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BigDeal by Codie Sanchez

Communication Expert: Master the Secret Art of Charisma & Influence | Vanessa Van Edwards

My new book Own Or Be Owned launches September 18. More profit, less pain, and a business that runs without you — this book is a how-to manual.

Vanessa Van EdwardsguestCodie Sanchezhost

Sep 17, 20241h 39mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

The Ring Shark Tank Pitch and Accidental Question Inflection
After the host's intro, Vanessa Van Edwards uses Ring founder Jamie Siminoff's failed Shark Tank pitch to show that people judge you before your opening line. She explains how asking your name or number as a question undermines you and recommends a downward inflection, citing a doctors' voice-tone study and Barack Obama's cadence.
- •Ring's founder had a great idea but failed on Shark Tank because he prepped his pitch and not his first impression
- •Accidentally ending your name or price with a question inflection invites negotiation and lowers close rates
- •In the doctor voice-clip study, those rated lowest on warmth and competence had the highest malpractice lawsuit rates
- •Downward inflection sounds authoritative; practice stating your name and numbers rather than asking them
- •State your needs assertively, including with kids and spouses, instead of asking
Priming with Words and Purposeful Meeting Openers
Vanessa describes studies showing single words like 'community' change behavior and applies this to calendar invite names and team calls. Codie shares a church example of purposeful priming, and they discuss emotional contagion, avoiding accidental openers and starting meetings positively.
- •Wall Street game vs community game: people shared a third versus two-thirds of profits
- •Name meetings for what you want them to do, such as a strategic goal-setting meeting
- •Leaders' moods are contagious and tend to go top-down, so start calls with something good
- •Accidental openers like complaining about busyness change the nature of the interaction
- •Create a team norm that respects introverts rather than weekly icebreakers
Dopamine Questions: Stop Asking "What Do You Do?"
Vanessa explains that asking 'What do you do?' triggers autopilot, and recommends 'Working on anything exciting these days?' to spark dopamine. She and Codie agree that we cue people on how to treat us through our questions, words, body language and voice.
- •'What do you do?' is a social script that puts the other person's brain on autopilot
- •Dopamine is the chemical of motivation and excitement that questions can trigger
- •'Working on anything exciting these days?' gives people permission to share
- •Codie notes this avoids answers like 'I'm just a mom'
- •We cue people to how we want to be treated
Warmth and Competence Cues: Nods, Head Tilts and Steeples
Vanessa says 82% of impressions rest on warmth and competence and breaks down nonverbal cues for each. She covers the slow triple nod, head tilt and steeple, and how Casper's marketing and email word choices blend both traits.
- •82% of impressions are based on warmth and competence
- •A slow triple nod makes the other person speak 67% longer; fast nodding signals impatience
- •Head tilts and smiles are warmth cues; steepling is a competence cue
- •Casper Mattresses blended warmth and competence in its marketing
- •Warm words like 'together' and 'team' and competent words like 'goal' and 'achieve' show up in emails
Dialing Warmth and Competence in Presentations
Codie and Vanessa discuss how serious personas get misread, and Vanessa uses Oprah as an example of dialing cues up and down. They get practical about adding a warmth element to presentations about every two minutes and the idea that competence without warmth breeds suspicion.
- •Both hosts are told they are nicer than they look; Vanessa wears pink to balance
- •Oprah dials warmth when with a victim and competence with a political commentator
- •Competence without warmth leaves people feeling suspicious
- •Add something warm like memes, stories, quotes or demos every two minutes
- •Codie suggests looking at long-running Facebook ads to see what works
The Curse of Smart People: Vulnerability and Perceived Trust
Vanessa argues smart entrepreneurs fail by relying on competence alone. Using Taylor Swift's humble cue, the spilled-smoothie blender experiment and Mel Robbins's face-touching, she shows how vulnerability builds trust, and she stresses perceived trust matters as much as actual trust.
- •People don't buy on competence alone; they have to trust you first
- •A model who spilled the smoothie while demoing a blender sold more blenders
- •Mel Robbins's self-touching reads as vulnerability alongside competent advice
- •Perceptions of trust and competence matter as much as the real thing
- •Show behind the scenes and document rather than create; avoid overpromising
Can You Hide Fear? Introverts, Ambiverts and Social Energy
Vanessa explains through the fear-sweat fMRI study that emotions are contagious and fear can't be hidden, so prepare before entering a room. She introduces introvert, ambivert and extrovert distinctions and the social battery, and how to manage introverted teammates.
- •People who smelled skydiver sweat caught the fear, showing fear is chemically contagious
- •No one can fake warmth and competence; know your stuff
- •Most people are ambiverts; identify who and what drains or energizes you
- •Don't put introverts on the spot; send ideas by email ahead of time
- •Being a bit nervous is fine, but being drained and afraid is a deal breaker
