The Power of Relationships in Lead Generation with Brenda Marie Sheldrake

FN Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Freedom Nation Podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves, get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Nation. It's Jeff here once again, and we are on one of our Podapalooza episodes, where we are a featured podcaster. And I have the joy of meeting Brenda Sheldrake today, Brenda is an expert in generating leads. So for those of you that are out there thinking about wanting to get out of your cubicle, and launch a business, or those of you that are business owners and are looking to expand your business or get into other areas, you need to listen because this lady knows how to generate leads for him. Brenda, welcome to the show.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: Thank you so much, Jeff, I'm really excited to be with you.

Glad to have you on. Let's get started by talking a little bit about your story had to get here today. Well,

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: I got the release from my prison was not exactly my choice. I was working for 13 years and a community health center thought I was on track to become a manager director gonna rule the world. And then the government said that we're cutting the funding to community health centers. And the center had to make a choice. Said do we cut programs or do we cut? And they had a wonderful title for it non essential staff?

Oh, thank you, that makes me even feel better.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: So I was 50 years old, and I was a non essential staff. And on a Friday afternoon, I found out that that was my last day there. Wow.

So you are not employed anymore? What what do you do now? You didn't you didn't have a choice in this matter. But what did you do next?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: Well, first, I cried. Okay. And that lasted about 20 minutes. And then I realized that was not going to be very productive for paying the bills or helping with anything else. I called my wonderful husband and told him that I am now unemployed. And he said, it'll be okay. And he will take care of it. That still wasn't a good enough answer for me because I wanted to be a contributing member of society. I wanted to help make our house go and I want to have a say and what we do and where we go. So I signed up with a temp agency. Yes, and that their set of those handcuffs only these ones were even worse because when you're a champ, they they just see you as as a number and you're replaceable every day. So was net job certainty at all. From there, that's what I discovered my entrepreneur started my entrepreneur journey, because temping just wasn't fulfilling. I got into financial services as my first entrepreneur gig. And I was helping adults and children with disabilities. Okay, interesting. I had an amazing product. But I had one challenge. My biggest challenge was when I tell people about it, they would say, No, we don't believe you know, the government ever told us about it. If it was real, they would tell us, so no, you're trying to scam us. You're trying to take our money. What was I gonna do? Yeah, that's a great thing. But I couldn't help people. I have this great passion for helping people. I met a man and he said, Stop trying to sell them your great thing and start building relationships with them. He was an introvert, but he taught me everything he knew. I took what he taught me. And then I added on my own experiences, and started generating leads I generated 3000 qualified leads in Wow, yeah.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So you're now successful in your this business? How did you shift gears to becoming the business leads expert?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: Well, wouldn't COVID hit? It was it was hard to do financial services. It wasn't impossible, but it was definitely challenging. Sure. And people were asking me, how did you get all those leads anyway, and when I realized that that was something people really wanted to know. I first started a community where I can help them that way, at a low cost because people had a tight budget. And I've now gone on and created a 12 week program called Lead Generation and conversion Made Easy. Nice.

I love this. So let's talk through some of the things that you teach as part of that.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: So it's all about relationship building, actually, it's really very simple. You got to build relationships. If you want to have leads that last and clients that stick then you have to build relationships. If you are satisfied with a business, that's ones and ones and ones, and you just keep rebuilding it over and over again, then do transactional. I have no problem with paid advertising, it just never worked. For me, it wasn't my thing. So I wanted to build those relationships, I wanted other people to sell for me. And I didn't necessarily want to create complicated affiliate programs. So I wanted raving fans. And when I built relationships and expressed interest in people, they became raving fans.

Nice. So let's talk a little bit about that. How did you how do you kind of build relationships with, I'm assuming you're building relationships so that they're referring business to you.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: They either refer business to me, or they want to buy what I'm selling. Because some people want what I'm selling. Some people want to refer business to me, the first witness they do it is I meet with people. And here's this is one of the first tips that I was taught, you have to ask them about what they're really good at, because they love talking about that. And once you've got them comfortable by talking about what they love to do, and what they're really good at, then you can ask them what their biggest challenge in their businesses offer solutions to those things, and you're gonna be their greatest hero. Sure. That's what I'd built into my community is the solutions. I'm the expert on leads. But I've partnered with amazing people who can solve all the other challenges. So you offer people challenges, offer people solutions to their challenges, and they want to talk to you more.

I love this. I love it. So talk a little bit about your program. So you offer this 12 week program, what's the what's the intent of that program? Is that to build them into customers for you long run? Or is it to kind of let them DIY it and do it themselves.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: And now what I'm doing with them is I'm helping them to develop the system to generate their own leads. I don't offer data for you. I don't I want because when if it your needs for you, those are gonna cold leads you anyway. It's not going to be a relationship that had the relationship with me. Yeah. So I teach. We look at all different kinds of relationship building, we start with the easy stuff in person events. Then we talk about the difference between Emerson and Zoo. And from there we go to all the different social media because you can build relationships on social media too.

