows after being in business for 13 years. But to be honest with you, John, I read that email and I cried because I did not understand the power of my voice that I thought I was getting on podcasts to talk about storytelling, to talk about business and how you should do these things.

And of course, I authentically share just like I did on [00:15:00] your podcast last time, I authentically share my vulnerable stories and the journeys that I've been through. And here it is, this woman running a drapery business sees it as so much more than that. We don't know the power of our own voice, and I think many people are still trying to find their voice. That's the one thing that AI can't give you is a clearly defined voice. You have to know it within yourself. And what it means is that you take the time to outline what are your core values, what are your non-negotiables? what is your core beliefs, right? And then what are your core stories? What are the lived experiences that you've had that will help someone else on their journey, including your clients. Your clients aren't coming to you just because you can decorate or that you can help them remodel their home. They're coming to you to experience you, so help them understand who you are.

Wow. I think that's so intriguing that the storyteller, you didn't realize at the time the true power that you had in your own stories. I think that's very fascinating to [00:16:00] me that you know that it's there. But I think, do we take it for granted sometimes that, as you said, that people are listening and that people are going to possibly resonate with what we have to say?

Like how do we, how do we sort of like jolt ourselves to having the wake up call that you just said that you had, where you're listening to someone who was responsive to your story. Like, how do we keep reminding ourselves that our stories are important?

I have a, album in my phone called The Confidence Bank, and in that album is things like this story I just told you. This email that I got from the lady I screenshotted and put in that confidence bank. If I get testimonials or I get someone that says, Hey, I listened to this podcast that you want, and I really liked it, I put it in that folder. The reason for that is because on the days where I feel imposter syndrome, where I feel like, this, you know, I'm not doing something right, I go back to that confidence bank. To re-up. Right? To really re-up. And I think as entrepreneurs, especially creative entrepreneurs, it's hard to really own you are because we're [00:17:00] weird and we're quirky and we see things in a way that many people do not see life. And because of that, we think, oh, we should hold back and we should play small. And we really shouldn't show full out like who we are. for myself, I have in the last six months just really sat in a place of, I have to own this. No one else is gonna own this for me

Mm-hmm.

And for me personally, what that looks like is that I have to believe more in the God in me than the world really. And when I say the God in me, I mean I am a Christian. And so I believe in Christian beliefs. confidence doesn't just come from me, it comes from the God in me.

Mm-hmm.

But the point that I'm making is like, you have to own who you are own that are unique. Every part of you is unique and it's not, it's not a weakness.

It is an advantage that you were made different. Whether or not you can only eat certain things, whether or not you can only live in a certain place, you're unique. And instead of looking at it as a [00:18:00] weakness, I would look at it as an advantage. For me personally, that's the journey I've been on, is just owning it, owning my voice, even though sometimes I don't always like how my voice sounds.

Owning, the way that I tell stories, owning that I'm a very deep person. You're not gonna get a lot of jokes outta me. You're not going to get Jude to come in and, you know, crack jokes from stage when he's speaking from stage or anything like that. you're gonna get really deep introspective stories, stories that make you think deeply about who you are.

I've owned that. I've owned that. That's who I am. When I show up in a room and when I leave, that's how that person feels. It's not an easy journey, right? Like

Yeah.

but It's not as simple as just saying, oh, you've gotta own it. It's a journey. When you begin to own it and you just stop making excuses and stop trying to downplay it, that's when the real you gets to show up and people will either love it or hate it, but the ones that love it, they will love you to death.

Yeah. That acceptance is something that I think a lot of people have trouble with, right? Accepting their past or accepting, what got them to where they are in their business, or [00:19:00] accepting that they want to be humorous or not be humorous or to tell a story or whatever.

Like all those accepting parts it's like, a dose of medicine. Every time you take a little dose and you're like, all right, let me do this and let's get uncomfortable being uncomfortable and keep putting this out there. But the more you do it, I can say this from my own experience and it sounds like you as well.

The more you do it, the more you're like, okay, the world didn't end when I said that. As a matter of fact. More people started coming to me. The people who were like, oh, I feel the same way, or I react the same way. In that situation, and something that you touched on earlier that I preach as well as core values, I'm such a big proponent of understanding your core values as part of the things that I teach my coaching students as part of my course programs, because we sort of want to go from zero to 60 and bypass all that hard work in the middle of really thinking about who we are.

Do we have imposter syndrome, right? Like what, what's going on in our head to make us react a certain way? And if you don't have those core values to, to stand on and to start with and to build your company and then [00:20:00] to eventually work with you and tell your story, then you're kind of just floating out in the world, right?

You're just floating out in the air. You really have nothing that you've latched onto, but when you actually have. The core values to fall back on. And it doesn't have to be religious, it doesn't have to be any of that. It could just be things that you stand on strongly and firmly that are your foundation.

if anyone doesn't take anything else away from me, I think that is really where the work should start. For anyone who's wanting to build a business successfully, who's wanting to market their business successfully, is to really know those core values. But when you're doing your road mapping session and you're, you know, pulling back the layers and talking to people about their core values and maybe things that they didn't even think were important, does it get uncomfortable sometimes?

Or are they, a little apprehensive to tell you everything right away?

Oh yeah. 

Yeah.

uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable because it's like sometimes many people have not only ask themselves the questions, they haven't been asked the question, period. Right. And so oftentimes, clients will be like, this feels like a therapy session. and it is [00:21:00] in some ways, 'cause I'm going back to even childhood, like, why I wanna understand at a deep level why you operate the way that you operate. And it's hard to understand, unless I understand how you were raised, unless I understand, you know, what life experiences really shaped you. like I remember I asked, so I'm filming Brad Lovett right now, and I asked him, you know, Brad's been in business 12 years now, but I asked him about the beginning. asked him about the early days, the first time he ever got a custom home to build. If you don't know, Brad Levitt is a home builder outta Phoenix, Arizona. Scottsdale, Arizona. And he's working on really luxurious homes, beautiful homes. I think one of his latest projects was like 25,000 square feet.

Right. But I asked him what was the beginning like. how did you even get to this point? And I remember him telling me a story of how, he wanted to get into the market. He was doing renovations and small time gigs, but he wanted to get into a market and there was someone who told Hey, I've got a list of 3000 people that have bought lots in Phoenix, Arizona. He printed out 3000 brochures, only one person responded, and that one person is the person that gave him the shot to do the custom [00:22:00] home. What was really cool about that is that as we're recording the docuseries, it wasn't planned, but where we're recording his interview where he tells me about, this is the home of the, client's second home.

