The Wild Sage Society Podcast w/ Marcie Walker
Awaken. Empower. Thrive.
Welcome to The Wild Sage Society Podcast, where we explore the intersection of holistic health, conscious living, and personal transformation. Hosted by Marcie Walker, Holistic Living Coach and Women's Wellness Expert, this podcast is a sanctuary for midlife women seeking to reclaim their vitality, power, and purpose.
Each episode features insightful conversations with visionary healers, wellness experts, and conscious entrepreneurs who share practical tools and timeless wisdom to help you navigate midlife transitions, heal from burnout, and align with your true essence.
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🌿 Women's Holistic Health – Navigating perimenopause & menopause naturally
✨ Mind-Body Healing – Hypnosis, stress management, and energy balance
💡 Conscious Leadership & Business – Embodied entrepreneurship & soulful strategy
🔥 Midlife Reclamation – Rediscovering passion, purpose, and vitality
Whether you're an entrepreneur, healer, or simply on a journey of self-discovery, The Wild Sage Society Podcast is your guide to thriving in mind, body, and spirit.
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The Wild Sage Society Podcast w/ Marcie Walker
41- Building Your Spiritual Business with Bryan Mandrell
Ever feel like you're caught between two worlds? That's an everyday reality for Bryan, our guest today—a military man turned massage therapist, shamanic practitioner, and hypnotherapist. Bryan's unique life journey has him straddling the line between the material world of business and the ethereal realm of spirituality. And in this fascinating episode, he generously lets us peer into both.
This episode is as much a story of personal transformation as it is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in building a successful business or exploring the power of alternative healthcare. Bryan takes us through his journey, from his military days to his spiritual awakening during the COVID-19 pandemic. Marcie gets to learn how this shift not only changed his personal life but also had a profound impact on his professional journey. He shares with Marcie practical strategies on marketing and business building that he's gathered from years of running successful clinics. And if that doesn't pique your interest, his exploration of the power of shamanism is sure to open your mind to new possibilities.
What makes this episode particularly special is Bryan's emphasis on the intersection of spirituality and business. Whether you're an alternative healthcare practitioner or a small business owner, or simply intrigued by the way spirituality can impact business, there's plenty for you here. Bryan shares how incorporating hypnosis and shamanism into his practice has quickened results for his clients. His tales are not just captivating—they're filled with practical insights, strategies, and tools you can start using right away. So strap in for an episode that promises to expand your perspective and leave you with plenty food for thought.
Connect with Bryan:
https://shamanichealingdenver.com/
About Marcie Walker
Marcie Walker is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and Shamanic Practitioner dedicated to helping individuals transform their inner landscapes. She specializes in guiding clients to heal past traumas, overcome self-criticism, and embrace their highest potential, all within a safe and supportive environment.
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Hi everyone, welcome Bryan.
Bryan Mandrell:Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Marcie Walker:We've had this podcast date scheduled for months and I just think that it's the timeliness of it is ironic, just for the simple fact that I feel a few weeks ago that I was shadow-barren on social media and I know that you have built several successful businesses, what I like to call the old school way I invited you today to talk a little bit about that. You're also in my shamanic lineage and you're a hypnotherapist. We have a lot of the similar trainings and certifications, but we do think so differently. I want to just talk about your experience, your road, your path, all the things.
Bryan Mandrell:My past life. I died and then I went to the death lives between lives. I was there with my soul tribe, and we figured out what I wanted to do in this lifetime. I actually came here. Is that too far in the beginning, or do you want to start?
Marcie Walker:with the business part. No, that's perfect.
Bryan Mandrell:I came here in this lifetime. I was born in Texas to a Texas family and then went through lots of stuff as a child and then I went into after high school, went into the military, did not know what I wanted to do. Then I came out of the Air Force and my brother-in-law he was a chiropractor and I was kind of lost, didn't know my direction, my purpose. He asked me that. He said, brian, why don't you become a massage therapist and work for me? I was like I don't know if I want to do that. I don't know if I want to be a massage therapist. I went ahead and did it anyway. I started school and then, within two days of being in school, I fell in love with anatomy, physiology, helping people, the healthcare aspect of it. I went and worked for him, worked for him for about four or five years. This is where I actually learned a lot of my business building practices was through him, because he actually had a very big chiropractic clinic and he had four clinics and he grew them very, very rapidly using this process. He didn't really like selling and I didn't like selling either, so he put me in charge of selling. He had to sell healthcare packages and programs and all that. What I learned in that process is that you don't really sell, you really educate. I think in this industry a lot of times people they feel that they don't like to sell or they feel uncomfortable in selling their services. If you can understand that you need to educate first before you sell anything or present anything, then you don't really sell anymore.