Sure, why and and you have more reach across the world. At that point, you're only limited to your amount of time. And you know, there is no limit really.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: It's funny that you say that because when COVID hit, I said, I've always wanted to go to Australia, What a find clients in Australia so you can visit those expense, the business. I knew one person in Australia when I made that my goal. And by the time I was done, I was hosting one event every month for Australians. Well, about two months

And Australians love people from North America period. So it's and rightfully so they the same way I was I was interviewing the guy on the podcast a couple days ago, and he's from Australia. And I said, you know, I'm from Texas, mean Australians are just Texans with a funny accent. Yeah, I think you're right. Yep. So what's new in your world, anything new that you're launching or want to share with our audience?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: Well, the lead generation and conversion course has been revamped and added more pieces to it. And in the middle of September that courses launching masterclasses are always going on. So anytime anybody has a challenge anywhere in their business, they need to connect with me before they quit.

I love it. I love it. Well, let's switch gears now and talk about the Fast Five questions. You Ready? Ready? All right, so question number one. You wake up in the morning business is completely gone. You have 500 bucks in your pocket laptop computer, a place to live food and clothing. What are you going to do first?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: I'm gonna hook up that computer. I'm gonna go to a networking event. And I'm gonna start all over again.

I love it and just follow your system, right? Second question, what's your biggest business mistake you've ever made?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: That not trusting my instinct when it came to the things that I was buying? I was a bright shiny object buyer when I first started in business and it incurred a lot of debt. It's,

I think we've all done that because there's this also, there's just so many wonderful, bright shiny objects out there and, and it's only four or 500 bucks here and four or 500 bucks there. Yeah. What's a good book that you'd recommend for our audience?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: I've got it right here. The Flamingo business planner. It goes with the flamingo biz book. This is for people who are fake faced entrepreneurs who want to take their business to the next level. I love that particular faith.

It's so Flamingo business planner. Yes. I have never heard that one. Do you have the distinction of stumping me? Usually I know, I know most of the books and that is that one stumps me. I'm not I've never heard of it. So I love it

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: II corner is the author. And she has a young lady, who is a youth who did all the graphics in the book. Okay,

I love this. All right, what's a tool that you use in your business every day that you might recommend? Ah,

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: You want to build relationships on LinkedIn, you want to get the Chrome extension, my most trusted, there is a free version, the people who needed it have committed to make it free forever. It's easy to use. But if you're not sure about what to do with it, once you install it, basically, what you're gonna do is you're classifying the people on your LinkedIn as either people I've met and no, I'm gonna refer to you for people I've never met before. Okay, the people into my most trusted who you know, and you've met and you trust, okay, when they install the app, it makes it easier for you to get new introductions, because you can see everybody that they trust. So if I add you, Jeff, then I can see everybody you trust. You can see everybody I trust. We can do deductions to each other's trusted networks.

That is awesome. I have never heard of that one. I, I thought I was pretty good. I'm on LinkedIn that that is phenomenal. I've never heard of that.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: That was created by someone from Australia actual area. Hey,

That is awesome. That is a cool, cool, cool tool. Because, yeah, I mean, there's so many people you go through and you're like, I mean, I must get hit up probably 14 times a week of people I've never even heard of, you know, no connection. So I'm already kind of weary about that. But I know I've probably got 1000s of connections that I've never I no clue who these people are.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: So when I when somebody messages me and asked to be connected with me, or that they want me to connect with someone, the first thing I say is, Can we jump on an even a 15 minute zoom just so I can know a little bit more about you? Before I add you into my world?

I like that. I like that a lot. Okay, last question for you. What is your definition of freedom?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: My definition of freedom. It is time freedom. I had I developed this over the last two years, it was the ability when I got a phone call saying you're needed, can you come I was able to pack up my computer, take my business with me and still be able to go and help. And I created two years of beautiful memories before I had to say goodbye to someone I love very much.

That is genius. That is so good. It's absolutely true. I mean and location, freedom, your ability to to go where you want and still continue to run your business at that point. So that is phenomenal. You don't get that from a gob. That's for sure.

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: No one. So one thing I said about that was that I had a friend at the same time who was going through a similar situation and was still in the job. Okay, you asked her boss for time off. And the boss said yes. But before her father passed away, the boss was calling her and saying you gotta make a decision. I gotta run my business, you got to either come back to work, or else I have to let you go. Yeah, it's a horrible place to be. And no one should have to make that decision.

Absolutely not. Well, Brenda, if somebody wants to get a little bit more information about you, and your programs and all that what's the best place to get that?

Brenda Marie Sheldrake: Find me on LinkedIn, Brenda Marie Sheldrake, send me a message or that's, that's probably the best way I've got a calendar link as well, for people who just want to jump on my calendar if they have questions.

Perfect. Fantastic. Well, we'll put that in the show notes. So anybody that wants that can grab that. But her LinkedIn connection in there, so that you can find her easily. So Brenda, thank you so much for being on the show today. I truly appreciate it. It was phenomenal. And folks, we do these shows twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you've listened to this today, and this resonated with you, give us a thumbs up or click on that five star or something like that. So we know you exist out there. And make sure you subscribe to the show. And share this with somebody if this resonates with you. It probably resonates with someone else. So share it with your crew as well. So thank you. We'll see you guys back here the very next time.

FN Intro/Outro: Thank you for listening to the Freedom Nation podcast. You can find us on Apple podcasts and all the major channels wherever you're listening. Please subscribe to the channel and leave a rating and review if you have friends and family They could benefit from their own freedom day please share with them finally join freedom nation by following us on facebook instagram and twitter