The person that gave him the shot in the beginning, he's now doing their, he's building their second home. That's where we were sitting, but I asked him. Why though? Why did you go through that level of, I'm gonna print out 3000 brochures that he had to pay for. Let's be clear. He's in the beginning phases of his business and he had to put out money for, he had to design the brochure and put out money.

So his time and money and effort. why? And For him, it's just like, I obsess about business and I obsess about like, just believing I'm gonna get this shot, but I'm gonna do everything it takes to get this shot to do the thing that I know I most want to do. sometimes you forget that.

You forget where you come from, you forget how you got where you are. And so yes, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable because you haven't thought about it in so long and sometimes you don't even realize why you're responding the way [00:23:00] that you're responding. But when you go that deep. what helps you uncover who you really are. And when we talked about owning it, when you begin to own it and you know who you are and you know your core values, it never ceases to amaze me how the trajectory of someone's business changes from that point, because you're not the same person that's showing up. You're a completely different person now that truly understands who you are. And from that point, that's where your business can really take off.

Very well said. And when you have those core values and you know who you are, you don't even have to think about the answer when you're asked a question, you just respond and you don't have to think about how you're going to run your business. It just happens in that aspect because you're working off of that foundation.

And for me, even down to bringing on a team member or partnering with a contractor or partnering with someone like yourself, right? All of those things just happen naturally because you're basing it off of those values. So you don't have to stop and say, oh, what would another designer say right [00:24:00] now?

Or, oh, what should I say to make myself sound better. In the industry that just happens. It happens so naturally because you've taken the time to understand who you are and what you stand for. Like I, back in the beginning of my career, I felt like I had to mimic the successful designers I saw in magazines and on television.

So I would never talk Jude about my family's background. My grandfather, he could not read or ride, but he was literally the smartest person I ever knew. He could build a house from the dirt to the roof, everything included. I was mesmerized by it, and I thought that that was a, like a negative.

I thought that was a negative that my grandfather, who you know, could not read or write Bill Holmes, and I loved it. I thought I would never talk about that. When I started bringing that story about my past and how the fundamentals of who I am are extracted directly from my grandfather and all the things that I saw him do and the things that he taught me, people were just.

Pulled into that story because it is a part of me and I never embraced it. I never felt like it was something that was worthwhile to talk [00:25:00] about to, potential clients. But once I did it, just, again, it peeled back that layer of them understanding where I came from and how much I value home, and how much I care about the quality of things and how much family means to me.

And those things started attracting the right people. And I think all the things that you do and all the things that you pull from someone in your road mapping, and then of course in the final end result is just that. it's, it's bringing those people who should be and want to work with you to you.

Have you had that happen with people where they perhaps didn't understand who they were working with you, they didn't understand. Then you marketed it out into the world and then it started repelling the people who shouldn't have been working with them and attracting the people who should 

Yeah, almost every project, many people are afraid to say the thing that they most need to say. and what I'd like to do, not only in road mapping, but once we're filming the docuseries, is pull that out of them. When you are, when you get intentional about branding and marketing, the whole goal is [00:26:00] to attract the right clients and repel the wrong ones.

Right? My self included. When I'm sitting here speaking with you and I'm sharing these deep stories, I'm saying the things that I'm saying, I'm attracting the right type of client and I'm repelling the wrong ones. when I think about working with someone like Luann, she has so much energy, 

It's hard to keep up with her. that's not gonna be everyone that enjoys that, that likes that, right? Like, there's some certain people she attract and certain people she repels, but we show her authentically through her docuseries. same thing I think about with, with Brad as we're filming Brad now, like Brad is very high energy. loves sports and spends a lot of time with his family. He has six kids and so he's always spending time with his family, and that's part of what we are showing, but that's gonna attract a certain type of client and that might repel others, right? And so, yeah, the projects that I work on it is, oftentimes yes, it's a business result, right?

Like we're filming these docuseries so that they can grow their business, continue to attract clients, but it's also getting to learn who that person is before you ever meet them. Sometimes still people who, interior designers who haven't met Luann, right? Or who haven't met [00:27:00] yourself or Brad, right? is what allows, that opens the door for them to be able to see who you really are at a core level, not just, what you might share through a marketing video on Instagram, but like the true, authentic, what is family life like? Right. Like I know you're really great at sharing authentic stories on your Instagram.

'cause I've seen recently where you celebrated I think 15 years of marriage and recently had a new, family member, a new dog to the family. Right. And so that's what allows people to get to learn who you are. And like I know I get the question sometimes. Yeah, but do people really need to know that?

Do they need to know how many kids I have? Do they need to know, how long I've been married and all those things? Yes, they absolutely do because people do business with people. So it's important to make your business more human, which means that you're going to attract certain friends and you're gonna repel certain friends. ' cause there's certain things that you're interested in that someone else may not be interested in. And that's okay

Mm-hmm.

because we should do business offline. We were talking offline about like, business should be fun, so why shouldn't our clients be fun too? [00:28:00] Why shouldn't the people we work with, right? Our employees or our partners, our vendors, why shouldn't they be fun to work with? Business should be fun. the projects I work on, yes. It's almost everyone, everyone that I work on it is like, man, you saved us time having, like, they got to see our video, they gotta see, okay, maybe we don't jam, we don't gel. So know, we're gonna work with someone else. And that's okay.

And that's exactly what you want to happen, is that you attract the right type of people to come and work with you versus the ones that are gonna be a headache. Even if they have the money to pay you, they're gonna

Yeah.

because your values don't align. we didn't intend on this being a whole core values conversation, but

No,

thing with core values that when your values don't align, it doesn't matter how much money the person has,

right.

it's gonna be a nightmare to work with them.

Like I know in your first episode you talked about the nightmare client that you had, right? Like it is gonna be a nightmare if your values don't align. That's why it's important to go deep into these core values because every [00:29:00] part of your business, even if you don't end up working with me and doing a video, every part of your business needs to exude your core values,

every part of it. 

