Latest / Mindful You / Harmonizing Life's Flow: Embracing Presence, Prioritizing Time Freedom, And Nurturing Connections For Lead Generation With Brenda Marie Sheldrake

Transcript

Harmonizing Life's Flow: Embracing Presence, Prioritizing Time Freedom, And Nurturing Connections For Lead Generation With Brenda Marie Sheldrake · Mindful You

• 0:00
  Alan Carroll: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the mindful U
• 0:06
  podcast. My name is Alan Carroll, and I am your host, as
• 0:12
  we journey together into this wonderful metaphysical land of
• 0:19
  mindfulness, filled with love and joy, filled with clarity
• 0:24
  filled with understanding and filled with stillness, absolute
• 0:32
  stillness. And as we interview our guests over time, often
• 0:38
  there is a critical, transformational experience that
• 0:44
  people have, which ignites an awareness, like waking up from
• 0:52
  something which caused them to change their behaviors and
• 1:00
  change their life paths. Our next guest, Brenda Murray, she
• 1:07
  Drake. I met her at the potter Palooza event that I did, where
• 1:15
  a lot of podcasters get together, we get to interview a
• 1:19
  lot of guests from lots of different varieties, different
• 1:22
  places. And Brenda is in the business world. She is over time
• 1:30
  has become a master of lead generation, getting people to
• 1:38
  connect with people get people with a community in order to
• 1:42
  generate more more quality, more quality leads and building on
• 1:46
  relationships. And being motivated to do that. A lot has
• 1:50
  to do with her personal story, her personal journey into
• 1:54
  mindfulness. And so I would like to welcome Brenda to the mindful
• 2:00
  U podcast. Thank you for being here today. Hello, how are how
• 2:09
  are you today? Brenda?
• 2:12
  Unknown: I'm great. Thank you.
• 2:14
  Alan Carroll: Well, welcome to the mindful you podcast. And I'd
• 2:18
  like to Well, thank you. Thank you, I'd like to start with
• 2:23
  giving our audience a little understanding of your
• 2:26
  background. And what where you sort of came from and how you
• 2:31
  evolved and to where you are today.
• 2:34
  Brenda Marie Sheldrake: Ah, okay, well, alright, how far you
• 2:37
  want me back to go back here. But I will let you know that I
• 2:41
  spent 13 years in a job until the government funding and left
• 2:48
  me with at 50 with total uncertainty. Most of it was it
• 2:57
  was I spent, I spent about 20 minutes crying. And then I found
• 3:03
  my husband and told him that I didn't have a job anymore. And
• 3:06
  he told me everything was going to be okay. And he was right.
• 3:10
  Everything was okay. But I wasn't content with sitting at
• 3:14
  home watching me and in the restless. So I went out, and I
• 3:21
  found something that I was passionate about. And that was
• 3:24
  helping people with disabilities. I was helping them
• 3:27
  with a product was a financial product. And the problem The
• 3:31
  challenge, though was that when I would tell people about it,
• 3:34
  they would say, Okay, if this were real, the government would
• 3:38
  have told us about it. If this were real, then we would have
• 3:41
  got a letter about it. If this were real, then somebody would
• 3:44
  have told us and I said well, I am someone and I am telling you.
• 3:48
  And they said we don't trust you, we think it's a scam. So
• 3:52
  the the challenge was that I have this great thing that was
• 3:56
  going to change the lives of people with disabilities. But I
• 4:01
  couldn't get them to believe me. And then I met a man who said to
• 4:04
  me, stop trying to sell them your great thing and start being
• 4:07
  interested in them. Build a relationship with them, and the
• 4:11
  product will follow. And so I started implementing that
• 4:16
  system. I started. I love talking to people anyway,
• 4:20
  talking is one of my favorite things. So I started talking to
• 4:23
  people and getting to know them and hearing about their
• 4:25
  challenges and hearing about the things they were really good at.
• 4:30
  And people started wanting to know more about me and so it
• 4:33
  opened the door to me telling them about the product then and
• 4:36
  by then they would have more trust in me. And they would
• 4:39
  either say well, I need that product or I know somebody who
• 4:43
  needs that product. Using the system. I generated 3000
• 4:48
  qualified leads in one year. That was one of the highlights
• 4:51
  of my business.
• 4:53
  Alan Carroll: 3000 leads Oh my goodness.