Bryan Mandrell:Long story short I was a massage therapist and then I actually went back. I did that for about 10 years, moved up here to Colorado to go to acupuncture school. I went to acupuncture school a four-year school there and then became an acupuncture assessor. I was doing massage and acupuncture for about 14 years, built out that business using my business, building practice stuff. Then I got kind of tired of doing acupuncture and herbalism and then I actually moved into.
Bryan Mandrell:I was going to do coaching for acupuncturist. I discovered very quickly that I was a very crappy coach and I didn't know what I was doing. I was looking around to see who the big coaches in the industry at the time. It was like Tony Robbins. I'm the type of person that always wants to find the source of knowledge or education. I went and learned NLP, which was Tony Robbins. That's his foundation. I went into NLP, which is neuro-linkers of programming. Then I actually got into hypnosis. I sold my acupuncture clinic and then I became a hypnotherapist. I've been doing that since 1999. Then I was going to retire in 2020 during COVID. Then I had my spiritual awakening and then I came down the shamanic path In two minutes. That's my story.
Marcie Walker:I love that we talked a little bit about spiritual awakening. What was that process like for you?
Bryan Mandrell:It was unique. It was eye-opening for sure. My spiritual awakening for me. I always thought that if I ever had a spiritual experience it was going to be like rainbows and unicorns and angels and all this great spiritual stuff. Really, my spiritual awakening was where I thought I was going to die and I was crying the whole time. It was very, very dark With my spiritual awakening. What I was doing was when COVID hit. It actually killed my business, like everybody's business, but it killed my hypnosis business, which I was very grateful for because I was getting burned out in it, and then I was wanting to actually transition into coaching.
Bryan Mandrell:What I do every year is actually go backpacking with a bunch of guys here in Colorado. We go out to Utah in the desert and we'll backpack in for four or five days at a time. We're in the back country. There's no one out there. We just have fun and parties, watch the stars and all that kind of stuff. The place where we were going we've been there probably 10 times before never had anything, any experiences out there before we went backpacking and before that trip I just made a statement like a contract almost. I'm done with alternative healthcare. I've treated enough clients. I've treated thousands of people. I've helped thousands of smokers quit smoking. I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm done. I just want to coach. We go back packing and the first night I had a really dark attachment in this place, the actual energy out there.
Bryan Mandrell:I think it was a universe saying sure, you're going to quit Back on the path. With that experience, with that spiritual wicking. For me it was again very, very dark. I don't know if you talk about it much, that energy here on the podcast or not. For me very, very dark, very, very scary. I thought it was going to go into mental institution. I thought it was going to be institutionalized. Very, very, very dark thoughts. Very scary Again for me. I've never really worked a lot, even though as an acupuncture that's energy work, but I've never really worked with energy much. I didn't really understand what that was, what it meant.
Bryan Mandrell:Then I got a session. I call Tabitha. On the way home I was like Texan Earth, crying this energy. I don't know what's going on, I'm so scared. She referred me out to Greta. Then I had a session, a shamanic session from Greta. I was just amazed at that work, how fast it was, how powerful it was. That was even like a remote session which blew me away. Then after I got that session I said, okay, I'm back on. I need to actually learn this medicine so that I can help other people with the same issues that I had with that. Then I actually built out this business here in Denver with that.
Marcie Walker:Yeah, that dark energy is no joke. I pull it off of people every single time. It's been really challenging when I do the monthly energy healing clinics. I probably need to restructure that a little bit, because I get up to 10 people that we're doing these remote sessions on distantly. I'm exhausted by the end just because I'm pulling so much of the stuff crap off of them, yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah.
Marcie Walker:One of the things that bothers me and bothers is a very weak expression of what I'm trying to be saying, part of my struggles with building my hypnotherapy practice. It's now this month it's 10 years that I've been a certified clinical hypnotherapist, but the term woo-woo. What's your thoughts about? Woo-woo, woo-woo?
Bryan Mandrell:Well, there's woo and then there's woo right, so there's woo-woo. So there's two parts of it. Woo-woo. For me it's been a struggle.