Agreed. Yeah. And you mentioned that story that I told on the first episode of my podcast. It was a story that I was embarrassed by, to be honest with you. It was a story that I did not think I would ever share I barely told family members about it and definitely not friends. And so when I did share that and come to the conclusion that I thought this would help other people, it shows who I am and it shows that, we're not all perfect and that we can all start somewhere and grow and all those things.

It resonated with other designers who either had that situation or maybe even worse, or maybe they were afraid of starting their business because of that situation possibly happening. I can say from firsthand experience that by sharing the good, the bad, the ugly, all those things, it makes you more human.

And that is something that is not ever gonna be found in ai. You're not gonna have an AI computer tell you, a story in your past [00:30:00] because it doesn't know it. and no one can tell that story better than you and it's easy to sit on that and to say, yeah, I'm not, it's not worth talking about.

But many times when I have told a story or when I have shared something with a potential client or on an interview or whatever, it resonates with some person who I never even suspected that that would resonate with. And as you said, it's okay. To push away. The people who shouldn't be working with you because they don't align with your values and it will bring more people in.

Who do I have a filter that I run everything through when I'm considering partnering with someone? When I'm considering partnering with someone, I run them through this filter and this filter allows me to ask them questions that will say, yes, they are aligned with me. Yes, I can work with them on a one year project, or whatever the the case may be.

And sometimes that is the energy that that question pulls from them. You'll ask a question and you can tell their energy shifts and they're not so comfortable in talking about that or it doesn't [00:31:00] align with what you're discussing. And I think we always talk about red flags in our industry.

It's not so much the red flags of working with a client after you sign them. It's those red flags of like, okay, what am I looking for now before we even work together to decide if it is going to be a great relationship? And I think all the things that you do. Are just beautifully woven together to create that for someone.

If someone is hearing us talk now and they're like, okay, I get it. I need to talk about my core values and, I understand I need to tell my story, but I'm horrible on camera. I'm very intimidated by the idea of filming and all those like, mechanical aspects of it. Is there something that you can tell someone to do, like today?

Is there anything that could happen today? If someone's listening, they're like, yes, I want to do something today to make a difference on my social media, or to share something that offers insight to myself and to my company. Is there one thing that they can do today to better connect with their audience?

The one thing is willing to be vulnerable, which I [00:32:00] know sounds vague, and it's like, okay, how do I do that if I'm already scared to be on camera, if I'm already scared to share stories or I don't know how to share stories every week, whether you have a team or not, you go through the projects that you have, right?

So like if you're an interior designer, you have projects, different projects. Let's just say hypothetically you have three homes. You're working on three very high level homes you're working on every week, You know, you sit down and you look at it and you think, what are the challenges that came up on this project this week? Right? And how did I overcome them? That is a story. Whether it was maybe, the wrong chairs came in, whether it was, the wrong tile was ordered. are stories that happen in a very specific moment in time that you can then say, this is how we solved it. Right. 

So the other very practical way to do that is I have a, worksheet that is called Storytelling for Interior Designers. It is 10 storytelling prompts. That asks you questions, that walks you through, how do I tell a story and different types of stories throughout your business. So what if maybe you don't know how to tell your origin story?

'cause you think your origin story is not that [00:33:00] fascinating for some reason. Or, maybe you don't know what your core values are, but you're trying to think of, what are these moments that mean something to me and why do they mean something to me? this worksheet works you through that. You can go to Jude charles.co/john, so JOHN and you'll be able to download it from there. But ultimately, what it all boils down to is vulnerable, being willing to share, because that is the only way that someone will know whether or not they really wanna work with you. If you share the unpolished version of who you are, the unpolished version of your projects, what allows them to say, oh, you know what, that person's real and I wanna work with them.

even though yes, there was this challenge and. It wasn't sexy and it was very messy. that's how I know I wanna work with them. 'cause they have something in them. They have grit maybe, or they have a quirky way of figuring that out. Or maybe they laughed throughout the whole entire challenge and it was just like, no big deal. This is gonna be a stressful year, two years. I wanna make sure it's someone that I feel comfortable working with that [00:34:00] they're just gonna laugh it off. They're gonna take it seriously, but they're gonna make sure I'm feeling relaxed. They're gonna make sure that I'm laughing it off and I'm not taking it too seriously. And so, yeah, it is storytelling for interior designers. But very practical is just be willing to be vulnerable. The same way with you that you didn't share the story of like what happened with your client? Mrs. Donnelley story that I started with, I didn't share that for years in the beginning.

'cause I was just like, what's the big deal? Teacher gave me business cards. So what, like, that's no big deal I started sharing it. And people would lean in and they'd ask some more questions and they would actually be interested to hear more about. Oh, okay. So you got started at 17. Tell me more about that.

Like what, like how did you, how did you get through business those first few years? Right. It opened the door to have a deeper conversation, though it was just a teacher that gave me business cards, right. I just was willing to be open that, hey, I just got started. 'cause the teacher gave me business cards.

Like I didn't know what I was doing. That's what I mean by being vulnerable. Vulnerable isn't always, you get people [00:35:00] to cry. It isn't always this deep emotional chaos. Some vulnerable just means open up. Allow people to get to know who you are beyond the thing that you do. business cards didn't have anything to do with the first client I ever filmed a video production with, right?

Like it was just about having someone that believed in me that then gave me the courage to believe in myself.

Mm-hmm.

that's the way I continue to operate today, is that I continue to have that courage, but that opens the door to having that conversation.

Yeah. Being vulnerable allows people to hear something about you that, again, you may have taken for granted, but other people will relate to and they may apply that instantly to their own life and their own business. One thing I've been doing lately on social media is. I love to tell jokes. I love to be silly.

I love to have fun. so I started making these silly little memes from a movie or a TV show or something, and I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna have fun with this. And because I'm thinking it, I'm just gonna see what happens with it. so I posted something, it was a video clip of a movie and it was basically something like [00:36:00] when you asked an interior designer how their own project is going and then the lady gave lots of excuses for it not being taken care of.

I just did that. Literally, it took me, first of all, , let me preface this by saying I've spent hours making a reel and making a video and trying to make it perfect. I did that in probably, seven or eight minutes posted it. It's now up to I think 515,000 views up teen shares, all of these things because I was human in it, because I was sharing what I felt because I was sharing.

