From Business Loss to Empowerment: Lorna Greyling's Journey

Summary

In this episode, Branden Sewell interviews Lorna Greyling about her journey, the importance of marketing for local businesses, and how overcoming personal and professional challenges can lead to growth and success.

Keywords

Marketing, Business Growth, Local Business, SEO, Reviews, Entrepreneurship, Overcoming Challenges, Mpower TV

Key Topics

• The importance of local marketing and SEO
• The impact of reviews and reputation management
• Lorna Greyling's personal journey of overcoming business loss
• Strategies for effective online listings and digital advertising
• The role of mindset and resilience in entrepreneurship

Takeaways

• Consistent online presence and active listings improve search rankings.
• Authentic reviews build trust and boost local SEO.
• Overcoming fear and failure is essential for growth.
• Empathy and extreme ownership lead to better customer relationships.
• Gratitude and perspective help navigate business challenges.

Guest Name

Lorna Greyling

titles

• From Business Loss to Empowerment: Lorna Greyling's Journey
• Mastering Local Marketing: Tips from Lorna Greyling

Sound Bites

• "Reviews are one small portion of marketing."
• "Overcoming fear is the hardest part."
• "What I learned I can never lose."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Empower TV and Business Insights

05:51
The Importance of Online Listings and SEO

21:00
Building a Strong Reputation through Reviews

40:01
Overcoming Challenges and Personal Growth

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:00.636)
My name is Brandon Sewell. I'm the owner of SEAL Pro Painting and I'm the host of the Off the Ladder podcast. We exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off the ladder. I'm joined with today's guest. It's Lorna Grayling. I know Lorna through my local B and I. I know that many of you guys have heard me talk about B and I. Lorna is the founder of Empower TV. welcome to today's interview, Lorna.

Lorna Greyling (00:30.21)
Thank you, Brandon, and thank you for having me. What a pleasure and what an honor.

Branden Sewell (00:34.852)
Yeah, absolutely. If you could for the guest, if you could just give a quick introduction to what you do and I guess both the magazine as well as Empower TV.

Lorna Greyling (00:47.864)
Yeah, so I, you know, Empower TV is my passion project. it's I feel it's the reason why I I love it's my purpose, my calling from God, if I can say that. and that is to share stories, right? Stories of overcoming. I believe that every person has an amazing story of their life and how they overcame that.

If they share that, you know, that can change someone else's life. We've had emails of people, you know, wanting to commit suicide, being at a really bad space in their life and watching an episode, it changed their mind, and they're still alive today. So I can literally say that we are saving lives, changing lives. So I love it. I just, you know, regular people, not necessarily high profile.

celebrity guests but just ordinary people sharing their stories. I love it. So yeah, that's that's the TV show. And then I also do local marketing for local businesses and I think that's how we met, right? At the BI. So I love that. It's just helping local businesses with their local marketing. It's the most important thing that a business should do and should have in place.

Branden Sewell (01:54.001)
Yes.

Lorna Greyling (02:06.592)
It's the number one reason why small businesses close is because of a lack of marketing. and it's actually my reason for doing it is because I did lose my own business of 2021 years. I owned a very large wellness center and Day Spaestic Center in in South Africa. It was at some point the largest wellness center in Melville, in Johannesburg. And

Branden Sewell (02:18.075)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (02:34.26)
I I did a lot of marketing. I grew it from one little room in my garden in at home to this really large business because I did a ton of marketing. then I sold 50% of my business to a business partner and you know there a lot of things changed in the business and one of it was marketing. So, you know, a lot of the marketing budget was cut and we didn't feel it at first. It was just a slow decline.

Branden Sewell (02:57.136)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (03:04.076)
Right? Because when you're so big you don't feel it. A lot of people say, I stopped all my marketing and I don't really see a difference. and so yeah, for the first year, two years, three years, you know, it there wasn't a a huge difference. And suddenly, right, things started declining. And bottom line is I lost everything, every single thing I ever owned, like the business, the property.

Branden Sewell (03:04.444)
Mm.

Lorna Greyling (03:28.434)
and it's a long story why, but marketing was definitely a large portion of why we lost it. So I d I don't want any business owner to go through that. It's very painful.

Branden Sewell (03:39.438)
Yeah, so let's kind of dive into this. So what exactly are an I know you guys have the magazine, but there are different services that you guys offer in addition to the magazine, correct?

Lorna Greyling (03:54.55)
Yes, so the company that I work for is Best Version Media and we assist local businesses in just getting their their groundwork ready for marketing, right? So AI optimized websites, we make sure their SEO is is done and ready, search engine optimization so that when people search that they can be found, right? That's like the first thing that

is really important especially for a new business is when you're in your local community and new people moving to the area or or peop potential clients are looking for your service, if you don't show up, they cannot find you, right? So you're literally leaving money on the table. so we're just making sure that they'll they're well listed. We have a listing service where we list them on up to fifty apps, local apps with search engines and and and

location the you know if they have an address on there these apps will pick it up so we list them we help them with their review management so when you start a brand new business reviews are pretty important to start to get going and that's very daunting for a lot of new businesses so we help with that

And then we do obviously the race digital advertising, so ads, display ads, meta ads, retargeting ads, which is very important to have that in your ads when you do run ads. and then obviously we have local magazines as well that reaches high-end customers, so people above a certain income demographic. yeah, and all of those together, it's a combined marketing plan. It really just helps them.

Branden Sewell (05:23.246)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (05:33.222)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (05:43.243)
you know, get off their feet and and make sure that everything is ready for them so that their website works for them while while they're working, right?

