On this episode of BEP Talks, I sat down with Brenda Marie Sheldrake to uncover the real connection between lead generation and legacy. It’s not just about collecting contacts—it’s about building authentic relationships with people who share your values, and creating a reputation that stands the test of time. We explored how your everyday actions and kindness can shape the legacy you leave, both in business and in life. Want to build a business and life people remember for the right reasons? Start with genuine connections.

How are you building your legacy, both in business and in life? Let’s continue building meaningful legacies and supporting each other in business and beyond.

Join the Building Better Business Relationships community on Facebook (free level: “No Entrepreneur Left Behind”) https://www.facebook.com/groups/buildingbetterbusinessrelationships

Connect with Brenda on LinkedIn — she welcomes your messages!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenda-marie-sheldrake-lead-generation/

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Well, hey there, and welcome to this edition of BEV Talks, where

wonderful, generous people come to share their stories, to share their

beliefs, their experiences and their passions. So

to inspire you, motivate

you, educate you. Pardon me. And sometimes just

to entertain you. No exception today.

My guest today is Brenda Marie Sheldrake.

And we have some very important things to talk about. Would you please join me

on the BEP Talk stage? There she is.

I am so sorry.

Nothing like live tv. Nothing like live tv. But

you know what? That's part of what BEP Talks is. It's just authentic. It's just

two gals sitting down here chatting. So welcome, Brenda. Thank you so

much for joining me here on the BEP Talks stage.

Thank you, Beth. I'm happy to be here. My absolute pleasure.

When I heard that it was going to be my pleasure to meet you

because this is the first time we're meeting and to share a BEP Talk

conversation slash interview with you, I was very curious

because I came to realize that

lead generation was attached to you. And when I think of lead

generation, I think of a very important component. Component of the overall sales

system and the marketing. Very, very important.

A key part of building a business. And then I heard

about you as building legacy through

relationships. Would you please tell

me and our audience how those two things jive?

Well, it's actually, it's. It's really very

simple if you understand the way that I generate

leads, because, number one, I don't do a done

for you service. I don't have a done for you service. I

teach entrepreneurs to generate their own leads. And what I'm

teaching them how to do is I'm teaching them how to get referrals and

introductions to their qualified candidates to people

that they want to meet so that they never have to

cold call again. So really, it's about building the

relationships you want that'll take your business to the next level, which is

also what legacy is. I love that. Now you

said that. It's like, hello, it makes so much sense. So it's

combining two sides, if you will. Same

coin. Two sides, but one coin.

You have stressed to me for two seconds before

we went live here that you do it through building

relationships. So important, so important.

How do you use the power

of building strengthening relationships

to grow both your business and to create

a legacy which can be made through your business,

but also through your personal life. How do they intersect?

Well, I did a talk recently on a summit on legacy,

and I asked a question, and I think the question that I Asked will kind

of answer this question, because the question I

asked was, if someone says your

name in a room and you're not there,

what will other people say?

That is your legacy. And if you are an entrepreneur,

you want to be confident that people are going to be recommending and saying

positive things about you. If they're not recommending your business,

at the very least, they're saying that you're un honest, dependable,

punctual, that you deliver

quality, those kind of things. That's legacy. But

it's also what you need in order to succeed in business.

Absolutely. You know, I've heard the word legacy a lot

lately, and it seems that we're having

maybe a little bit of a change in what it means. And you've just kind

of expressed that legacy is not about, you know, that someone did a

documentary 100 years after you died or that you're

written in history books and that you're part of this main, main

role that you played historically for the world.

We all have a legacy. We all have the

right to somewhat control it,

to build it, to determine what we want our legacy to

be. Is that what I'm hearing? Absolutely, I

believe so. When I was first invited to be part of the Legacy

summit, I couldn't figure out, kind of

like you were saying, I'm like, I'm a lead generation

strategist, why did they want me on a legacy summit? And then I

went even further and, and, and I'm going to tell a secret here.

I looked at it and I was like, I'm not rich.