The feeling that I feel when I design my own homes and I'm like, I wonder if other designers are feeling this too. And for me, with my coaching business and my courses and all the things, I wanted to reach designers minds where they are. And so you were just saying, be vulnerable. It was kind of vulnerable for me in a way to post something silly.

When you look at everyone else's social media. I posted this, it got a lot of feedback. it not only brought more people to me to know who I am, but it showed people that I do like to have fun and [00:37:00] I can be silly.

And that we're not curing cancer and the design world. We're just making homes beautiful, which is a big deal. But there is a level that I just want people to know we can't have fun with this. And I think that was what happened when I did that and it just opened my eyes, that people are so inundated with lots of stress in the world, lots of stress in their lives, and sometimes we just want to laugh.

We can still run a business successfully, show people who we are as a professional, but also show people that vulnerable side of us. So with all the things that people are doing out there, Jude, and all the things that, again, people are thinking, oh, this person's doing that. there's, AI avatars and deep fakes and all these things.

How do we make sure that our videos still feel human? is it just sharing that one vulnerable story? do you have to have your face on camera? Can you share a thought like, I'm thinking more practical terms for someone who is on their social media, for instance, if they're thinking, like, again, we talked about being vulnerable, [00:38:00] sharing that part of your life, but does it always have to be facing camera?

can you do things that are not facing camera? Just curious of your thoughts on that.

Yeah, you can. So like I've seen it before where interior designers would do a walkthrough of a home and what they're talking about isn't necessarily about the home as much as they might be sharing a story. you don't have to show your face if you're not ready for that yet. Now I eventually, I do think you should get there, but you can share audio. You can share audio of you walking through the home and just kind of talking through, yeah, we did this, we did this. But then lemme tell you a story about why this is so meaningful to us. So like, maybe you did something special in one of the kids' rooms and it reminded you of your own upbringing, 

Or something special that you had, let's just say hypothetically making this completely up, but. maybe you put it in special guitar in the room and it reminded you of you, of how you play the guitar when you were younger. Right? Again, not something that is so emotional, but it at least lets people know, oh, you, you were into music, maybe you're still into music.

Right? And it opens people up to that. But no, you don't have to show your face if you're not ready for that. but you do. I I [00:39:00] would highly recommend at least audio in the caption, even sharing stories like I happen to, I'm a long form type of person, so I, my captions tend to be long. but people read them. People read them. Like I've, I remember sharing a story about a Tesla car accident once, and really the story, it's about the Tesla car accident, but it's really about burnout. I think I was going through burnout and, just feeling worthless and like my therapist was telling me, look, you can't work the same way you used to work.

And I prided myself. My identity was tied to my work at that in that season. And being told that I wouldn't be able to work again or work the same way that I was working. It's like I felt worthless that came at the end of that long caption, people responded to it, right? And so, you know, many people say that like, oh, you don't wanna be too long or try to be short. You don't wanna be too long if you're being boring, right? Like people don't read long captions if it's boring. People don't watch long videos if it's boring. But what helps with that is the this idea that we're talking about, which is telling stories. And [00:40:00] ultimately, at the end of the day, what we're talking about, you mentioned it a couple times, but I really wanna highlight it. Make your business more human. That's it. If you hear nothing else, just make your business more human. And the way that you do that is by being vulnerable. The way that you do that is really understanding your core values. when you do that, that's what helps you continue to grow your business in whatever way you're looking to grow it.

Whether it's more projects, whether it's bigger projects. Whether it's just hiring the right team members, you won't hire the right team members if you don't know your core values, and they don't even know what it is that you believe in and what to do. Right? So, make your business more human. Stop playing small, stop hiding. There are people out there waiting for you, waiting to experience you because you're the only person that can help them, it's a matter of whether or not you want to sink or you wanna swim. And for me, that has a deep meaning because don't judge me, John, but I learned how to swim only a few years ago.

I've lived in Florida all [00:41:00] my life, but I only learned how to swim a few years ago. And I can remember, it was a Labor Day weekend, I think, and I was, at my best friend's house in the pool, swimming. I had just learned how to swim. So in the pool, swimming, I'm having a good time doing backstrokes and doing everything that I learned. And then it reaches a point where I got tired and I try to put my feet down but when I put my feet down, I can't feel the base of the pool. And so I panic. And when I panic, I start drowning. Now there's people around the pool, it's Labor Day weekend, they're grilling and, and you know, everybody's having a good time. So I'm thinking, okay, no big deal. Yes, I'm drowning in this moment, but let me just start waving my hand so they can see me and realize, hey, I need help. So I start waving my hand and no one comes. I wave my hand again and no one comes. And I'm like, oh, great. This is how, this is how it ends. Well, I muster up the energy to get to the base of the pool I jump up from the base of the pool to the top and I break water. And as soon as I break water, I yell, help, and then I sink back [00:42:00] down. Well, my best friend Nia, only five, two hundred and thirty five pounds, 130 pounds. She. Jumps into the pool and goes underneath and now has to figure out how to get me out of the pool. I am five nine, about 180 pounds, and luckily she does get me to the edge of the pool and I'm holding on for dear life, catching my breath.

I sit on the edge of the pool and her mother comes up to me about 20 minutes later and she's like, Jude, let's, let's get back in the pool. I'm like, I'm okay. I'm gonna sit right here and just catch my breath. She was like, Jude, I'm, I'm 55 years old and you know, I've made a lot of mistakes in life, the one thing I learned from those mistakes, and it took me a long time to learn it, that the mistake doesn't define you. You have to get back in and try again. And John, I can tell you that I got back in and I swam for another hour. You could either sink. And make up all the excuses as to why you're giving up and all the excuses as to why you can't do something, or you can swim and have fun [00:43:00] and enjoy The freedom that this business gives you you have the choice as to what you do, but if you've heard nothing else from this podcast, make your business more human. And the way to do that is to vulnerably share your stories, put yourself out there and stop hiding.

Great stuff. Yeah. And I think too, you get better at it as you go along. Like you start to hone your ability to be more personal, to be more vulnerable, to tell your story better. Because I have some clients who are in the reality television show genre, right.

Early on the cameras were in their face and they were, you know, oh, I don't, I don't know if I wanna say this, or I can't be my true self. But then later on they sort of forgot that the cameras were there and they really just said what they wanted to say at all times because they became more comfortable with that.