Branden Sewell (05:51.739)
Yeah, that's that's really good. You know, I think this is really helpful to like the the newer business owner or younger business that doesn't really have some of these figure things figured out already. but you brought up two things that I wanted to kind of hone in on. like your listings online. Like you might think like, I just want to be listed by Google and I'm not really concerned.

about all of the other listing sites where you could put your business name, address, description of what you do. I think the problem with having this approach of let me just be on Google is younger businesses may not realize that the way that Google indexes your, you know, your website or your business based on search.

Is it's like this giant database, right? So if your business is not on all of these other sites and your address and the name of your business and everything isn't the same, it's not consistent, it's not everywhere, well, you're not gonna show up as as high in rankings as the company that is updated across all platforms online and has their information out there.

making sure that their address is updated and phone numbers are updated and things like that. And so I think that's really important. it may seem small, but it makes a huge impact on your search engine optimization. And I've been doing research on, you know, AI, and from what I understand with AI, that's a big thing with AI sur you know, what do they call that?

Lorna Greyling (07:20.161)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (07:29.302)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (07:49.213)
There's a technical term for the AI optimization. I forget what it is. I wanna say it's like GEO or do you know what the term is? I can't remember. Or maybe it's AEO. I don't know.

Lorna Greyling (08:01.814)
That term before, but yeah, you're absolutely yeah, yeah, but you're absolutely right, Brandon. You're I mean you're so right, you're like spot on. so the algorithms work like a human, if if I can explain it like that. They've got to trust you before they can recommend you. And if they don't know what you do, then they don't know what to recommend. So, number one, everything has to be listed really well and in sync with all your other platforms.

Branden Sewell (08:17.432)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Lorna Greyling (08:31.609)
And the reason why we list businesses on multiple different apps, even apps that you've never heard of, but they do have a search option in them, is because the more places that you are listed on, the better the algorithms can find you. When you start up showing cons showing up consistently, that's when Google will start ranking you higher. you know, in and you can start outranking your competitors.

and that is very important, especially for newer businesses, but even for older businesses. I I meet with a ton of older businesses and they're like they're struggling with there's like the market's down or people just don't spend as much, which is completely inaccurate. The market's not down, people are spending more than ever. there's just much more competition online.

Branden Sewell (09:20.177)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (09:23.765)
And newer people, especially here in Brevard, right? Newer people are moving into the area all the time. New businesses, they're coming from all different states. Some people are retiring, right? And they start their own business. And so they push a lot of money into marketing and getting all of those things ready. And then older businesses who have just worked on word of mouth or you started their business up and it's running pretty smoothly, but they don't have any of these things in in place. they tend to fall behind.

Branden Sewell (09:24.081)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (09:52.567)
just because the the market share is being taken over. And that's pretty much what happened with my business as well. You know, I was there for like 20 at that time, like 15 years. Everybody knew us, right? but there's a ton of businesses that started coming in, other wellness centers, other day spas, other med spas, medical centers. and they started to take the market share. They were marketing while we were not.

Branden Sewell (09:56.71)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (10:05.958)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (10:14.406)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (10:20.88)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (10:20.92)
And once the market share is taken over and these businesses are staying top of mind in front of their customers, those businesses who do not do that, they fall behind. And to then start up a marketing budget is very, very difficult because you have so many other expenses in your business. It's like, where do I find money for marketing?

And marketing doesn't work quickly, right? It's something that takes time. It took me a long time to build that business up to where it was that with a lot of marketing. But the marketing takes a long time to start working and rolling. and then when you're behind, it's like, where do you start now? Now it's really very difficult to find that budget for marketing when it doesn't immediately give you the ROI that you're wanting.

Branden Sewell (10:51.972)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (11:04.358)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (11:12.89)
Yeah. You know, I I was just sharing this analogy with somebody recently. it was a newer business and they didn't really understand SEO or online listings. And I gave them this example. I said, Imagine Google is basically it's like a library online, right? And you're imagine you walk into a library and you see bookshelves, right? And you see different, you know, genres or, you know,

Whatever. So maybe you have like fiction here, nonfiction, and you know, biographies and history, whatever. And you you have all of those. And your book, right, is on the shelf somewhere. And the more times you can put your book in there, the more it's gonna get noticed. So, you know, you wanna make sure that your book is on the shelf of the main genre that you focus on. Let's say that's Google. So you want like

Lorna Greyling (11:57.867)
Yes.

Branden Sewell (12:11.664)
You want to make sure your book is there, right? But don't just have it, you know, how many books do you have on that shelf? and then in the other places, you know, so if you do painting, but then you have some other services that you offer, make sure all of those services are mentioned, make sure that they're detailed and described. And because what Google wants to be able to do is serve its customers well, right? So when somebody comes and they say, Hey, I need information on

this or I'm looking for this company, the easier it is for Google to find the answer to that customer's question, the the more likely they are to refer that book, if you will, or that business. So if your book is only on one shelf and there's another company that has their book on multiple shelves and they answer all of these customers' questions, you know, then

That book is going to be more likely to get referred to the customer. So you know, I was explaining to a friend, I was like, make sure that, you know, you're on every listing site. If you have multiple services that you offer, don't just say painting. If you do interior painting, exterior painting, you paint pool decks, you paint, you know, garage floors, you paint like list every surface and have a designated page on your website for each one. And have, you know, so

It it's basically getting that information out there. And if you don't feed, you know, the these listing sites and your website and put all that information out there, then Google has nothing to to grab from, right? To to recommend your business.