I don't have a legacy to leave. I'm not leaving

a legacy behind. I'm going to be one of those people who

just flip flew through life. But I don't

have a legacy. And so I was, I was thinking about it, I was thinking

about it, I was like, okay, so, so what is, what is

legacy? And what I landed on

was I started thinking about my dad.

And my dad passed away about three years ago.

But I, I, in the summit that I talked on, I shared the story of

my dad. My dad was an electrician, a general

contractor in a small company in a small

town. Never had a great big

pension, never had a great big, there were, there was nothing

huge about him. He was small, he was five feet tall and

he, he didn't work for one of the big companies

that did any of the big name things.

But when I finished the summit talk, one of the things

that I said was, if you go to Smithville,

Ontario right now, which probably many of your listeners don't even know

where that is. And if you do, hello, friends. I miss you.

If you go to Smithville and you ask

where's the house that Bob Sheldrake built?

He's been gone for three years. People are going to be able to point you

to that house. He left a legacy.

His name is his legacy.

And I think that's all you can be left with sometimes.

Yes. And legacies can be negative as well.

I mean, it's the reputation you leave behind. Is that kind of the

easiest way to define legacy? Absolutely.

Reputation you leave behind. So you are part of his legacy,

though. I am. You are. You absolutely are. You

mentioned your dad. My dad has gone many, many years, more than

three. But I cannot go any, anywhere back

to my hometown that people around

my age, a half a generation

older and a full generation younger

will not walk up to me and talk about my dad.

Exactly. Everywhere he ran the sports program,

he got kids into colleges, college

scholarships. He got kids out of jail, and he kept kids out

of jail. He got athletes to the NBA.

He contributed to the lives of so many

people in addition to his own six children.

And that brings such joy to my heart. And he is

mentioned in books, by the way. He is mentioned in books. So it

doesn't have to be as grand as that. We all

will leave a legacy, whether we think we are or we aren't.

We will. We will. So

let's go back to lead generation and

legacy. From a business

person's perspective,

how do we create those relationships

through business

that will create legacy that, that keep our reputation

alive? How do we, how do we seek to do that?

Well, I think. I think the first thing you have to do is you

have to focus on

building relationships with the kinds of

people that share your mission,

values, vision. There it is. They don't have to be in

the same business as you, but if they don't share your mission, values and

vision, then you're probably going to be banging up against each other

quite often. Right. But if you parallel, if you're

congruent, then when they mention the

other person's name, they're going to mention yours alongside it.

Right, right, right. So

saying you don't get to choose your family, but you can choose your friends, you

can also choose your business partners, those with whom you

want to have a business relationship. I'm going to go

back to my dad for a second because he always taught us as we were

growing up, you know, choose your friends wisely because you are only as

good as the company you keep. And we

all, we all know that, you know, always make good decisions. So when

you're choosing business partners,

people with whom you want to do business leads, people that you want to have

as customers, as clients, you get to choose them, don't

you? You get to say, I do want to do business with you for you,

but I don't have to. I get to choose.

And I think, I think that's really important distinction

because sometimes we let our bank

account do the choosing for us.

And I'm not saying that, that you

ignore your bank account when you're picking clients or that

if somebody comes along who's got a big deal for you that you're going to

turn them down. But honestly, if

I'm being very truthful and genuine with you, if someone

came along and they had a million dollars

and they said to me, I want you to do xyz,

and I didn't agree with whatever XYZ was

or the business that they were in,

I didn't feel good about attaching my name to it.

I'd turn down the million dollars because it's not worth

the million dollars. You can,

as. As crazy as this sounds, you can make more money,

but you're going to have to work awfully hard to repair your name if

it gets damaged. If you ever could. Yes,

yes. Once you. What would be the right word?

Once you lose that trust, ability,

that accountability that people don't want

to. I don't know that you can gain it back. It's like in any

relationship, you might be able to

gain it back somewhat superficially, but I think deep down

it's still rooted. You don't forget. You don't forget. I agree with you.