Bryan Mandrell:I've had challenges with that as well, because I came from when I was a massage therapist. I was working with auto injury, people in trigger point therapy, deep muscular issues, and there was always a process. So there's step one, there's step two. You actually strip the actual muscle fiber a certain way. Here's the process. Same thing with acupuncture One of the acupuncturists.
Bryan Mandrell:There was a certain process which you used. Someone had infertility, for example. You would use a certain amount of acupuncture points and then you'd use herbs for that right, and then as a hypnotherapist as well. If you're working with trauma anxiety and again with the NLP process, with that, there's a format to it. And so for me I had problems learning woo-woo because it was too nebulous, it wasn't a process, and my daughter, markella, has helped me a lot with this. She's like dad, you're just too much inside of your head. So for me, woo-woo is really. It's hard for me to. I believe in woo-woo. I do woo-woo but I like to put it into a structure to where it doesn't feel so woo-woo to people, because one of the things that I do in my clinic, in my office, is that I really try to pull as much woo-woo out of it and make it so that the layman can understand what it means and what it is in more of a process versus woo-woo. Does that answer your question?
Marcie Walker:It totally does.
Bryan Mandrell:Oh, it is okay yeah.
Marcie Walker:Yeah, my friction with the word woo-woo is, I feel like it's just a generalized term that they slap to all alternative healthcare.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah.
Marcie Walker:You've dabbled through several alternative healthcare. Yeah.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, and it's funny because, me being a smart practitioner, I never would have thought five years ago, or even six years ago, that he would be doing this work ever. I never thought because I was like, oh, I believe that's true and that's possible. But after my spiritual awakening, my experience with that heavy energy is like man, that's the, that shit. Can I say shit Can?
Marcie Walker:I ask yeah, you can tell.
Bryan Mandrell:Okay, sorry, you need to ask earlier. Yeah, that shit's real and that shit is no joke, as you said, and so I don't even really I don't like the term either. So again, I don't know if that answers your question, but I don't even think of it as woo-woo now. I think it was just frickin' work. You know, it's just what we do.
Marcie Walker:Yeah, I mean, I don't know another way to explain the information that kinda comes through, because sometimes I'm like, oh, you just really really have to lean into trust and the connection with spirit, and there are days that I'm like sweating after sessions and you know like I'm always sweating.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, I'm always sweating. I sweat every time Like I go in short, I wear shorts in my clinic because it's so hot. Yeah, in the same way.
Marcie Walker:This week my air conditioning broke, so it's a pretty not awesome right now doing energy work.
Bryan Mandrell:I know, I know, in the same way.
Marcie Walker:So, if you don't mind, let's dive in to the business and the building, the spiritual business aspect of things. Okay, Before we turn that totally over to you, I just want to thank you for the like. I've had a couple hours of your time and I've learned more in those couple hours with you than I have with hiring a social media marketer and a PR company and doing some of those other things. Like when you're bootstrapping a business, you're trying to find what fits and what works, and there was a huge light that went on and so thank you, Okay, thank you, yeah.
Bryan Mandrell:So I guess my question for you is what did you learn and what was that light that went off? I'm kind of curious about that. What did you find helpful? I think the biggest part is.
Marcie Walker:So I was working with a PR company and she was going to be.
Marcie Walker:She, on my behalf, was going to be looking for a marketing company to try to get some of the word out there, and this was a couple of years ago. And so the guy hops on the phone and we have a call and he's like okay, define your keywords. And so I went through my testimonials and I picked out these words, the similar words, in my head. I was doing the right thing, that there was a consistent pattern of what my clients were saying, that they got out of it. So that's what I thought the keywords were. And then it was the last time not this morning, but last week when we met and you told me what keywords were what people are actually searching for, and I was like, oh, I totally missed that fucking boat and it wasn't explained to me. And I think that that's a hard place, you know, when, like for you as a hypnotherapist and for me as a hypnotherapist, we say the things so many different times and we're educating our clients that sometimes we forget to dummy it down.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, yeah, and that's what I try, and that's one of the things I've learned with being in business for like as long as I, since 19. So I've been basically in business since 1990. So what I've learned, so like one of the lessons that I've learned as a business owner and a practitioner, is if you can make it as simple as possible and not use your own language again with the woo, stuff is oh, it's these energies, these flu, these crystals extraction. I'm gonna do a crystal extraction on you. They don't. Most people don't know what that means, and so I try not to use that language as often as possible, because I want to, and I spend a lot of time in the front end, in my clinic as well, with front end education of what I do, what's important to actually come back, what's important with these sessions. So I'm a big believer in education and I think what happens to and the benefit for me like me as a business coach is that I am doing it every day in my clinic. I'm still practicing and I'm not some person that specializes in Facebook ads, trying to actually figure out my own business. I do my own business so I understand how to market it more. So, and like one of the things I think I find with, like healthcare practitioners woo, woo practitioners right, is that they? I'm hitting the therapist.