• 4:57
  Unknown: 3000 leads.
• 4:58
  Alan Carroll: That's wonderful.
• 5:00
  Unknown: There's one thing about leads, though. Leads are really
• 5:05
  names and phone numbers, leads don't guarantee business, you've
• 5:08
  got to have people who are open to hearing about what you want
• 5:11
  to offer them, we've got to convert. So with the 3000 leads,
• 5:16
  these people were ready to be converted, because they really
• 5:20
  knew that they needed the financial help that I was
• 5:22
  offering. I couldn't convert them all quickly enough, though.
• 5:26
  So I started handing those leads out to other associates that I
• 5:29
  worked with. But people always want to know, so what was your
• 5:33
  close rate? And my close rate was about 90%.
• 5:36
  Alan Carroll: Ooh, that sounds fantastic.
• 5:41
  Unknown: change the lives of a lot of people change the lives
• 5:43
  of a lot of families. When COVID hit, it became more challenging
• 5:49
  to do my business because people didn't. People would take away
• 5:53
  children with disabilities didn't really want you in their
• 5:55
  own right, they were afraid. And so what I did, I had people
• 6:00
  asking me, how do you generate the 3000? Leads? How do you do
• 6:03
  what you did. And I realized that was a marketable skill. And
• 6:07
  I started working to help people to generate their own leads, I
• 6:12
  started working on a course that's launching this September,
• 6:17
  called Lead Generation and conversion made easy. And I
• 6:20
  developed a community. And my mission within my community was
• 6:24
  to ensure that no entrepreneur quit before they received their
• 6:27
  first miracle.
• 6:31
  Alan Carroll: I'm a time a student of the Course of
• 6:33
  Miracles. So I'm a big fan of miracles. And they seem to come
• 6:38
  when you are more mindful and more open. And rather than
• 6:42
  resisting the flow of life, you're open to the flow of life,
• 6:45
  and all of a sudden miracles appear.
• 6:48
  Unknown: Yes. And that's exactly really LM. That's what happened
• 6:53
  for me. I thought that my job here was to teach people to
• 6:56
  generate leads. But when my miracle came, my miracle came in
• 7:02
  the form of time freedom. I don't know if you've ever heard
• 7:06
  anybody say that this wine. But when you get the call, are you
• 7:10
  going to be able to step up. It's a very popular line for
• 7:14
  motivating people to do things. And I used to think that it
• 7:18
  meant what I have the money to be able to throw at the problem.
• 7:21
  Two years ago, I learned that money can't solve all problems.
• 7:27
  And what I really needed was the time to be able to be there for
• 7:30
  someone that I loved, who was going through a really hard
• 7:33
  time. And in the end, I spent two years caring for this
• 7:37
  person, with my sister, the two of us cared for them. And in the
• 7:41
  end, we had to say goodbye to them. But the time freedom
• 7:45
  allowed me to make amazing memories. And that's one of the
• 7:49
  really strong parts where mindfulness came in. Because I
• 7:53
  was able to look back on those memories, see all the wonderful
• 7:59
  things that happened for us during those two years. And it
• 8:04
  made it a lot easier to go through the hard time when they
• 8:06
  were done.
• 8:09
  Alan Carroll: It sounds like it was definitely an emotional
• 8:12
  roller coaster from contributing and being of service to
• 8:16
  connecting to somebody and then having that energy disappear.
• 8:20
  And that empty space that was left. That was a sadness that
• 8:26
  I'm sure there was sadness and loss and wasn't it wasn't a it
• 8:30
  wasn't a happy time.
• 8:33
  Unknown: It wasn't initially. But your shirt really says an
• 8:38
  important message there. I see on your shirt, I see stillness.
• 8:43
  And that was one of the things that I had to do. I had, I had
• 8:47
  to get quiet. And I had to look at what what the miracle was,
• 8:52
  for me what the amazing thing, what the gift was a came out of
• 8:57
  this sadness. And the gift came in the form of those memories.
• 9:02
  Those memories are what made it so much easier to move on to
• 9:07
  continue. And to be able to look back on that person at the
• 9:12
  person was my father. And I was able to I'm able to look back
• 9:15
  down and be able to remember with love and with happiness,
• 9:19
  all the good times that we had.
• 9:23
  Alan Carroll: And, and being present and being mindful, just
• 9:28
  made it made the transition even easier for you.