Lorna Greyling (13:49.621)
Yeah. That that's so true. Yeah, it's it's such a great example. I go one step further and I actually explain that actually explain it like a it's like a big heap of washing, right? So maybe women will understand that pile of washing like lying in front of but imagine it's huge, it's like the mountain, right? And that's the businesses. It's all underneath like you're somewhere low in between underneath.

about all this washing it's it's it's very confusing everybody's listing something on Google every single day and so the chances that they'll find you is very very slim right if you're only on one platform and like you say everything is not listed on there but the more sorry platforms that you're on and listed now you're starting to move out of the pile and maybe you're going on to a hangar right

Branden Sewell (14:23.953)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (14:43.596)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (14:44.028)
Now in Google searches, right now you're much easier much better found. At least you can see something from the pile, because it's it's a lot of businesses. And it's not only like being listed once or having your website done once, then you have a landing page. That's it. Now it has to be worked on the back end so that it will outrank.

your competitors. There are hundreds of the same businesses in one small area. Like literally. And so which one does Google choose, right? Everybody's listed. So yeah, the more you're listed on different platforms, that helps. The more your website is done. It's got pages, all everything is explained on there. That helps. But the more active you are on your listings and on your website, that means po you know running articles.

Branden Sewell (15:19.217)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (15:41.444)
putting constant new information on there, having the listings like put photos in there, updating them regularly, like having your Facebook page like run that, connect that with everything else that you're doing. Instagram, connect that with everything else. Now there's movement, there's consistent movement right on all of these platforms that

Branden Sewell (16:00.357)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (16:05.32)
Google notices that that shows them that you're an active business, something's happening in this business because there's constant movement happening all the time. And and that's when you start ranking higher and higher. Because if someone searches for a painter near me, which is the old way of searching on SEO in Google, yes, you want to outrank your other painters in the area because if you're not on that first page.

Branden Sewell (16:15.068)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (16:30.975)
their eyeballs are not on your brand, right? So they cannot see you. So they will never choose you. So you're losing money. But with AC with AI, people don't search like that anymore. They search for, hey, you know, chat GPT or Gemini or whatever. They have their they have even call them a name. So whatever they call their their chat their friend.

Branden Sewell (16:33.605)
Right.

Branden Sewell (16:52.738)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (16:54.865)
I I I'm painting my house, right? I'm not sure what color I wanted to paint, but I want I know I want someone that's gonna show up on time, that's good in the community, that's not gonna charge me, you know, horrendous prices, and preferably I want like a a personally locally owned business or something like that. Right? So they'll give the the Chat GPT a whole you know spiel of what they want, not just painter near me. And if that

Is not set up behind the scenes again, you're not going to be found, right? so all of these things are changing, the way people searching are changing. It's not the same as a year ago, two years ago, and definitely not 10 years ago. You know, I sit with business owners all the time. I'm like, when is the last time you updated your website? you know, 10 years ago, I have a website. I, you know, my friend did it for me.

Branden Sewell (17:28.134)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (17:41.211)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (17:50.638)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (17:50.726)
that's great. That that means you you have that. If you send that to people, they can go on there and see what you're doing. But that website will never show up for you while you're working. So and you want that. You don't want to just do all of your own marketing all the time. You want it to work for you at some point and in showing up. yeah, so it's a lot. And that's why business owners, you know, the this is the last thing they want to work on because it's so daunting. It's so much work.

Branden Sewell (18:01.008)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (18:10.011)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (18:20.175)
and it's expensive marketing. So and they've got so much other stuff on their plate. It's like, you know, even me, I I have to do my own marketing and I'm like, every time I have to do it, I'm like, I gotta really motivate myself and remind myself like, Okay, this is important, I gotta spend time on it, I gotta make it work. So yeah. I get it.

Branden Sewell (18:20.39)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (18:23.771)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (18:31.131)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (18:36.443)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that that's the thing is like I I think it's really important for business owners to be self aware too. It's like there there is you're either going to have the skill set and the ability and the understanding of marketing and how it works, or you don't. And if you don't have the time to learn it, you need to outsource it. But either way, you need to do it.

You know, I've heard the I don't know who this quote is from, but I know there's a quote that says, you know, stopping marketing to try and save money is like trying to turn off your watch to save time or something like that. it doesn't work. Like you have to keep putting the marketing dollars in, you gotta keep spending to keep the business going and to make more money, and obviously in invest that money in a wise way, but

Lorna Greyling (19:24.18)
Yes.

Branden Sewell (19:36.687)
Obviously in the world that we live in, Google is king, you know, and these AI platforms that are now being introduced, like if you're not doing the work that needs to be done to get yourself out there, then you're just you're it's a huge miss. And so yeah, to your point, it's like if you're it is daunting, it's a lot. If you don't understand

you know, or if you don't know how to edit a website, if you don't have a design background, if you don't understand like what, you know, meta tick tags are and schema markup and, you know, all of these different things that you have to do for SEO, then outsource it. Let somebody else do it and it works. Like it really does. I mean, I've seen it from the work that I've done. I I do my own website and

You know, I've seen like as I put the work in to updating it and doing those things, making sure all of that I mean, it's a lot of work. Every page, every picture, every paragraph, everything matters. so it is a lot, but I do see that it makes a difference. So, if you're listening to this you know, and and you're thinking to yourself, Man, I I need to do something with SEO, you're right.