Hiring with ABCD Work and Toxic Coworkers vs. Frenemies
Responding to Codie's question about personality tests, Vanessa recommends behavioral interviewing and sorting work into A, B, C and D categories to hire complementary people. They then discuss why she prefers a toxic coworker to a frenemy, citing a police officer study, and never regretting letting people go.
- •Behavioral interviewing over skill-based interviewing
- •A work is what you excel at, B work is what you dread; hire someone whose A work is your D work
- •Ambivalent relationships correlated with lower happiness and more sick days among police officers
- •Vanessa prefers a toxic coworker to a fake friend
- •Neither host has regretted letting go of a wrong-fit person
Lie Detection, Microexpressions and Contempt
Vanessa explains there is no Pinocchio's nose but there are statistical cues to deceit, mainly incongruence such as head shakes, disgust microexpressions and fake smiles. She covers contempt as a predictor of divorce per Gottman and how to follow up with someone showing it, plus mirror neurons.
- •Look for incongruence between words and nods or facial expressions
- •Real smiles activate upper cheek muscles; only 1 in 10 can do it voluntarily
- •Contempt, a one-sided mouth raise, is the seed of disrespect and predicted divorce in Gottman's research
- •Follow up with open-ended information gathering or re-explain, since contempt can signal confusion
- •Fake smiles aren't contagious while real ones are, due to mirror neurons
Gender Differences: Vocal Fry, Muting and Visible Hands
Vanessa describes the stereotype content model, in which women are seen as warmer and men as more competent by default. She says women often undercut themselves with vocal fry, men with stoic muting, and she offers fixes like speaking louder, visible hands and gestures aligned with words, drawing on TED Talk research.
- •Women are by default seen as higher in warmth and lower in competence; men the reverse
- •Vocal fry can be fixed by speaking a little louder
- •Men who go still-faced lose loyalty; no cues is a cue
- •Visible hands and palm flashes are immediate trust signals
- •Viral TED speakers used over 400 gestures in 18 minutes versus about 270
Internal Communication: Painkillers, Not Vitamins
Codie asks about mistakes leaders make communicating ideas inside the company. Vanessa says internal marketing is as important as external, and framing changes as immediate painkillers for the team rather than long-term vitamins gets buy-in.
- •Internal marketing to your team matters as much as external marketing
- •Vitamin framing says it's good for us; team members don't think long-term
- •Painkiller framing ties a change to a problem the team already complains about
- •Tailor the pitch for each team, such as sales or HR
Three Levels of Connection and Self-Narratives
Vanessa presents Dan McAdams's three levels of connection and her 15 questions to move through them. She describes hero, healer and victim self-narratives, explains how couples can revisit the questions yearly, and how to weave them into early dating.
- •Level one is general traits, level two is personal concerns, level three is self-narrative
- •Hero, healer and victim narratives shape how someone treats you
- •Couples can answer all 15 questions once a year as answers change
- •Don't ask level two questions on a first date; weave questions in transparently
- •Seeking to understand goes beyond listening
Charisma for Introverts: Find Your Flavor, Loglines and Credibility Markers
After a listener-review plug, Codie asks for advice for introverts in business. Vanessa says to stop pretending to be an extrovert, find your own charisma flavor, be vulnerable instead of flexing, and balance it with credibility markers and one-sentence story loglines like 'blank turned blank'.
- •There are different flavors of charisma; find your social strength
- •Vanessa's circle story: admitting being a recovering awkward person drew everyone to her
- •Credibility markers counterbalance vulnerability
- •Use words like 'passion project' or 'amateur' for a light touch
- •Use a one-sentence story logline such as 'lawyer turned nonprofit runner'
Focusing on What Converts and Saying No Gracefully
Codie asks how Vanessa keeps such balance, and she says just because you can doesn't mean you should, using stop-start-continue lists around what converts. They then cover how to say no so people thank you: gratitude, radical transparency, blaming a system, and adding people to a list.
- •Focus relentlessly on what actually converts in dollars
- •Annual stop, start, continue lists, such as outsourcing her inbox
- •Say no with gratitude and vulnerable honesty
- •Blame a system such as a sabbatical rather than making it personal
- •Offer to add the person to a list for later
The Secret to Likability and Embracing Being Weird
Vanessa shares a high school study finding that the most popular students liked the most people, so she advises aggressively liking others. She discusses her fear of being unlikable because she was different, and the conversation closes with Harry Potter banter and Codie's thoughts on communication and Maya Angelou.
- •The one consistent predictor of popularity was having the longest list of people liked
- •Hunt for good in others by asking better questions and expecting good
- •Vanessa's oddness was once a liability and now draws people who love it
- •Codie says communication skill with small teams relates to success
- •Codie ends with the idea that people remember how you made them feel

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