• 9:31
  Unknown: It definitely did. It definitely did. And the other
• 9:34
  thing that it made easier was accepting when dad was trying to
• 9:39
  tell us that it was time for him to go. Because what I really
• 9:45
  wanted there was there was this one day and and we'd had a big
• 9:48
  fight and dad looked at me and he said What do you want me to
• 9:51
  do? And what I really wanted to say was I want you to fight damn
• 9:55
  and I want you to stay because I'm not ready to lose you yet.
• 9:58
  When instead I took a breath I said, I want you to play
• 10:01
  cribbage with me. And he was he loved playing cribbage all his
• 10:05
  life, he played cribbage. And he said, Well, I guess I could
• 10:09
  probably do that. And we got out the cribbage board, and they sat
• 10:12
  for two hours, and they laughed. And we played cribbage. And
• 10:17
  true, he couldn't count quite as well as you used to. But he
• 10:21
  counted perfectly fine for what we were doing. And we had a good
• 10:25
  time. And I remember my sister walking in the back door and
• 10:27
  saying, so sound that I haven't heard in this house in a long
• 10:30
  while, as she walked into the kitchen and found us both
• 10:33
  sitting there laughing and playing our game. And two days
• 10:37
  after that, we said goodbye to him.
• 10:39
  Alan Carroll: Wow. I like the, the idea that your, your father
• 10:48
  asked you, what do you want me to do, and you had immediate
• 10:54
  voice was, you know, get better and fight and stay with me, I
• 10:59
  don't want to lose you. And so you had that voice on one side,
• 11:04
  which is more of an ego voice of, you know, identity and me
• 11:09
  and my well being not your well being. And then you then by that
• 11:15
  stillness, that taking the breath, you asked you said to
• 11:20
  yourself, is that the highest vibration I can create right now
• 11:25
  is that the most loving vibration that I can create
• 11:28
  right now for my father. And another thought came in
• 11:36
  cribbage. And, and that's, that's a memory that you have.
• 11:43
  That will it's a treasure. And most people I find are, are very
• 11:50
  quick to react to and believe in the egoic voice, rather than
• 11:58
  pause, take a breath and look at it for what's the highest thing
• 12:03
  that I can do for the well being of the person in front of me,
• 12:07
  which is also reflection of you. So when you do those kind acts
• 12:10
  of kindness for some other people, you're actually
• 12:14
  contributing to yourself, same time. Wow, that's quite as quite
• 12:20
  a story about the cribbage. It's very, very moving. So what's the
• 12:25
  this course you're talking about, you have a course coming
• 12:28
  up, what's it going to be for people.
• 12:31
  Unknown: So the course for people who either think they
• 12:36
  don't have enough leads, which, here's the secret.
• 12:41
  Alan Carroll: Here's the secret. So we got to go slow for
• 12:43
  secrets.
• 12:44
  Unknown: If you have one of these, you have lots of leads,
• 12:49
  Alan Carroll: I have one of those, I can see it sorted right
• 12:52
  here, it's right there,
• 12:53
  Unknown: you have one of those. So that's full of leads, what
• 12:58
  you really need is you need the formula, to be able to take
• 13:02
  those people out of your phone, out of your LinkedIn out of your
• 13:06
  Facebook, and have them become open to hearing what it is that
• 13:11
  you will have to offer. They're not necessarily going to be your
• 13:15
  customers. But they may become your best advocate who when they
• 13:20
  go to a networking event and hear somebody saying that they
• 13:24
  need help. They say Oh, you got to talk to Alan, you've got to
• 13:28
  talk to Brenda you need more leads, you want to build your
• 13:31
  business, you've got to talk to Brenda. So the course goes from
• 13:36
  going to live events and building relationships, then we
• 13:41
  look at this zoom environment because the Zoom environment is
• 13:45
  a little different. Some people make the mistake of trying to do
• 13:48
  exactly the same thing that they did when they were having
• 13:50
  coffee. So we look at that. And then we go into all the
• 13:53
  different kinds of social media and how you can build
• 13:56
  relationships there. Once we've established a foundation of
• 14:00
  building the relationships, then the next step is that we help
• 14:05
  people with that conversion process with taking the
• 14:08
  relationship and getting the person to be willing to listen
• 14:12
  to what you have to offer. But you have to still use that
• 14:17
  stillness, you have to be willing to accept. Some people
• 14:21
  will, some people won't. And that's okay. You can ask them
• 14:27
  again tomorrow. So that's all covered in the course it's 12
• 14:32
  weeks in length, and included with the course not only do you
• 14:36
  get my lead generation course, you also get 12 weeks of access
• 14:40
  to my biz leads community where I've partnered with a number of
• 14:44
  experts in many different areas who are helping you to make sure
• 14:49
  that you stay in business, no matter what Challenge gets
• 14:52
  thrown at you.
