Building Business Relationships: Lead Generation Secrets with Brenda Marie Sheldrake

Welcome to the guy who knows the guy podcast.

I'm your host, Michael Whitehouse, the guy who knows the guy himself.

And we are recording live to tape at Potapalooza number 15 over

the past five years, I've had the privilege of meeting and learning

from thousands of entrepreneurs, experts, and awesome people.

And now I lever that leverage that knowledge to help my clients cut

through the junk and focus on just what they need to achieve their goals.

And I'm excited to introduce our next guest, Brenda Marie Sheldrake.

So I had a gap in my schedule.

I thought I had a guest and I didn't mostly because my last

one ran long and I got back in and I said, I don't have a guest.

And Brenda's like me, me, me, get me in there.

So I am excited to have her here and I think she's excited to be here.

So this is going to be exciting.

Brenda tells me she's a lead generation strategist who helps entrepreneurs

build relationships for business.

I do like the word relationships in business.

So Brenda, tell us a bit about yourself and what makes you awesome.

Thank you so much.

So I. I, I believe that my, my key to my awesomeness is in my ability to listen to

people, to detect what is awesome about them, to point them to other people, that

they can help with their awesomeness.

But second to that, I also have.

The secret ability to get people to feel confident enough to share what their

biggest challenge is with me so that I can also share with them the people who

can help them solve that problem, saving them endless hours and days and sometimes

money searching for the right person.

Fantastic.

Yeah, that, that is key getting people to admit what their challenge is and

then listening to it, listening to it.

I ran a summit recently where I had someone who was, um, a bit of a one

trick pony, and for every question, he had the same set of answers.

And whether it was a mindset question or is the delivery question, you

know, he was just in the, in the sales space and it was just sales answers.

All he had was sales answers and not everything, you know,

not everything's a nail.

So, um, yeah, and so I like, you know, you pay attention to what they need

and help them find that solution and then be able to share what they do.

Um, so I, so when you talk about, you know, lead generation

strategist, what does that include?

What do you help people do?

So it's, for me, it's about qualified leads.

There are lots of people, you know, those messages that you get on

LinkedIn, Michael, where somebody messages you and says, I can get you

200 leads by the end of the year.

I can get you a thousand leads by the end of the month.

Sometimes they're that backwards, a thousand leads by the end of the month.

And you're going, I don't think so.

Here's a phone book.

And that's the thing.

That's what they give you.

They give you just anybody and everybody.

It's like, I love the concept of BNI.

I love the idea of connecting people with people.

My challenge is when you show up at BNI and you don't have anybody to

introduce anybody to, and the host goes around the room and says, okay,

who are your introductions this week?

And you go, um, um, Michael, you got to meet my neighbor.

And even worse.

When we hand them that little piece of paper that's got their

neighbor's name and telephone number on it and says, it's okay.

You can tell them that I sent you because for me, that's not an introduction that

that's not even keen to an introduction because can't I just open up your LinkedIn

and look at the people you're connected to and say, Michael told me to call.

But what's the next thing that the person does if they're the least bit smart?

They're gonna reach out to you, Michael, and say, Michael, this

girl is on my LinkedIn and she says you told me to call her.

Did you really tell me to call her?

And when you say, no, I didn't connect you to, they're never

going to take my call ever again.

Yep.

So how do you help people get qualified leads?

So qualified leads, I believe, come from introductions and referrals

as one of the strongest sources.

So I have, I have courses, I have coaching and I have a

community and I have free tips.

I have lots of things that you can do for free.

I have, I have one of them.

If we have time, I'll share it here, but I have, I have lots of

ways that you connect with people.

One of the most important things that I advise everyone is, no matter how good

your solution is, No matter how good your courses, how good your coaching

program is, that's not what you want to lead with on that 1st introduction call.

Anyway, I think that's 1 of the most important things

because people want to know.

I want to know that you're interested in me before you hammer me with

a solution because I'm wondering.

What makes you think I need that solution?

Yeah, that's definitely, that's, that's a powerful thing.

If you can identify someone's problem, they'll believe you have the solution.

If you leave the solutions, they don't, they're like, I

don't know if that's for me.

election, I saw that, um, because one of the things I noticed was that Trump

was talking about people's problems and Harris talking about solutions.

And so he's talking about like, don't you feel the prices are too high?

Don't you feel, you know, inflation's too high?

Aren't you worried about this?

Aren't you worried about that?

And people are like, yeah, yeah, he gets me.

He knows my problems.

And meanwhile, you know, Harris was like, well, here's a solution for housing.

And here's a solution for inflation.

Here's a solution.