Bryan Mandrell:I was acupuncturist, I was a SARS therapist. I didn't specialize. This is not my. I didn't ever dream of waking up like, oh my God, I want to be a business coach, right, that was not my plan.
Bryan Mandrell:I just had to do it because I had to actually learn it back in 2007 on how to build a website, because that recession hit then and before that, I was doing print marketing and print died in 2007. And so I had to learn online marketing and back then, there wasn't any information online. I had to figure it out. It was such a tremendous like, oh my God, I was just so. I was so my wife would tell you I was like bang on the table. I was like so frustrated and mad. I was like what does what does the plug in mean? How does someone supposed to figure this stuff out? And so I would just, oh my God, I was just irate and it was just frustration because there wasn't any information. Today, it's much, much easier. The actual platforms are like easier to use and there's more information. So what was the question? What was the question she asked me?
Marcie Walker:I don't know if I had a question per se, but you asked me what I learned from the process. Oh, okay, yeah, sorry.
Bryan Mandrell:So, like the question was that you didn't understand what a keyword was. And so what I do as a coach is in my business is I try to make. I chunk things down to very small pieces and then I train from like you're a hit with therapist, you're a Sharmine practitioner. You should not know those words, those big words about a plug in and about backlinks and SEO and all this. You don't need to know that stuff. I mean, you kind of have to know the actual what they mean, but you don't know how to do it Because, again, when I'm building my business, these businesses, and so the process which I use my brother-in-law he built four clinics using it. I built three businesses using the same process.
Bryan Mandrell:So I do everything as simple as possible and as streamlined as possible. I try not to do too many things. I really want to have focus and clarity on what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, and I think that's the biggest. One of the biggest issues with alternative health practitioners is A they don't understand the big picture of how everything fits into place. And once I understood and that took me years it probably took me four years of learning online marketing before I understood how everything fit into place and the sales funnels and how people buy, the buying process and the selling process, and once you kind of have that foundation, then building a site, doing your content, making the content that's correct content in the right place, the right time in your funnels, it becomes much, much easier. So I really try to do everything. You tell me if that's true, if I try to do something like very basic. So were you overwhelmed with the technology today?
Marcie Walker:at all or anything. Oh my gosh, it feeds part of my soul, cause I like graphs and I like diagrams and I like the strategy aspect of the things that we did this morning and, being a visual person, it was nice to see it out on the screen and, yeah, you helped break it down in such an easy manner that I was like, oh, I was super excited when I got off the phone.
Bryan Mandrell:Good, and that's a thing as well, because what happens with most of my coaching clients is they're so overwhelmed, they don't understand a technology and they feel bad about it because they don't. But they shouldn't know about that Cause. When I first built my first website in 2007, I was like, oh, so bad. And I was so frustrated and mad. And I was part of this business group where you actually go in every Monday morning, stand up and it's like here's my business, here's what I do. Do you have a referral for me? And so there's a guy in there that was a website designer and I asked him. I said, dude, what's the plug in? How do you do this stuff? And he's like Brian, you're actually trying to learn something and do something that someone spent eight years in college to actually do back then and now. But now it's much, much easier because, again, the technology and the platforms. So again, it's one of the things I try to do. We didn't make everything as simple as possible and streamlined as possible.
Marcie Walker:And I think that what my mentality was at that point was okay, I need a website. And then I was like, okay, as soon as I make the website, just it's gonna be like gangbusters and the door is gonna be broken open, people are gonna be pounding it all the time, and it's like it was kind of a little frustrating and I feel that same thing with social media.
Marcie Walker:I get really pissed off that as a coach like Anna Schmanig-Practice-ner and, you know, as Tequila, I wanna help people I don't wanna be worrying about doing stories and reels and all that other stuff and it just feels like it's such a waste of time, coupled with the fear of being not meeting the algorithm requirements or getting shadow banned for seeing how I really feel about things. I'm not gonna even go down that trail.