Lorna Greyling (20:52.712)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (21:00.28)
And if you don't do it yourself, you need to find somebody to do it. So the other thing I wanted to just mention really quick, and I don't want to go to on too long of a rabbit trail here. you you mentioned review, reviews and reputation management. I think that's that's probably one of the most important things that a business can focus on when they first start out. and making sure that your reviews are authentic and from real customers.

you might have a different opinion on this, but I'm just gonna share my opinion with my audience is make sure that your views come from real customers. Google has been cracking down over the past couple years on like fake reviews. You know, so like you, you know, ask somebody who hasn't even used your business or your services, like, hey, can you just go out and leave me a review? Google is trying to crack down and get rid of like

fake reviews or reviews that were paid for or incentivized in some way. so just make sure it's real and authentic. I think that only helps you and your brand more when they're real and authentic reviews. but I think you should definitely have a system and a process for getting them. So like if you like we use nice job. So like every time a customer their job is finished, it automatically

triggers our customers getting a request to leave a review, which is great. so have a process for it and get reviews as quick as you can. Like if you're a newer business and you're coming in to your industry and you look on Google and there's like a company that has, you know, let's say 300 reviews, your goal should be like, hey, how do I get as close to that as fast as possible or get more?

in your area. So do you anything you want to add to that?

Lorna Greyling (23:01.406)
Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of businesses are scared of reviews because they're scared they might get a bad review and you know, maybe they've possibly been judging other businesses based on their reviews and they're like, Yeah, super judgmental and read all the reviews and like, what if someone leaves me a bad review? Or maybe they did get a bad review and they're like, this review thing doesn't work 'cause, you know, look now look at this, right? Look at the what these people are saying.

Branden Sewell (23:27.227)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (23:28.062)
But like you said, you know, authentic reviews is very important because the more reviews you have, the more other people can see that your business is legit. There's actual reviews on it and it makes the business trustworthy. And so that helps Google to see that this business is is in business. They're getting reviews, they're active and it helps them rank you higher.

Branden Sewell (23:45.862)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (23:54.851)
it's not the beginning and the end of everything. Just because you have a thousand reviews doesn't mean you're gonna rank first on, you know, Chat GPT or be found by Gemini or all of that. Reviews is one small portion of all of the marketing and all of the things that helps make businesses trustworthy and helps the algorithms to to find you. It it causes an activity on the back end. but yeah, I mean it you don't have to be scared of a bad review.

if I see a business and they only have five star reviews, that's weird, right? Because nobody only has five star reviews. Nobody is that good. Like there's no business that is a hundred percent I don't know, man. Somewhere Okay. I always think it's bought if it's only five star reviews. Like I s yeah I don't know.

Branden Sewell (24:34.265)
We do.

Branden Sewell (24:39.15)
I'll I'll share I'll share a I'll share a perspective on this, okay? So we

Branden Sewell (24:48.43)
Yeah. So what we did as a business is we actually rolled out last year our five star service guarantee. And so what that means for us, and now I've been in business for we're we're about to enter into our tenth year. my perspective on this, I I have definitely had issues come up, right? There's definitely been problems that we've had to solve. We're

Lorna Greyling (24:56.638)
Okay.

Branden Sewell (25:14.662)
We're actually dealing with a big problem right now that we have to solve. But even in the midst of that, we maintain with the customer our goal at the end of this is to provide a solution that when we are done, you will still leave us a five-star review because you're like, wow, the way that this company handled this problem was amazing, right? And that's all I want. I want my customers to understand like the problem is not.

Lorna Greyling (25:18.922)
Mm.

Lorna Greyling (25:39.338)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (25:44.657)
The problem. The only way that the problems or the issues become a problem is if you won't let us solve them because we want to solve them. Right. I've been in situations in the past where I've given the customer like, hey, this is what we can do to fix this. And they like, they don't want to let us fix it for some reason. Like they get like, they're like, no, I'm not letting you back to my house to deal with this. And you're like, well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm telling you that we are willing to solve.

Lorna Greyling (25:53.042)
Mm mm.

Lorna Greyling (26:02.911)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (26:12.368)
Whatever this problem is, you're just not allowing us to. And so in in in our five star service guarantee, it basically states that that if you're not satisfied with the work that we've done, then we don't believe we're done with your job. And now I will say this there are some customers that are harder to please than others. Certainly. Like there are customers that have expectations that are kind of

crazy in in my own eyes. I'm like, wow, you really expect that? but here's here's what I believe.

Lorna Greyling (26:46.602)
You get crazy people out there. I I'm with you, man. There you get really

Branden Sewell (26:51.512)
My but my favorite book that I've ever read, on leadership is called Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. It's a book by Navy SEALs. I don't know sh know if you've heard it or read it read it. It's

Lorna Greyling (27:05.138)
Not yet. I'll go and definitely put it on my list. I love it. I love it. I'm always on Audible. Yeah.

Branden Sewell (27:08.59)
It's amazing. Yeah, I love this book. And so what extreme ownership teaches is that there's it's you know, really the main concept of the book is that there's no such thing as bad teams, only bad leaders, and that the best leaders in the world take extreme ownership of whatever the outcomes are that come their way. So it's like if if I get an upset customer, instead of my first reaction being

Lorna Greyling (27:23.348)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (27:36.615)
To cast blame, like, that customer's crazy, or that customer has crazy expectations. I tried to take a position of extreme ownership and say, well, I didn't vet that customer well enough. I should have understood their expectations better in the sales presentation. I should have asked better questions. I should have known that this was going to be a major concern, or that, you know.