And they're like, I don't know what she's talking about with these grants.

And I don't get it because she was speaking three steps down the road.

On these solutions but wasn't actually talking to them where they were right

now And I I think that was certainly that's obviously a lot goes into

politics and elections and whatnot But I think that was certainly part of what

we're seeing is that he was speaking people's language He's like you have

this problem And then even later he with some of the problems, he said, Oh

yeah, that's a very complicated problem.

I don't have a solution for it.

I have some ideas, but you know, I don't have a solution.

It's a very complicated problem, but no one actually asked, What's your solution?

They just said, Yeah, yeah, that's my problem.

Yeah, I get it.

So we're seeing

that I, I 100 percent agree.

We're seeing that in Canada too right now.

Um, and it's the same thing.

Like, I'm, I'm, I stay away from politics as much as possible as far

as I can get, but it's the same thing.

We got one party that's saying, If you have a problem, the big problem,

you can't get into Toronto, into downtown Toronto right now, because

it takes you four and a half hours because the highway infrastructure.

So, I've identified your pain point.

Everybody who has to go to work in downtown Toronto feels that

pain and they're doing it with a lot of other issues as well.

If you, if you, if you can't, if you have to drive for 2 hours before

you can get to a park or see any green space, we know your problem.

We know that they're, they're Building condos on all the green space.

Okay.

So, you know what my pain is, but they're not, those people are the ones that

people are doing, Oh, I gotta, I gotta elect that person because they know

what my pain is, but you're so right.

A lot of times they don't have a solution.

Yeah, but and so, you know, but this, which is not to say that you should

talk to talk about people's problems without having a solution and just pitch.

No, but it does tell you about the power of just having speaking

to people's problems before you start talking about a smart you

and how great your solutions are.

So,

and when it comes to referrals.

You don't so I don't necessarily personally have the solution to every

person's pain, but I've heard people share with me a lot of different pains.

And so when they asked me, well, what's the solution?

I don't always say, well, you need to do this, but I am.

I'm not afraid to say, you know what?

It's outside the scope of what I can do, but you need to talk to Michael Whitehouse

because he can solve that problem.

You need to talk to this person because they've already, I've

heard them share options for that.

So you can help people in that way as well.

Because one of the things that I do when I'm looking for people on LinkedIn that

I want to connect with, I'm not looking directly for people who want help with

their LinkedIn for relationship building.

But what I'm looking for is other people who help people with LinkedIn.

Now, are you a LinkedIn coach?

Are you, are you a business coach?

Because if you're a business coach, you probably want your clients

to have a LinkedIn presence.

I believe all entrepreneurs should have a LinkedIn presence.

So if I then build, if you're a marketing person, a LinkedIn

presence is a good idea.

So I build relationships with the marketing people, with the coaches.

And then when I'm asking for introductions, because I believe

in, in a world of abundance, so.

There's lots of people.

When I say to you, Michael, have you met anybody as you've been

going through your travels that when you looked at their LinkedIn,

they had that LinkedIn gray banner?

And I'm pretty sure that you could tell me, yes, that you've met a couple

people who had the LinkedIn gray banner.

My memory tends to block them out because they're so But yes, I do encounter them.

So then I would say, well, if there's any of them that you can still think of or

as you're going through your next set of calls, I would love to meet them because.

I think that before you can help them with their marketing, I need

to spruce up their LinkedIn a little bit for relationship building.

Yeah, that's, that's a great, uh, great, and actually the ones that

jump out at me more get to slightly sidetracking the LinkedIn for a second.

Is it like the great banner I can deal with if they've got, you know, proper

profile picture and they got some content and it looks like a real account, but

the ones that, that really turned me off.

Are there ones where they are pitching from the top of the page?

So where it's like join my webinar and six weeks to six figures and blah blah blah

Are they I had some way I get all kinds of cold friend requests on facebook and I

accept half of them I'm looking for one.

Are they a real live human being?

Um, or are they like a scammer or a bot which is half the friend requests?

um, but also do I think this is actually someone who's like a

real person or is this a Is this Facebook account a pitch machine?

Um, and if there's a like join my webinar link in their 20 word bio i'm usually

going to reject it because okay, you're just here to pitch me So either you're

trying to pitch me here or i'm going to accept this you're going to send me

a message You're going to pitch me I don't want to deal with that and And

so, you know if it's all about like buy my stuff buy my stuff buy my stuff

I don't want to introduce that person.

I don't want to talk to that person.

I don't want to know that person It's a it's a huge turnoff.

I don't know for years.

They're the Experts we're telling everyone.

Oh, yeah, have your offer there.