And I think that when you are starting to tell your story and try to share these moments of your life that maybe you haven't shared before, it can be hard, as we said, but you start to, you know, work on that muscle and strengthen it, and then you suddenly, you're [00:44:00] just like doing it all the time. Does that happen with you when you're working with someone on a project where maybe you start out, you know, they, they've told you their story, you understand something about them because of your road roadmapping, but then you get to start the filming and then they're like, okay, still a little apprehensive.

Does it continue to grow as you're working with someone to where they get truly comfortable and saying how they're feeling?

Yeah, It takes time for them to be comfortable with that vulnerability because, love it or hate it. We live in a world that does judge us like right, and person can look at something you wore on Instagram and say, oh, I hated that. and might go as far as to leave a comment to tell you how much they hated it.

But what I like to do is, the reason I do road mapping is one, to get them comfortable with even sharing with another person. And then two, it now opens the door for me to oh, this is something that they have a hard time talking about. Before we record, let's talk about this again, Get them comfortable with just sharing it.

Sometimes I'll even tell them, Hey, before we record it, why don't you just share that with your friend? Share that with your best [00:45:00] friend. Right? On episode 15, last time I was on here, I remember I shared a story about, my card being repossessed my best friend me. And he was like, I've known you all of, we've known each other since second grade. And he was like, I've known you all of my life. And I don't think I've ever heard that story, But what it allows you to do, when you share that story with someone that is close to you, it allows you to get a little bit more comfortable with it. And so sometimes I tell my clients to do that is, Hey, just share it with a best friend or share it with your spouse or share it with, a family member that you've probably never shared it with before.

And that's what allows them to get comfortable with it. but it takes time. None of this is easy. Like business isn't easy, right? But it takes work. And like you mentioned, repetition. doing it. that's what gets you to get better at it. Some of the stories you've heard me share. you're listening to this, I've shared before, right?

But I've gotten better at how I share it. Literally the sink or swim story I shared, at, Luann Live when we were at Luann Live together. But I got better at it, at continuing to share, [00:46:00] because I practice it over and over just the same way that athletes have to train. You're in a business that you have to train and it it requires you to, when we're talking about putting yourself out there, no, I'm not saying like the most deepest, dark thing that happened to you, go out and share it today, but if you share it with a person, maybe share it with another interior designer and see how they respond to it, that's what allows you to get more comfortable with it.

And so, yeah, I agree. it's repetition. It's putting in your reps. That's what makes it easier. I didn't get here overnight. This has been 19 years in the making, five years of really deciding to step out of the shadows, you know, to where you hearing me today and. Sharing these stories authentically. but it's not easy. Even for high level clients. Like a Luann, like a Brad Levitt, sometimes they need a little bit more extra time. Well, maybe not Luann. Luann is, is pretty,

Yeah, she's pretty.

she's pretty talkative. She's pretty vulnerable. But like, there's a story with Brad that we're sharing that Brad, he's talked about before, but not in this way. Brad when he was [00:47:00] 42, he had a stroke.

Oh

And so we go really deep into that story of like, you know, what was he thinking? What was he feeling? What happened? Why did it happen? Like we go really deep into all of that. but that took time. That took a couple, you know, offline conversations many people are asking themselves, yeah, but does this matter? Like, why would it matter that a home builder is talking about having a stroke at 42? Like, just, logically it doesn't make sense, right? Except for if you think about, you know, how did he recover from that? Because if you look at Brad today, you couldn't tell that he had a stroke at 42, right? or if you think about like, building a home is very, very stressful, especially at a high level. If you're building like a 25,000 square foot home, that might take years to complete. But it matters because again, we are doing business with people and I wanna know who's this person I'm gonna trust for the next three, four years to be in my space, to look through my drawers, to, know the intimate parts of my life. That's what your clients are asking themselves. Why should I do business with you versus any and [00:48:00] every other option out there? And that why? You is what that really boils down to that why you, the answer to that is how do they get to know who you are unless you tell them, unless you share it with them. but that requires you to put yourself out there and get comfortable with that. If nothing else, comfortable with sharing your story over and over in the same way that I've done on this podcast and hundreds of other podcasts now. it requires reps, it requires that getting comfortable, being uncomfortable with the uncomfortable, I think you mentioned that earlier.

Yeah.

Yeah, it, that's hard. That's a hard pill to swallow sometimes is to be in that messy middle, that uncomfortable phase. But it always brings you to a new place. you grow as a person, you grow as a business. and I think that it's that no like and trust factor that we hear in marketing and in a business, right?

they know who you are. They like you, and then they trust you. And trust is that ultimate goal that we get. And I think that the service that you provide and the tactics and techniques that work so well for your clients are things that we can all apply to our own business [00:49:00] because we want people to trust us, right?

They, we want them to know who we are. But more so people, as you say, do business with people, and you have to trust that person that you're doing business with. One thing that you just said that hit me was talking about, you know, you said you've told a story here and a story there, and you've gotten better at it.

we have to remember that when we're speaking to a new client as a designer, and we're on that discovery call or at that consultation, and a story pops into our head that we're like, oh yeah, that would be great to talk to here because this would relate to this client. But I just said that yesterday.

It's so weird. I can't say that again now.I always say be a Broadway actor pretending you're going on stage every single day. And just have this list of stories or these lists of situations in your mind where you can pull out of that card catalog, that Rolodex, whatever that drawer and that file, and find that story or that something that will relate to that client.

That client's going to open up to you a lot more, even if you just shared that same [00:50:00] story the day before, or you share that same experience that you had with someone else that same day. That person's never heard it yet. And I think that is what is so important to remember, is to keep that in the back of your mind.

And always from a business perspective, always have something that you can share with someone. if it's a client who has, three kids and both, spouses work and they're never home, talk about how you had another client that was similar to that and that is what that person is going to hear.

you were mentioning Brad and his medical condition someone else may look at that and think. He understands how to overcome obstacles. He understands how to move past, serious matters and still excel. And that is where storytelling can take it from just a story to, you're succeeding in life, you're succeeding in your business, your clients will trust you, your clients will refer more people to you.

So just knowing that whole story list in your head is really important to think about because you can pull those out and share them whenever you want. Is that something that you suggest that your [00:51:00] clients do as well to sort of make a, mental inventory of things that they've experienced in life?

so I call it a story bank. 