they wanted this level of prep work done and I didn't communicate well enough what our level of prep was or you know, whatever the the case may be. But I try to take a position of I'm going to own that because at the end of the day, I think the c most customers, I'm not going to say all customers, I will say most customers really just want to feel like they're getting what they paid for and getting the value

that they feel they were they were hoping for or trusting you to provide. And so as the owner of my business, I feel like when a customer doesn't feel like they got that value, that's my fault because I didn't gauge their expectations well enough. I didn't understand the value that they were looking for, or I gave them a

I gave them this expectation of this is this value that we offer and then I missed it. Right. So now some people may disagree with me on this, but that's just the position that I take. And so I feel like there's not there's no reason why I can't earn a five star review on every job. as long as I'm given the opportunity. And it does, it takes extreme ownership. It takes the willingness to say I'm wrong.

even in moments when I feel like maybe I'm right. It's like, it's a lot like marriage, you know, it's like I can have a really great marriage and I can, you know, I can argue because I feel like I'm right, or I can take a position of humility and ownership, even in a moment where I might feel like I'm right. But it's like it's sacrificing my pride and my ego for the greater mission, which is a healthy marriage, a happy spouse, like.

Branden Sewell (29:58.767)
a great home environment. And so it I feel like it's not much different with a customer. It's like I'm sacrificing my pride and my ego of being right for the sake of providing that customer what they feel like they deserve for the to maintain my reputation and to be a great company. Does that make sense?

Lorna Greyling (30:20.443)
It makes a lot of s I love it. I love that you do that. And I think it's so beautiful and and you even mentioned marriage, you know, that that's so true. We we need to do that. It's like just think put ourselves in the other person's shoes and see all right, how did they perceive this experience and why are they so upset, right? I I have a client now who

Branden Sewell (30:22.02)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (30:47.101)
They, you know, did a marketing campaign with us just literally a few months ago they started, we rebuilt their whole website, we listed their business on a ton of we did all the back work, like hours and hours and hours of work, and suddenly they're you know pulling out of the marketing and there's no communication between, you know, I've been trying to phone, reach out, find out what's going on, is there something we can change? but they're just going through a really rough time in their business and they're just pulling out of everything.

And at first I was like, right, this is so unfair. Like we did all the work, right? And now they're not paying. It's like hours and hours of of work on the back end. and at first I wanted to like this sucks. And I'm you know, you feel, this is really not cool. And I never expected it from this person per se. and I went over and above. I did

Branden Sewell (31:17.222)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (31:41.521)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (31:44.162)
Ton of extra marketing videos and things that out of my own that you know they didn't have to even pay for. Like it was just something that I did because I just loved this person so much, you know, in the meeting. And I did exactly what you said now. It's like, all right, just slow down, right? And think of like what is this person going through? Their business is struggling, right? They're you know trying to blame everything on.

me on other people right now because that's where their mind is at. They're they can't pay for certain things. They're they're just stuck. And now they're looking for excuses to blame everything and everyone else. And I I just thought, all right, let me remember what I went through when I lost my business, right? It was it was and I actually lost it. I I lost everything. I didn't have a home anymore. I didn't know how I was going to feed my kids. I went from being semi-retired to like on the street.

Branden Sewell (32:28.55)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (32:41.005)
And I remember the ex it was excruciating. It was so painful. My brain was fried. I was everywhere trying to find solutions and just so scared and so fearful. And just like you know, I'm sure I might have like said a few things to people around me that I don't even recall right now, but I don't know, right? You do things because you're in anxiety, you're just in a whole different mind space.

Branden Sewell (32:51.164)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (33:07.642)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (33:07.801)
And I just remembered that and I thought, you know what? All right, I'm just gonna put myself in her shoes and just relax and just let everything go. Like it's my loss, like yeah, all the hours, all the work, everything else. Just release that and and just pray for her and and know that that this is this sucks, like going through something like that. Don't take it personally. And and like you say, like next time, where can I improve?

Branden Sewell (33:29.798)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (33:35.267)
On what I presented, or like you say, screen the client. I mean, when she signed on, she already knew she wasn't gonna pay and pull out, right? It was kind of maybe a last hope or something that she grabbed onto, like maybe this will be like the million dollar fix that'll turn my whole business around in in in you know in one month, which no marketing campaign will do. I can actually say that if that's where a business is at.

Branden Sewell (33:44.134)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (33:56.048)
Yeah, yeah.

Lorna Greyling (34:00.925)
Please don't phone a marketer because it's too late, right? Then at that point there's other things that w that needs to be d d done, but to pay marketing and think in in one or two months someone is gonna pull your business out of, you know, that space, it's impossible. Marketing doesn't do that. Marketing is is there to grow your business over time and to keep it, to keep it current, to keep you in front of people's eyeballs.

Branden Sewell (34:04.923)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (34:18.961)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (34:24.508)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (34:29.639)
Because if people don't see you, they forget about you. Even people that you've worked with before, don't remember your service unless you're in front of them you know, all the time. It's just un unfortunate people just don't remember anymore. but yeah, so I love it. I love that that you do that and and I literally went through that this weekend. So like yeah, it's very powerful.

Branden Sewell (34:39.643)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (34:44.891)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (34:52.408)
Yeah. You know, it it's it's just like empathy is a really powerful thing. And I think trying to see things from another person's perspective is helpful in how we handle situations and trying to like put yourself in that person's shoes. And and even then you may not understand, like you you might say to yourself, like, if I was in their shoes, I would have done this differently.

Lorna Greyling (34:58.345)
Mm.