Let people know you're in business, you know, put up the open sign and

We're getting you know getting away from that and that thing And so

if you're watching and that's your LinkedIn, you should change it.

What are your thoughts?

I agree with you 100 percent that one of the things I was saying on my

last interview that I had just a few minutes ago was about the idea of,

of artificial intelligence, right?

Everybody's using artificial intelligence to make their profiles

better, to improve their profiles.

I think artificial intelligence is a wonderful thing and there

are great ways to use it.

Talk to somebody who's a pro at it and they're going to be able

to help you with how to use it.

But I think before you decide which pro, because there's lots of

people, what's, what's one of the biggest things out there right now?

People who are artificial intelligence experts.

So before you decide which expert to work with, what Michael was saying

right now is really, really key.

Go look at their LinkedIn.

Go see if their banner says, join my group, take my

course, do buy this, buy that.

If they're, if that's what's top of their profile, then you probably don't want to

learn from them unless you want to learn to be like that, because what you see them

doing is probably what they're teaching.

Another thing that I don't really like, and you just mentioned

it in passing there, but it's really strong pet peeve to me.

If, if you install a bot and the bot is crawling people's profiles,

looking for keywords and then sending connection requests and messages.

Mm hmm.

I'm going to figure out I'm talking to a bot pretty quick.

Yeah, maybe you programmed a few key things into it that it's going to

answer properly a few times, but at some point I'm going to ask something

or I'm going to say something.

It's going to say something back that totally doesn't make sense, and I'm going

to go, yep, this is a bot, and that's the end of our relationship building for me.

Uh, yeah, so if, uh, If it's not you, it shouldn't be speaking

from your messenger account.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When, when VA has tried to sell me on the idea that they can book my appointments

and that they can respond to my messages, you cannot exactly what you just said.

You can't a stranger.

I mean, like me saying, Michael, can you respond to my,

my LinkedIn messages for me?

Well, you're going to do as good a job as the VA can do.

And if you're using an AI tool, I don't believe that it matters how good

you make your custom instructions,

they're

still not going to be you.

Absolutely.

And I'm going to ask a question that they're not going to be able to answer.

Yeah, and I've had, you know, networking relationships ruined because I couldn't

communicate with them because I'd try to message them and I'd get their VA. And,

uh, I haven't gotten that too much with bots, but, you know, I'd get their VA

and I'd be like, Okay, who am I It's like dealing with a crazy person, you know.

Okay, who am I speaking to now?

Am I speaking to Brenda or am I speaking to Susan?

Yep.

I know

it looks like Brenda, but am I really speaking to Brenda right

now?

Absolutely.

Do we have a minute for me to share about a free tool that will help you

build relationships though, Michael?

We

absolutely do, because everyone's been waiting, and if we don't do it,

they'll be like, dude, what the heck?

Okay.

Promise free tools.

Let's give the free tool.

Give the people what they want.

The free tool is called My Most Trusted.

Now, I want to be fully transparent.

You can find My Most Trusted by going on LinkedIn and just putting

in a search for My Most Trusted.

I know the founder and creator personally myself.

We have met in person.

He lives in Australia, but he's been here to Canada and we've met

together and sat together and talked.

We know each other.

I've been using the tool since it was created.

Now, when it was originally created, the plan was to have a basic level

that you could use for free forever.

Unfortunately, that's not the case at this point.

Because he's continued to make it better and better, and it costs

him more and more to run it.

So he eventually starts to charge you.

But what he has done that is remarkably generous is he's created a number of

white label versions, and I happen to be able to share with you links

to several of those white label versions that are free forever.

Not just temporarily, but forever.

So you're welcome to go ahead and install MyMouseTrusted.

You can go on YouTube and get videos to teach you how to use

it, or you can reach out to me.

I'll give you information on how to get one of the free versions, and then

I'll also help you with how to use it.

And that's all under the realm of free.

And how do they reach out to you?

Please connect with me on LinkedIn, my favorite platform.

Send me a message, Brenda Marie Sheldrake.

Say that you heard about this on Michael's Guy Who Knows A Guy podcast,

and I will be happy to help you.

Fantastic.

All right.

Well, that is a great tip.

And any other final thoughts you would like to share in our last few minutes?

I think my most important final thought is be willing to listen more than you

talk when you book your one to ones.

You can't find the solution if you don't hear the problem.

Absolutely.

That is a great tip.

Love that.

So thank you so much for being on the show.

I'm glad you leaped in and be like, I'm coming in this room.

Great to have the chance to talk to you.

And, um, thanks for being a fan.

Cause he said, you've been in some of my summits and been in my universe.

So great to have you on the show.

Thank you.

Thank you.