• 14:55
  Alan Carroll: That's that's that's wonderful. That's
• 14:59
  wonderful to be able to have a process that you could follow
• 15:04
  that will generate the phone numbers and the names of the
• 15:08
  leads. And then you want to reach out and connect with those
• 15:12
  people. So when you when you reach out, what would be some of
• 15:16
  the things that you would you would email text? How would you
• 15:23
  reach out to these, these these people on your LinkedIn account,
• 15:26
  so your Facebook accounts?
• 15:29
  Unknown: Well, when I go to a networking event, I listen to
• 15:34
  people sharing. And I pick out one or two people, I don't try
• 15:39
  and meet with the whole room, I pick out one or two people who
• 15:43
  are especially interesting to me. Then I go over to their
• 15:46
  LinkedIn profile. I follow them first I click follow. And then I
• 15:53
  send them a message saying I saw you, for example, I saw you at
• 15:57
  pod palooza. I really liked what you said, when you said and pick
• 16:02
  something specific that they said that attracted your
• 16:05
  attention. And then I say, Would you be willing to book a one to
• 16:10
  one? Most people, when you tell them that you'd like what they
• 16:16
  said, they're flattered. And they're gonna be willing to book
• 16:20
  that one to one because you're not saying, I want to sell you
• 16:24
  my coffee pot. You're not saying I have a coaching program that
• 16:28
  will solve all your problems. You're saying I liked what you
• 16:32
  said. So then when I meet with them, I talked to them about
• 16:36
  whatever that thing was. And I talked about two things. First
• 16:40
  thing I talk about is what are you really good at? What is like
• 16:44
  I loved when you said this thing, but what's your
• 16:47
  superpower? And after I talk about their superpower, then I
• 16:52
  asked them the question that most people don't like to
• 16:54
  answer. But if you've done a good job at being interested in
• 16:59
  them and listening, then when you ask them, What is your
• 17:05
  greatest challenge in your business right now? They may be
• 17:12
  a little reluctant at first to answer. But they'll probably
• 17:17
  tell you, they may ask you something like, Well, why are
• 17:20
  you asking? But they will probably tell you. If they feel
• 17:25
  that you're asking them so that you can sell them something,
• 17:29
  they're going to be more reluctant to answer that
• 17:31
  question. So I always say to them, I'm asking you what your
• 17:36
  greatest challenge is right now, because I do five to seven
• 17:39
  networking events a week. And I meet with two to five people
• 17:44
  every day. I asked them all the same two questions I just asked
• 17:49
  you. Would you rather look for the solution to your problem? Or
• 17:55
  would you like me to speed up the process for you? People
• 17:59
  answer the question. And if you can help them if you can
• 18:04
  actually give them a suggestion for their problem, then they
• 18:08
  want to know how they can help you. And that opens the door to
• 18:12
  being able to ask for what you need help with? Do you need more
• 18:16
  clients? Do you need more referrals? Do you want to know
• 18:20
  if they know anybody who wants to practice mindfulness? What
• 18:25
  are you looking for? Then you can ask for your help.
• 18:29
  Alan Carroll: Networking events? How do you find networking
• 18:36
  events?
• 18:37
  Unknown: So I have I have a I look on Eventbrite. And I pick
• 18:46
  events all over the world, really, because I'm building my
• 18:49
  business all over
• 18:50
  Alan Carroll: the world. So when you look at an event, what event
• 18:54
  then bright
• 18:55
  Unknown: is one of the first places I look?
• 18:57
  Alan Carroll: ber it a bright like light bright. Yeah. Okay.