Lorna Greyling (35:06.397)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (35:21.894)
But I think the the challenge is like everybody is so unique and so different. I don't I say this and I know there's exceptions to it, but I think most people in their interactions, they really don't have ill intention, right? They go into situations, I believe, expecting good things to come of it.

and sometimes things don't go the way that we expect them to or want them to. And then it's just like this collision, right? And then you have people from different backgrounds and different, you know, everything, right? There's just so much like that goes into making people who they are and making them respond or handle situations in certain ways. And so I think that empathy in those situations and

trying to just lead from that place of extreme ownership is huge. And instead of like shifting blame, saying like, okay, well what was my what was my position in this and where did I where could I get better? And then moving forward, I acknowledge, hey, that was not an I ideal situation to go through. but what was my ownership in it and how do I, you know, avoid it going forward?

Lorna Greyling (36:43.974)
Yeah. And learn from it, right? Because all of the things that we go through is is things that we can learn from and and grow from and get stronger through. I I just did an interview recently with the guy. He he's created flying cars, right? He lives right down in Miami, he's the first flying car that's ready for personal use and you know they they're ready for production. They already have like over six hundred orders and

Branden Sewell (36:44.15)
and I think

Branden Sewell (36:51.525)
Right.

Branden Sewell (37:01.532)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (37:10.544)
It's phenomenal. I mean it's groundbreaking stuff. This is so cool. And I'm sitting with this guy interviewing him and I asked him, like, what has been your greatest challenge through this process, right? Because he've I mean, starting something that's never been done before, that kind of business, imagine that. I mean, we're all in business in in a business that's already been done. You can talk to people, you know how, right? This is huge money.

Branden Sewell (37:32.656)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (37:36.988)
This is is daunting. It's completely everything has to be designed, created. And and he's an engineer and you know he's got this calling on his life where he feels like he's, you know, got to create this flying car. And I'm thinking, you know, he's gonna say, you know, all the challenges that is is in front of him, like how do you make this work? How do you make this like the engineering things behind it? Because that's super hard. Like, you know, I can't even imagine doing that and building that and he's he's he's you know, it's it's done.

Branden Sewell (37:37.53)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (38:01.553)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (38:06.277)
And his answer to me was just crazy. He says no, his biggest challenge was himself and is himself. Like that's who he needs to get over all the time. And just being aligned with with his calling, what he's here to do, his vision, his mission, and not let fear overwhelm him. And just, you know, growing in within himself, like constantly trying to be a better version of himself. I thought that was an incredible

Branden Sewell (38:13.66)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (38:32.188)
It's good.

Lorna Greyling (38:34.492)
He's just an incredible human. He's just such a great man. But what a great answer. Like, you know, he's not even looking at the the small little things that come up against him every single day. He's putting that into perspective. Like those are small things. the money, I mean he put his whole height sold his house. He's you know, there there's huge things that he had gone through that but yeah, his main aim is just to be a better human every single day. Like that's his challenge.

Branden Sewell (38:38.415)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (38:50.001)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (39:03.866)
Even in the midst of of all this groundbreaking stuff that he's doing I thought, Wow man, what a great man with we can learn from 'cause I think sometimes we put things out of perspective. You know, we have a truck that's broken down or staff that's not coming to work or another staff that's, you know, just quit on us and and it we blow it up as this huge thing. And yes, it's gonna affect your day, it's gonna affect your business, but you know, how can you grow?

Branden Sewell (39:09.136)
Yeah.

For sure.

Branden Sewell (39:20.412)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (39:31.346)
through this experience? How can this make you better as a person, as a leader, as a business owner? And and that's the key questions that if we focus on that, yeah, all these other things come fall into place. You're gonna find another guy that's gonna work for you at some point if you look hard enough. You know, you're gonna find that, you're gonna get that truck fixed that's broken. Somehow you'll find money to pay for it.

Branden Sewell (39:50.585)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (39:55.569)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (39:57.693)
Like these things we get over them, right? I mean I I think of all the little things that I stressed about in my life, in my business, even when I lost everything. and here I am again, like working, I live in a house, I have a car, like I overcame all the the crazy stuff that I thought was the end of the world, right? And yeah, at that point it was the end of my world as I knew it, but it's not the end of the world. Like this things will this will pass, right?

Branden Sewell (40:01.19)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (40:13.925)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (40:23.072)
Yeah, no, if you're on this side of if you're on this side of heaven, you know, you're you still got a purpose and you know God still has something he wants to do through you. which let's let's kind of transition. I wanna I want we only have maybe a few minutes left, so I just want to hit on this really quick. I think you know, we you have Empower TV, you have a personal brand.

what I want to jump into really quick as we finish this up, and it's a little bit different in the direction that I thought I was gonna go, is I want you to share a little bit more on obviously you had this major challenge that you faced as a person. I heard somebody recently say he's a this is a billionaire in the home services industry.

He went bankrupt, I think, like in the early i it was either late nineties or early two thousands. And he basically said that it was the best thing that ever happened to him because the thing that he feared the most happened to him and he realized that it wasn't the end. And so he has since rebuilt and he's again like he he's even more successful now than he was then because now he's not afraid of it. He's like, I've already been there, I've already overcome it.

So if it happened again, I know how to like rebuild again. Right. So he's it which is unlocked, like taking that fear away has unlocked like a new level of potential. And I I know for myself a lot of the things that I I used to respond like hyper emotionally to challenges in my business. But now that I'm, you know, going on ten years in.

Lorna Greyling (41:54.376)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (42:12.324)
I just realized like some of the things that I feared the most happen. And then I'm like, well, like the only way to go is either like quit or just keep moving ahead. Right. So you just figure it out. So I just want you to share with the audience a little bit more about your story, how you overcame those like like what would feel like the biggest defeat to most people. and and really like how did your

how did you handle that? Your mindset spiritually, just kind of dive into that if you don't mind.