The shadow is always there. Who is it? Who is that woman?

She was a really big name on

television and everything, but then she got arrested for.

She was. It was associated or accused of, like, embezzling.

Actually, I think there were several of those people.

But. But it. So it happened. And

then people said, oh, no. Well, she got out of

jail. She got released from jail.

She got good lawyers. The good lawyers defended her and she got out of jail.

But that doesn't mean it goes away. Like, if I,

if I said her name, you would go, oh, yes.

And. And I think we can. You don't have to just think on a

movie star level of that. I think there are people.

There are people in our community, there are people in our neighborhood. There

are people in our world who will come across

us. We'll cross our path, but we're just as happy that they keep

walking. They're not somebody that we want to.

To hook up with or to hook ourselves to

be associated with. Right, right. You know, that

is so true. You've just said a couple of. I got to tell you, there

are several people that I'm thinking, oh, it could be that one or it could

be this one. I don't want to mention any names because I don't want to

disparage anybody, but. But we've all heard those stories

and there are many of them. There are many of them. And I do believe

in redemption. I do believe in contrition. But

you can't change the past. You can

change, but you'll remember the past.

You can choose a new path, but the past will always be

there. The rear view mirror will always be there.

So how do you work with people from the lead generation

perspective, which business owners

always need to find new clients, always need to know

where to try to find and build those new

relationships, to grow a business, to scale a business.

What role can you play for those people?

So I have a newer slogan that I'm using

these days that I use with people slogan is

this. Entrepreneurs say all the time that they believe that

they have a lead generation problem, that they need more leads.

But when you really take a close look,

if you open up your telephone book, if you open up your

Rolodex, if you open up your cell phone, if you

look at your contact list in your CRM, you

have lots of leads. What you really

need is to work on your relationship

building system. Because when you

get those people to know you and

know what you do, know what's important to you, know what you stand

for. So that when they're talking to somebody else,

they say, oh, you've got to talk to Beth,

because Beth can help you in this way. Right,

right. And that goes back to your legacy. So now I'm

seeing the bridge between the two. And you know one of my

favorite sayings, Maya Angelou, people don't care how much you know until they know how

much you care. That's very much part of

the, I'll call it the art, but a skill

set of building a relationship but doing it authentically

because otherwise, you know, eventually you'll put a pin in that balloon

and it'll just go away. So we have different

relationships through life. There's another saying, you have friends even

for a reason, a season or for a lifetime.

That's not to say that we abused a relationship or misused

a relationship. We Served its purpose,

we met its goal, and then we moved on. Is that. Is

that fair to say? I think that's very fair to say.

I don't think that when we pick out people, we say, okay, I'm going to

be your friend for a month, or, I'm going to be a friend for a

year. No, no. There was. There was a

lady. Many years ago, I met

a woman, and I always hope when I do

podcasts and when I talk about her, I hope that somewhere out there, she's out

there. And I'm not saying her name, but there was this

lady, and I met her at a very

sensitive time in my life. My mom had just passed away. I was

missing her terribly, was so, so heartbroken.

And this woman came along, and she went with me to

some events that I wanted to go to. I was going to. I

was looking for something to believe in, something to carry me a message.

And I. What I hooked myself to was those people who

channel messages from people who have passed.

And I went to an event where there was a woman who said that

she, with the help of her spirit guide, carried messages

from people who had passed. And I went check it out and

see what it was like. And we went together. And

this. This lady, she went with me because I was afraid to go alone.

And I didn't get a message that night. But

what I did get was I. I started to build this really

strong cemented relationship with this lady. That

relationship lasted for about a year, and

then we just kind of grew apart for a lot of different reasons.

And today, I don't know where she is, but I hope that if she

hears this podcast, that she knows how much of a difference

she made in my life at that time. Oh,

so receive that message, whoever you are out there. And you know what? There might

be many people who that message can serve, maybe not

necessarily through their relationship with you,

Brenda, but in a relationship with another person,

that we cross paths for a reason, even if

it's just in passing. You

know what I say to people.