• 19:02
  Unknown: And you can put in any subject that you're interested
• 19:06
  in. So for example, Alan, if you wanted to meet more people who
• 19:09
  are practicing mindfulness, absolutely. You could search
• 19:14
  mindfulness and then you would see the different kinds of
• 19:16
  events that are coming up. Now, one, here's another tip. Don't
• 19:23
  focus solely on the on the networking event on something
• 19:28
  that says networking. If there's something where someone is
• 19:33
  speaking, when you go to those events, watch what's happening
• 19:38
  in the chat. Because you can message people based on their
• 19:42
  comments in the chat. If they're engaging in whatever the subject
• 19:49
  is that you're interested in that you want to talk about
• 19:52
  more. You're gonna see that in the chat, then you can direct
• 19:56
  message them in most cases, you could do a direct message If you
• 20:00
  can't do direct message because they have that shut off, then I
• 20:04
  just go back to my trusty LinkedIn. And I send them a
• 20:08
  connection request through LinkedIn, I say I saw you at XYZ
• 20:12
  event, I'd really like to get to know you better. And there's one
• 20:16
  thing if you're going to say, I'd really like to get to know
• 20:19
  you better. Be prepared that in the event, you're going to
• 20:24
  listen twice as much as you're going to talk. You ask a
• 20:29
  question, listen for answers. ask the next question based on
• 20:34
  what they said. It needs to be more organic, it can't be. Well,
• 20:40
  it's not an interview. It's something organic, it has to
• 20:44
  flow from what they're saying. And that's how I build my
• 20:49
  relationships. There is a tool if I can, if I can share a tool
• 20:54
  a free totally,
• 20:55
  Alan Carroll: absolutely, we got another minute, so we can talk
• 20:57
  another minute.
• 20:58
  Unknown: Okay, this is a tool that's very, very useful when
• 21:01
  you're on LinkedIn, it's called my most trusted. It's a Chrome
• 21:09
  extension. If you run your LinkedIn on Chrome, you can
• 21:13
  download this extension, it doesn't harvest any information,
• 21:16
  it doesn't scrape or do anything like that, what you use it for,
• 21:21
  we all have content sort of LinkedIn that we've never ever
• 21:24
  met, they sent us a connection request. We thought it was a
• 21:27
  good idea we accepted but we've never met them. But then there
• 21:31
  are other people that we know very well. You put the people
• 21:34
  you know, well that you trust that you'd be willing to do
• 21:37
  introductions for, into my most trusted, you let them know that
• 21:43
  you've done it. So if you and I both install my most trusted,
• 21:47
  you can see everybody that I trust, I can see everybody that
• 21:52
  you trust. I can then say Alan, would you mind introducing me to
• 21:56
  Kimberly Crowe because I'd really like to talk to her about
• 22:00
  PATA palooza. And you can say to me, Brenda, would you mind
• 22:05
  introducing me to Jessica Koch, because I'd like to talk to her
• 22:08
  about being on her podcast.
• 22:13
  Alan Carroll: Brilliant. That's great. That's very, very
• 22:16
  practical, very useful. And it starts the ball rolling, by
• 22:22
  giving us some practical things to do, especially with LinkedIn,
• 22:26
  because LinkedIn is available to everybody. But one of the one of
• 22:29
  the challenges with LinkedIn is that it has like 10,000
• 22:32
  features. And so you're talking about one of the 10,000
• 22:35
  features, but we need people like you who can tell us oh, by
• 22:38
  the way, that little feature right there that might that most
• 22:41
  trusted piece. Take a look at that one. It was pretty good. So
• 22:45
  I appreciate I appreciate the tip. Very nice. To conclude to
• 22:49
  conclude, I like this too. If people want to connect with you,
• 22:52
  Brendan, where can they? Where can they go to connect with you?
• 22:58
  Unknown: LinkedIn is my favorite place. Where do you go? Come
• 23:01
  find me. I'm Brandon Marie Sheldrick on LinkedIn, you can
• 23:05
  send me a message and I'll be happy to sit down and do a one
• 23:08
  to one with you. Or I'm going to provide you with my calendar
• 23:12
  link. I'm happy with people just hopping on my calendar to ask
• 23:16
  questions.
• 23:18
  Alan Carroll: Wonderful. Well, thank you very much. Wonderful
• 23:21
  guests, lots of valuable information. I appreciate you
• 23:25
  taking the time to share your wisdom with our audience. It
• 23:28
  sounds wonderful. And I really liked the the idea of lead
• 23:32
  generation and how you can support people in generating
• 23:36
  more leads to build your business. So thank you very
• 23:40
  much.
• 23:41
  Unknown: Thank you.
• 23:42
  Alan Carroll: Bye bye for now.