Lorna Greyling (42:48.997)
Yeah, of course. and yeah, we we took a whole new direction, right? So it it's awesome. I love I love to see I always love to see what what God does in interviews, but there's obviously someone who who needs this today. and you're you're you're spot on. Like, you know, the biggest thing that holds us back is fear. Like the fear of what if. and that was my worst. Like w

Branden Sewell (42:54.67)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (43:12.353)
the worst time for me, you know, losing my business was not actually losing the business and losing my home and losing everything I have and you know I literally everything. Like I don't even have albums with me, like my kids photos or nothing. Like I left South Africa four years ago with nothing. Two literally two suitcases. That's it. And and you know, I joke, I say two, but I had a third one. I put my shoes in my daughter's suitcase as well. So she only had one. I had three

Branden Sewell (43:27.558)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (43:38.62)
That's funny.

Lorna Greyling (43:41.447)
So I did bring some extra shoes with. But but the worst time was the the fear of losing everything. It was the time before I lost everything. It's like, what if I lose everything? What if I don't have a house for my kids? What if we don't have food? Like how like what if what if all of this happens? And that that agony that it is excruciating, it eats you alive, right? And so it what I know now is like even if I lose everything.

Like God still have a per purpose for me and and I still have a purpose on this earth. And I will gape through it and I will rebuild it because I already built one business, right? And the fact that it didn't work out, yes, let me see what I can learn from that. and that is so powerful. It's exactly what that that millionaire or billionaire said, right? once you have that happen to you, you don't have that fear anymore because you overcame it. Like, yeah, that happened to me.

Branden Sewell (44:14.266)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (44:40.473)
I sub I'm still alive, I'm still breathing, I still have two hands, two feet. you know, there's a lot of people that has much less than me. I can rebuild, I can restart. but yeah, so I would say the fear and overcoming that fear is is the hardest part. And so my advice would just be is to not focus on that what if, what if, right? Is to do what you can to prevent it.

Branden Sewell (44:59.004)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (45:10.019)
And then even if this horrendous thing happens to you, you know, you will get through it, you will grow through it, you can learn through it, and you'll be stronger because of it. so that you know, that's my advice. And then the the biggest thing that helped me through is forgiveness. Like I really had to forgive myself, right? For for putting my family in that position for for making mistakes, maybe that that caused us to love.

Branden Sewell (45:22.524)
It's good.

Branden Sewell (45:29.755)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (45:39.255)
lose everything. I had to forgive my country because in South Africa the reason why the economy you know started buckling or things went so bad is because of you know very very corrupt government the crime was completely out of hand like there's no I was held up at gunpoint like four times I was attacked in my home in armed robberies my kids almost you know one the last time

they almost got to my kids and in the you know, it was just by the grace of God and an absolute miracle that I was able to fight personally fight off like an armed robber. And so all of these things happened and then you start blaming the government, I started blaming like I was mad, right? I lost everything and it's because like the stupid government, this and this and the you know, I I I was looking for excuses and people to blame.

Branden Sewell (46:27.384)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (46:32.614)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (46:35.353)
And that just makes you angry. It makes you mad. It makes you bitter. Like there's no point in that. It doesn't help you as a person at all. It'll keep you stuck. It'll keep you heavy. It'll keep you miserable. So literally I had to forgive my country. I had to forgive the government. And anybody and any everybody that, you know, at one point maybe screwed me over with a deal or something that caused a huge loss.

Branden Sewell (46:37.606)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (46:49.446)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (47:02.829)
I just literally went one morning on the beach and I just sat and I prayed and I and I just started making a list of everything that's like stuck in my heart and I forgave every single person. And that's like a huge relief. And then you can move on. Then you pick up the pieces and you move on. You look for a new opportunity. Like in the beginning I came to America, we had to get food from church food banks, right? We didn't have any money, we had to live with people that were kind enough to give us a home.

Branden Sewell (47:17.542)
Mm-hmm.

Lorna Greyling (47:31.883)
we had nothing and first time I found a job was selling timeshare at Hilton over the phone. Like I didn't even speak good English. and it was it was really hard, right? to do that job, but I was grateful for it and I decided within myself I'm gonna learn everything I can through this job for the next job that God got me. Like I I totally believe that this is just a stepping stone, right?

Branden Sewell (47:39.685)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (47:55.3)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (48:00.58)
Right, yeah. That's good.

Lorna Greyling (48:00.863)
And and yeah, I just took it. I was just grateful. So gratitude is something that I would highly recommend is focused on things that you can be grateful for, like the sunrise. I didn't have a house, I didn't have anything, but every morning I could go outside and I could look at the sunrise and say, wow, this is gorgeous. Let me just soak this up. Like it's a it's a beautiful new day. How can I be a blessing in this day for someone else and not how can this day bless me?

Branden Sewell (48:10.608)
Yeah, that's so good.

Lorna Greyling (48:28.698)
And just it's just mind shifts, like small mind shifts and just focusing on that. And that creates huge joy. And if I think back now, I mean, even the times where it went really bad and horrible and we had so much fun, the kids and I. Like we were, you know, excited to get the fruit from the church pantry and like, what are we gonna get this week? And not think about it in a way. It's like, man, I'm really down and out. Look where I'm at.