Ah.

way that when you go to the bank, you can't money you haven't deposited, right? So the story bank. Every night almost I will. Or at the very least, every week I will spend time thinking about what happened today. Just random stories, random ideas, and I will list it out in three ways.

So as first this a title, so something that just quickly allows me to remember the story. Then there is bullet points of what happened. So nothing long, just like what happened maybe. So like I jotted down yesterday literally is I went to Dunking Donuts and I was just way overstimulated going to Dunking Donuts because there was, there was a homeless man in there who was talking about his dog and his dog.

He was worried about his dog attacking people. And then it was raining outside. So as I made it outside, the homeless man asked me, Hey, can you check your iPhone app and see when is this rain gonna stop? But I'm standing in the rain [00:52:00] trying to like get into the building that I'm trying to go to. Once I get in the building, there's another guy with a dog. So now I have this homeless man in my mind about, you know, his dog might attack someone. And then now I'm thinking about, so it was, I was just way overstimulated. Well, I just wrote that down. I have no idea if I'm gonna use that.

Obviously I just use it here on the podcast. No real reason. But, so I do the title, I do what happened, and then I'll, um, think of a lesson. Now I just told that story. There's really no lesson. But I will think of like, what is the lesson that I could use this for? Maybe it is, I don't even know. I couldn't even think of what it could be right now with being overstimulated. But ultimately, once I got in the building that I was going to, I stopped at the doorway and I just breathed and I had to recenter myself. So maybe that's the lesson sometimes you just need to take a moment for yourself.

But the point is that I put that into my story bank

Mm-hmm.

 If I am talking to someone, so like you mentioned the exact same way that you mentioned, maybe this client is talking about something and it triggers something in my mind, it's a [00:53:00] trigger. And then I think to myself, oh, that would be a good story to tell 'em about that.

Maybe they're not understanding something that I want them to understand in a certain way. I'll be like, okay, here's a story I could tell them. Right? And so I call it a story bank because in your business when you're communicating, right, communication isn't just saying words. It's making sure that we understand each other and stories help people to understand. What you're talking about, not just the words that you're saying. because it's easy to say, Hey, we're gonna work on this project and it's, and gonna be stressful. That's one thing. Or you could talk through, Hey, this client had a really stressful time, And then you tell them the story of what happened and then say that, Hey, we made sure that they were having a good time with, with working with us.

Right. Story Bank, I like the idea. it is literally the same exact idea that I use in my business. and with my clients. So when we do roadmapping, I deliver a roadmap. in the roadmap I help them start a story bank because, They have told me so many stories in the three to six hours that we've sat together, Why not Give them a head start. I give them a [00:54:00] story bank based on everything that they told me. and so literally that's exactly how I work with my clients is helping them tell their stories in that way. Because the other cool thing that happens is especially if the client has a team, they get to hand that to their team.

Now, their team who might be doing their social media or doing other marketing can say, oh, well these are really cool stories that we could share on social media too.

Mm-hmm.

so, yeah, story bank is, really another good idea for

Story Bank sounds much better than the way I, much more eloquent than the way that I described it. So thank you for, for giving that a nice pretty label. I love that. and I think a good takeaway there too is, well, first of all, what I learned from your story was I learned if you're in an uncomfortable situation, don't react right away.

Remove yourself from that situation and then come up with a conclusion. That's, that's what I took from your story at Dunkin Donut. So thank you for help. There you go. You've already helped one person. but what I love your concept of sort of, you know, taking this in incremental moments and writing things down as they happen because.

At the end of the week, if it's Friday at 5:00 PM none of us are going to remember what [00:55:00] happened to us on Tuesday at 1:00 PM. We're just not, because the week gets crazy. There's so many things happening. It's much like when we send out a client recap of the week. We send out all the things that happened, but we write it down daily so that we're not having to go back and ask ourselves what happened on Tuesday?

So I think your idea and this concept that you have is so beautiful for people that they can do right this minute, is to just pull out the notes and section in your phone or you know, keep a notepad with you, whatever feels comfortable for you, but write down these moments of life that you feel may not be significant now, but could turn into something later that could help you or your business.

Or maybe there's that one story is the thing that clinches the deal with that client and you just took it for granted thinking like, oh, who cares? That was just a moment in my day. But that moment in your day could turn into something much, much bigger for other people. So I think that's a great, great lesson to learn.

have you ever had an experience with your client that was so, like, wow, like you were like, yes, this is what great storytelling is. This is what I was looking for. [00:56:00] have you had that moment with a client, where you were like, that's it, that's the one.

that's the story we have to tell. 

Yeah. I have moments like that all the time because what's weird is that we all take our stories for granted.

Mm-hmm.

We all take our stories for granted. 

Well, you were talking about Jen earlier and her situation.

Yeah. So Jen, Jen Davison is a interior designer from Chicago, Illinois.

And, Jen. started her business about five years ago and she was a flight attendant for 20 years and then started her business. But as she was telling me about how she got started, she was just like, if she had, she's always been in interior design, she was in designing since a little girl, and she had to tell herself, you know, 4-year-old me that I would be all these years later running an interior design business, a successful one at that I don't think I would've believed myself. to me, we started her docuseries with that, with that story where she talks about, was four years old and she did the van, a white pose, and her mom actually took a picture of this. 

I saw that.

right?Her mom held onto that picture for the longest to the point that she could have that picture now all [00:57:00] these years later. we started with that, and to be honest with you, I didn't actually know about that story of, the picture until I got to her house and she. Was like, oh, let me show you this. I was like, this is what we need. Like we need to start with this.

that's definitely one of the ones that, it was just like, our stories, we take these, feels like small moments for granted, but those small moments or what create the like, no, she would've known at four years old that, you know, some decades later she would be an interior designer.

Mm-hmm.

Especially going through a 20 year journey of being a flight attendant. Like that's not even related to interior design, 

but that moment that her mom captured all these years later is the full circle moment. That's what makes it matter even more now. And so, yes, we're all holding onto these stories that are just like, we think, oh, that's nothing.

That's, but you're playing small.

Yeah.

 Every single experience you've had in your life. even what you took away from that Dunking Donuts experience. I'm actually quite surprised 'cause I was like, oh, I don't even know how I would wrap that into, but you took it as, yeah, don't react in the moment, [00:58:00] which is so beautiful. Don't react. 'cause how many times do we just react in the moment and go south? Right?