Bryan Mandrell:I know I had issues in 2020 with my Facebook, so I totally understand. Yeah, I get shut down by Facebook as well.
Marcie Walker:And I love that you are a lifelong learner.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah.
Marcie Walker:Yeah, that is one aspect of my past that I felt really bad about, but now it's been a blessing to be able to integrate in, integrate in my shadow and aspects and the parts of myself that, like, I've disowned, and some of that is being a prior CFO for a construction company, and I've had some business coaching clients recently that I'm helping them clean up their books and help them read financial sheets and I'm like teaching them how to manage their business off of their numbers. So it's it's pretty awesome that you're being able to pull all your frustration from learning how to build your own.
Bryan Mandrell:But it's worth it. I think one of the things that I've learned throughout the process as well, of building business, of my businesses, is that you have to own your business, and and owning your business means several, several different things. So there's three major assets which you have as a business owner. And so, first of all, as a alternative health care practitioner, you have a business and you, I think you have to understand that it is a business, and if you don't run it as a business, then you probably won't have a business. If you don't have a business thing, you'll have income, and then you'll be working at Coles or Amazon or something Right? So so again, it's one of those things if you don't have a business, then you won't have income typically. And so, with owning your business, I think I think is very what shifted my mindset with this is this is that your three big assets which you have in your business is yourself, that's, your practitioner. The second one is your website you have to own your website. And the third thing is your email list. Okay, those are the three most valuable things that you have, and so what happens with practitioners and my coaching clients is that they'll build a website on like wigs or square or something like that, because they don't know how to do it. There's nothing wrong with that. I understand why they do that, but the problem with that is, at some point, if those platforms change, if the pricing changes or they got a business or something happens or they start to increase the actual rates. If you want to add like a call to act, like a click now button, they may add. I think wigs just did that. If you want to add a button, it's an extra charge, and so they're taking small charges, and so what will happen at some point is you'll be spending so much money on your website, but you still don't own it, and so for me that's why I really spent a lot of time with my clients of walking them through of how to build a website on their own. They own it, they're in control of it.
Bryan Mandrell:Because I got screwed over in 2006 or 2005 or like 2006, I spent about $10,000 on a website, and this is when websites were first coming out. I'm an acupuncturist, and so I bought a website and I asked the guy I was running a special on that month. He wouldn't do it, he was lagging, and he's like Well, here you go, you do it, and he left and I didn't know anything about a website, so I lost all that money and then at that point, I was like, screw that, I'm going to learn how to do this myself, Because, again, I want to own my own business, I want to own my own destiny when it comes to my business assets, and so, again, that's what it's like. Again, I think one of the things that people need to do is own their business and ownership means ownership themselves, their website and their email list and then also step into the role of a business owner, because at times, we have to have a foot in both, both worlds a business world as well as a practitioner world. I prefer practitioner world, but you still have to have a business, and so it's kind of like being a shaman. So we have three feet like one business, one, this world and then upper world as well.
Bryan Mandrell:So I think, as we went through today, what happens with alternative healthcare practitioners and small business owners in general, myself included so when I say these things, I'm not calling anybody out. I have the same issues as well. So one of the problems that I see that people struggle with is lack of clarity the curse of us as practitioners is we do too many things, too many things and, yeah, I'm guilty as well and so I can do anxiety, I can do stress, I can do past life regression, I can do trauma work, I can do just energetic clearing, so I can do all these different things. And then what happens is we get lost and we don't have clarity on what to actually do next and when to do it or where to focus our time on. One of the things that I have learned with this is that I can only focus on one or two business things at a time. So, like right now, so like my coaching business, I am not taking any new clients because I'm focusing on my shamanic business. So I shut that down on new clients because I knew I couldn't focus and market and build this business, just doing both at the same time. So clarity of what you're doing, clarity of the big picture of how online marketing works and marketing works within your clinic.