People have said, observed about me, Beth, people are always

smiling at you. And I'm like, oh.

I became aware of that. I became aware of it

that when people are smiling at me, I am

thinking of my mother, who kind of had a Mona Lisa

expression. It was always pleasant. It was never

intrusive. It was never, like, out there. But

I realized I'm kind of feeling her spirit and must be wearing that

expression and sharing it with somebody else.

And I'm thinking, could there be an easier way to have

a momentary relationship in the life of. Of another person.

And was with one of my brothers,

and we were in a big store, and he said to me, do you talk

to everybody? And I said, you know what? If our eyes connect, I

try to, because, I don't know, the last time, maybe someone

was kind to that person. And in that moment,

I have a gift to give. They

can receive it or not, but it

takes nothing to do that. It costs you nothing, and

you get so much back. So maybe part

of our legacy can be anonymous.

You were just that woman, just that guy,

just that child at some place or time

that made another person feel better about

themselves, their life in that moment.

Am I oversimplifying this? No, you're not.

In fact, there's a. There's a.

I belong to a group for quite a while called the Happy Neighborhood

Project. And the person who started

the Happy Neighborhood Project, his

idea, his mission, it started when the

economy. When the market crashed the first time. And

his mission was to. To. To bring some happiness. To.

To bring back some happiness to. To people in general. And

he used to stop people on the street and he would say to them, what

does. Can I ask you a question? What does happiness mean to you?

And he stopped a young man one day and he said to him, can I

ask you a question? What does happiness mean to you? And the young

man said, I'm in an awful hurry. I have to go.

And. And he said, but could you just take 2 seconds and answer

that question? And the young man said, no, I have to go. And he asked

one more time, and he still didn't get an answer. And I'm going to shorten

the story because I know we're running short on time. The

young man saw that man who had asked him the question

days later, and he said, I

want to thank you. I was in an awful hurry to

go and jump off a bridge.

I was on the way to kill myself when

you stopped me. And your question

changed my thoughts enough

that I didn't do it. Now, if he had

never seen that young man again, he would never have known that he made that

big a difference in someone's life. So you never know

when you say, have a nice day, or how are you today? And

you listen to their answer. You never know how much of a

difference you made for someone or didn't make or didn't

make. And if somebody snaps at, you,

remember something, somebody,

maybe somebody just stomped on their toe just before you came along.

You know, you never know what just their last

Conversation. This conversation.

I'm loving it. We need to talk again. It's gone in a

direction that I wasn't really thinking it might, but things

happen for reasons. And I just want to say to the audience,

we've shared two sides here. Brenda Marie Sheldrake

brings so much to the table through her own experiences and through

business and through personal experience.

And take the time, share a smile,

create a legacy. People may

never know your name, why you crossed

paths, but you did and you

had an opportunity to be of value and service to

them. Don't pass up the opportunity. Trust me.

It's a gift you give that person, but the real gift

is the one you give yourself.

Brenda Marie, we have to talk again. There's so much more to uncover here. Lots

more layers to peel. I thank you so much for being

my guest on BEP Talks, for sharing personal

experiences. More than just, well, part of your story, bringing

your dad into the story, which allowed me to bring my dad. I am so

grateful to you for that. And I want people to get in touch with

you. Where are they going to get in touch with you? So I

have the building Better Business Relationships community on Facebook.

There is a free level available to anyone with the

tagline no entrepreneur left behind. Or best of

all, connect with me on LinkedIn. Brendan Marie Sheldrake. I'm

always take everybody's message and I'm always

happy to book a call with you. Look for my message on LinkedIn. My

friend, thank you. You have a blessed day. And to all

of our listeners and viewers, thank you. You need to be in touch

with a wonderful person like Brenda Marie Sheldrake

and don't pass up the opportunity

to be the light in the life of somebody else. That

is your legacy. And it couldn't be more beautiful than that. As we

always say. As we always say, may the best

always be yet to come. I believe it can be. And until we

talk again,