Mm-hmm.

could have easily, because I was feeling, I don't know, overstimulated, I could've easily yelled at the homeless guy for no

Yeah.

He just needed to know it's raining outside. How can I make sure not to, you know, what do I need to do to make sure not to go out in this rain or stay in this rain? so like it's, again, that's why I document each story because sometimes it's like you don't know will impact another person. 

Yeah.

they're going to take away from it. And what you took away from that is beautiful. thing that happens with my clients.

Jen Davidson is one for sure where at four years old took that picture and now that picture means so much more all these years later. Never knew it was gonna mean that, but that's a story that she has now. 

it's so memorable and the power of video, you can talk about that photo, but the fact that you had that photo and you showed that photo in your docuseries with her was just so cute and Charming. And I remember it. And I was thinking like that would be appealing to a [00:59:00] client watching that, thinking that, you know, maybe they have a child that wants to become an interior designer and they see that she started here.

All these things can just sort of correlate with one another and you never know what's gonna strike a chord with a client. When you make this docuseries or these videos, or whether they're short form or long form, whatever, I think that there are the people who are going to be instantly knowing who you are.

They're going to instantly know that is who you are. That is what you stand on as a business owner. This is how you operate your company. These are the values that you have. Because many times people will reach out to us as designers and they won't really know who we are. They might say something like, oh, I have, two kids, and everything has to be durable and everything has to be, almost non destructible for these kids that I have.

If you had told that story ahead of time on your website, on your social media, on a YouTube channel, whatever, if you had shared a story about who your client is and how you've overcome that with another client. Probably that client wouldn't have to be asking you that question if you could be that type of designer for them.

So by putting [01:00:00] your story out there, you're sort of going ahead and marketing yourself directly in the mind of that person who needs to hear it. And then that person is gonna be like, okay, I'm hooked. let me hear more about what I know they can service my type of project, but let me hear more about what they have to say because you've told the story of how you can help them.

And I think that's really important, knowing what's in it for the client. What's in it for our potential client when we're telling these stories is they can say, yep, I understand that they can, definitely take care of me. What about the other side of that? I'm just curious, what if we're sharing a story or we're just speaking with someone?

Are we supposed to, if I'm listening to a client, should I be receiving their stories as well? and if so, what do I do with that? When I listen to a client tell a story that they're sharing with us?

Yeah. it's called active Listening, right? It is. when a client's sharing a story with you, they're telling you about themselves as well. They're telling you what matters to them most. And when you hear that, what I like to do, instead of just saying, oh yeah, I hear that, I hear this matters to you, I will share a story of either a moment [01:01:00] that something similar happened to me

Hmm.

when it happened to a client. it doesn't just communicate. I heard you, it communicates that I'm like you. Right? And when, I talked earlier about relationships and making friends and things like that, part of the reason we become friends is because we have similar interests.

Part of the reason we become friends is because we've lived similar experiences that it's like, oh, that person doesn't just understand me. They're like me

Hmm.

want to be more around more people that are like me. And so when a client's sharing something with you, maybe sharing, an experience of like their, teenage son, getting on their nerves for you to then communicate whether you have a nephew or you have your own teenage. Son or daughter like that allows them to say, oh yeah, you definitely get it. You understand me, but you also like me. And we want to, we don't wanna just do business with people. We wanna people that we know, like, and trust like is being a part like me as well. And so, yeah, that's the way that I, I normally not only do [01:02:00] it in my business, but recommend my clients to do it too.

Active listening. That's great. And I think, yeah, we're not suggesting that you just go out and be this megaphone and just start throwing stories out that have no relationship to what your client is saying or, or to that client's situation. Don't just start telling a random story. You have to participate.

in the conversation when you were saying that, I was thinking about this client that I had, and this is so interesting and so terrible at the same time, but the housekeeper told me that the children would get upset and want a new phone. So they would throw their phone from the top story of the house down to the bottom floor of the house just to break the phone.

So that they would get a new phone. and she said this in the room with, one of the parents. And I was like, okay, well I guess this is, you know, it's out in the open now. It can be shared. And so I shared a story about how my brother got really angry as a kid one time, and he like punched a hole through his bedroom door.

and I said, my mom still left that hole in the door today. It's still there to this very day to show my brother what he did as this, like, 10-year-old [01:03:00] kid getting angry. And so when I said that to the client and to the housekeeper, they were like, oh, this happens to other people too.

Like, I'm not the only one that has, you know, bratty kids, right. And, but I listened to what they were saying and then that jogged something in my own memory to share that with them, which years ago, I would've kept my mouth shut and like stayed out of it. But it showed a side of me to them that I understand where they're coming from.

And I think when you're listening to someone and they're sharing their story and you have something that pops into your head. And it makes sense then, then share it, right? Because it does allow them to trust you just a little bit more, and for them to know that you actually understand where they're coming from.

When you're making videos for your clients, what's the end result? Where are they going to end up? I'm just curious for someone who's thinking like, yes, I love this. I want to work with you. What is the final result? Where are they going to live? How can they use them? Tell me all of those great things.

Traditional ways are traditional nowadays. It wasn't always traditional, but of course social media, website, YouTube, those are the traditional sources. But there are also like, let's just [01:04:00] say your interior designer who maybe speaks right, you can use parts of your docuseries before you go on stage. Let's say you're doing a consultation with a client. have reached out to you. They want you to come and meet with them. you could use it for that as well. Like before you, when you go to sit down with them before you actually talk about what the design is. Hey, get to learn a little bit more about me.

Ah, love that.

went to your website doesn't always mean they watched your videos. And so there are over 77 0 different ways that I've come up with to repurpose a docuseries, repurpose one video. but it doesn't mean you need to use all 70. You have to figure out what works for you. But those are just a few different ideas.

It's like definitely website. And even on the website, it's not just the homepage. I recommend putting it on the homepage, the about page, the portfolio page and the contact page. Because again, just because someone went to your homepage on your website doesn't mean they watched a video. They interact with it in different ways. so yeah, traditional, all the traditional ways, but also thinking of the offline ways that we can [01:05:00] use it, because you've invested in this docuseries now get your return on investment on investing in this docuseries. other ways is, is like A PDF if you send out a PDF to your client's brochure. There's another really cool one that every interior designer does this, but let's just say part of what we film is your process.