Branden Sewell (48:35.526)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (48:46.01)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (48:54.096)
Like I gotta get food from church, food bags. Like w how did this happen to me? I was semi retired. I was like really wealthy. and in and where am I at? Like you can look at it that way, but that'll steal all your joy, all your power, everything. Or you can look at it and say, man, this is a new adventure. This is exciting. We're gonna get through this, we're gonna be stronger on the other side. And we are. I mean we are. It's four years down the line since I, you know, got on that plane with my

Branden Sewell (48:57.38)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (49:04.54)
Mm.

Branden Sewell (49:09.499)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (49:18.01)
Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (49:24.26)
My two and a half suitcases and my shoes. and and it's awesome. I mean, here we are. We've got a beautiful home, cars, kids are happy and studying and whatnot. And so, you know, things can turn around. but what I've learned from it is so powerful. It's something that no one can ever take away from me ever again. Like I can lose my house again, I can lose my car again, but what I've learned, I can never lose.

Branden Sewell (49:26.492)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (49:37.114)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (49:50.544)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lorna Greyling (49:52.614)
So that's that's empowering. That's really cool.

Branden Sewell (49:55.387)
That's really good. you know, I I know that you've got to go soon, so I don't wanna take too much more time, but I do just wanna end with this. I I grew up being homeless from like the time I was in like middle school, so probably seventh or eighth grade until I graduated. And you know, we we really struggled as kids. Like my mom was a single mom and you know, I've lived in hotels, motels.

friends' houses, experience all of that as a kid. And it's it's funny, like, you know, you talked about forgiveness. I a lot of people ask me about my experiences as a kid, and they'll say like, wow, how did you like how do you still like love your mom or talk to your mom? And I'm like, I it it goes back to that whole empathy thing, right? It's like you I can't ever

explain life from my mom's perspective because I c I wasn't in her shoes. I couldn't live it. But what I can say is like my mom is a person just like I am. And the same way that she failed and made mistakes and, you know, we went through that as a child. one thing that I'll never doubt is whether my mom loved me. Right. And so I think that's a powerful thing. It's like, yeah, we struggled and yes, my mom was an imperfect

person and she made mistakes and sometimes we were the what is the the word I'm looking for the were the ones that were affected by it, right? So but in those moments, you know, you mentioned like you found joy in like moments of going to the church and going to the food bank or whatever. I mean, I can remember some of my best childhood memories would be like in a house with no electricity, no

No running water in like one bedroom with me, my brother, my sister, my niece, my nephew. And I was just like hanging out and talking and being together. And like all we had, literally all we had was one another. I mean, I lived out of suitcases so much of my like middle school to high school years. And even like you talked about having three suitcases. When I I graduated from high school in Florida.

Branden Sewell (52:16.164)
My mom moved to Tennessee and then I dropped out of college and I moved to Baltimore, Maryland to go into full time ministry. And I left here with a bag of clothes. That's all I had. And I I had actually planned on going there and then coming back and getting my stuff. And I felt like God told me not to come back. And so I stayed there and built my entire life from a bag of clothes. And but anyway, it's just it it that I wanted you to share that story because

I believe like one of the hardest things that we have to face as business owners, really at the end of the day, and you mentioned this about the guy in in Miami, it's ourselves, right? It's our mindset. And I think if we can work on ourselves, that's why I say this podcast is meant to help home service business owners learn, right? So that they can lead well.

Because it starts with us, right? We gotta educate ourselves, build our foundation. and I think the more that we educate ourselves and empower ourselves, then the less afraid we're gonna be of like all the mistakes we could possibly make. but anyway, just super good. I could probably talk to you for hours, you know, based on what you shared. So, but I wanna be respectful of your time.

Lorna Greyling (53:32.771)
Mm-hmm.

Branden Sewell (53:38.242)
Is there any last remarks that you'd like to leave with the guests and the audience and on what we've talked about today? I'll give the floor to you to bring any last thoughts or anything like that.

Lorna Greyling (53:50.564)
thanks Brandon. Yeah, I think you know this has been such an an incredible conversation and hopefully we've helped a little bit in terms of of of marketing and and and ideas of marketing and making that not as scary. but I think you know my advice for business owners out there would just be to to know that they have this business, you know, to to make a difference with in other people's lives. It's not just

a service or making money from it, that's great, right? That that takes planning, that takes hard work, and in anybody can make money. if they do it right, you know, have everything in place. But I think the bigger thing here is that this is a this is an opportunity for them to also mean something in like you say, like grow as a leader. And through being that leader you can really impact lives, the lives of your customers, the lives of people that's working for you.

and then just really to see that bigger picture, be grateful for it and and grab it with both hands, because it's it's a gift. Not everybody has that.

Branden Sewell (54:56.004)
Yeah, that's really good. Well, thank you so much for your time, Lorna. We are definitely gonna have to do a another interview, follow up interview, just dive even more into your story, empower TV. I think there's a lot of just value that you can bring to the audience in the aspect of encouragement and motivation and helping people with like where they're at in

that personal journey of facing the challenges of entrepreneurship. So I'd love to get you back on here in the future and dive into that more. but in the meantime, thank you to my audience for joining in today. and thank you for following along with the Off the Ladder podcast. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode or you found it helpful, please share it with somebody else so that they can benefit from it too. if you're listening to this on any major

podcast platform. I'd really appreciate it if you could rate and review the show. That helps us to reach more people. And if you are an entrepreneur and you need some resources for your business, check the show notes below. You can use any of my affiliate links. I do appreciate that. I do get credit if you use them. And that helps to support the Off the Ladder podcast and our mission here. Thank you so much. And I will see you next time on the next episode of the Off the Ladder Podcast.