Mm-hmm.

and then in the docuseries, sometimes that'll get cut up into social media clips, right? What you can then do at a certain milestone when you're working with your client, maybe you talked about a certain process, something that they needed to look out for. You can then send them an email of the same video, even though you've already told them, but six months ago you told them they don't remember that. You can now send them that clip from your docuseries to say, Hey, we're at this point now, just wanted to remind you of what this is gonna feel like, and now here's a quick 62nd video, two minute video.

So that's another way of using it. it's leveraging all this time and effort, the stories that we've [01:06:00] created, leveraging all of that. I call it dramatic leverage, to be able to continue to grow your business and have great relationships with your client. Marketing doesn't end. I know you talk about after marketing,

Yeah.

after marketing, I think you call it. Marketing doesn't end when you get the client. Marketing continues, and part of that continuation is continuing to tell stories, continuing to hold their hand and guiding them through that process. that's what this docuseries allows you to do as well, is to get the client to hopefully close the client.

They get to meet you before they ever meet you, but now to hold their hand through the process to remind them of who you are, remind them why they invested in this and that it's gonna be okay. said, we're not curing cancer, but when the challenges come up, it's gonna be okay. 

and we're always selling. I think we're always trying to persuade someone or convince someone or let them know why this is the right way. if you need to remind them of like, no, no, here's who I am. This is me, or this is my process. I shared that process with you six months ago.

You don't remember it. Here's that process and here's why it's so important to us. That subtle little [01:07:00] reminder of just. Shooting that beautifully filmed video out to someone can be the thing that clinches the deal and allows 'em to change their mind and to see things the way that you're showing it to them.

and by the way, everything that I've seen you film is so beautifully orchestrated, cinematically, the music. it's just so well done. that is never going to be something that someone can do on their own. And that is why I love that you have the service that you have is because first of all, you tell the story.

Second of all, you piece it together so beautifully and so eloquently, and, the person that you're filming and the team or the designer or the contractor or whomever is showing themselves in a true, authentic light. But it's also just done so well that I remember watching, Luanne for the first time, her docuseries that you did, and I'm like.

Oh my God. Like, dude, you really knocked it out of the park because it is storytelling, but it's elevated to a level that I think that most people don't think that they're capable of doing. And I think that a lot of people may think like, oh, I can't work with you because I'm [01:08:00] not there yet.

But you have all kinds of techniques to help them get ready and to prepare them and to make it easy for them. 

Yeah, absolutely. it's a process. And that's why I start with road roadmapping. Putting a camera in your face is intimidating, right? It's a process. it is work, even believing in the stories that you have. Part of the reason that I love going through road mapping and like I said, people overlook and they underplay their stories.

I wanna remind them, hey, this is an important story. I did a road mapping session with, an interior designer, Brooke, drop Tini recently, who was just like, yeah, this is business therapy with a pep rally. Because I'm also like, we're going deep, but I'm also motivating you and I'm also telling you, no, this is important.

This is what makes you you. Right? And for her, the another part of the testimony that she gave was just that when she first met me, we met, at an event and we had dinner at that event. And she was like, I just authentically shared my stories of who I was, where I was from, know how I run the business.

And she was like, that's the piece that I was missing, but it was just me authentically showing up, [01:09:00] right?

Yeah.

I practice what I preach for my clients. I show them. Not just, Hey, this story is important, but then sometimes I'll even tell them the story again. And like, you just heard me tell your story.

How does that feel? Right? so, yeah, it's important. It's important to take time. None of this happens overnight. but it does happen, and it can happen. And it's possible I take the time to walk you through that, to make sure to hold your hand in the same way you're holding your client's hands. there to hold your hand to make sure you understand how to do this, because it's not just when we do the docuseries after the fact. You now have a secret weapon, a secret advantage others won't have because now you understand how to tell your story. And I wanna make sure you have that. My mission, my purpose is to lead and empower entrepreneurs to have relentless courage.

Hmm.

Every single word in that purpose statement is important. The most important lead and empower.

Hmm.

If I guide you, which is what leadership is, if I guide you, you'll understand how to do it. If I [01:10:00] empower you, that means you walk away with it. I no longer have to be there to make sure that you can do it

Wow.

right. And so it's not just doing the docuseries, it's making sure you can do it even after the fact. You can tell some of the same stories that we worked on or maybe some of the stories that didn't make it to the docuseries, that's how I work with my clients and walk them through that entire process.

It's so good and you have just such a calm demeanor that it makes it very easy to do so. So it's almost like therapy, even if you just didn't do anything else but talk to someone. your voice is very relaxing. well,

you.

I can tell you this has been just truly incredible. I knew it would be, before we go, tell everyone how they can find out more about you and just remind 'em again where they can get to get that, prompt freebie 

Storytelling for interior designers. You can download that at Jude charles dot co slash john, JOHN. to connect with me, connect with me on Instagram, I'm on Instagram often. I share obviously valuable content there. Share some of my projects there as well. but Jew [01:11:00] charles.co/john, or on Instagram, I am at Jude charles 

Fantastic. And we'll make sure to link all that in the show notes, of course, and listen to everyone listening. Just remember what Juda said today, that your story is truly your superpower. So don't let AI or algorithms, or comparison theories or imposter syndrome, don't let any of that make you forget that and just get out there and start showing people who you really are, even if it's on a smaller scale.

And then you can get ready and then reach out to Jude and, he can make something beautiful for you. thank you again for being here, Jude. It's been truly enlightening as always.

John, thank you for having me. it's always fun to catch up in person and also to come back and do another podcast. If you haven't listened to episode 15, and you want to go deeper with storytelling, we talk a lot about storytelling a different way in episode 15.

I would encourage you to go back and listen to that too. There's a lot of value in this one, but more in episode 15 as well. 

Most definitely, and we'll link that in the show notes. thank you again, Jude. 

Thank you, John.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of the [01:12:00] McClain Method Podcast. I'm so grateful you made it all the way to the end because that tells me that you're ready to do the work that truly transforms your brand, your business, and your life. If you want more tools, trainings, and behind the scenes looks at what I'm building next.

Head over to McClain method.com and don't forget to follow along on Instagram at the McClain Method for even more drops of brilliance. And remember, my friend, your brilliance is your brand. Don't dim it, design it. I'll see you next time.