Bryan Mandrell:One of the things that I learned back with my brother-in-law is that there's in-office marketing and out-of-office marketing. So in-office marketing is marketing to your current clients and then out-of-office marketing is marketing your clinic, outside of your clinic, and that would be to people that and how I built this shamanic practice. So my shamanic practice actually hit my business goal within six months of launching my website. I was totally hit there. I'm now above it. I'm trying to slow things down. I'm sleeping, which is bad. I'm too busy, which sucks. I hate to say that, but I don't want a full-time clinic because I had a full-time clinic for 30-something years. So I'm trying to limit my shamanic size. So in-office marketing is marketing that you do to your clients, getting them in.
Bryan Mandrell:One of the big things I see with healthcare practitioners is that they're one and done One service, one time, one treatment. Thanks. If you need my help, call me again. There's not any type of process of moving their clients through. People call it a sales funnel within their business, but I call it more of a care funnel and you're moving your client or your patient through a process inside of your clinic to where they first come in. You give them a set amount of treatments and then you move them on into maintenance. That's very, very important because to have a consistent business and with this business as well, we don't have consistent income. It cycles up and down, like summers are very slow, christmas time is super slow as well, and so we had these big dips. And what happens in these dips? People get freaked out, they get stressed out and they're like, well, this isn't working, so let me try this other program and start these desperate grabbing type of programs. But if you understand that if you can put as many clients that you have into a maintenance program, it lowers those dips, they are on as deep, you still have them, but they're not as bad.
Bryan Mandrell:So again, for example, in my clinic, in my shamanic practice, I've only had 49 people come into my clinic. That's it in six months. Out of that I'm seeing. So last week I saw 12. This week I'm seeing 11. I'm consistently seeing anywhere from 8 to 10 clients per week, and only out of 49 clients. And so what I've done is I've moved those clients onto like a maintenance schedule. Out of those clients, probably two to three of them are like brand new clients coming in, and so you basically want your practice to be 80% maintenance and then 20% new clients or clients on a treatment plan, and if you do that, then you have this long term income, you have consistent income, and that's the key to this, I think, which most people don't understand is that the consistent incomes comes from maintenance. And people don't like the word maintenance in this field because for some reason they think it's kind of scammy or they're trying to like people are trying to oversell their services.
Bryan Mandrell:But I look at it in a different way. I see it like I care more about my clients if I do put them on maintenance. For example, when I was a massage therapist, someone came in for low back pain. They're in chronic pain, they can barely walk, they're hobbling in. And then if I gave them one or two massages and they felt better and I sent them on their way and then they came back three months later with the same pain, so was I really helping them? Did I treat the actual root cause of the injury? No Right, I just gave them two sessions and come back in whenever. But as a massage therapist I knew that if I took care of the root cause of the problem and then put them, let's say, once a week for six weeks, they got out of pain and I put them on a maintenance scale, come in once a month to keep them out of pain in the future, then I'm really caring, I care about them, I'm really helping them at that point, and so that's why I have a big beef with people that don't like maintenance plans or packages is because like, oh it's, you know you're overselling or something. No, no, no, I care about my clients.
Bryan Mandrell:I want to help my clients, and when I was acupuncturist I had clients. I had that for about 12 years. I mean they're like family. I mean I would see their kids grow up. I'd go to the graduations. It was, and that's what I want in the clinic. I want it in a center of practice. I want to have a family. I want to see the same people how you're doing, how's your life, how's your, how's your family. I want to have that again. And so, again, you can only get that if you do proper in-house marketing or in-office marketing. With that, okay, any questions or concerns or accusations? No, what.
Marcie Walker:Can I ask you Definitely acquisitions? No, when you were talking, what came immediately to front of mind was sometimes in my practice that you know I send people up for three months and it's a consecutive once a week for three months, and then at the end of the three months they need to kind of go out and I test out their new skills and test out who they are, and so the maintenance plan ends up being a way for them to test it out and still have, like it's, training wheels.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah yeah, go out and life experience. It come again, let's troubleshoot it. Yeah, yeah, that's it I mean. So I'm always saying like, let's customize this. I think in selling your services in your office, there are several key phrases, which is very, very, very useful. I treat that actually the root cause of the problem. Okay, I have a customizable program just for them, right? And then I want you to go out and experience life and come back in and then we'll troubleshoot what you experienced, and then that way, they're like okay, that makes sense, that makes sense at that point.
Marcie Walker:So yeah, so what are some of the other issues that you see? Clarity, lack of focus.
Bryan Mandrell:Oh, okay, a big one would be outside marketing. Oh, this is going to scare. Everybody's going to freak out, they're going to click. Oh, this feels so uncomfortable with this one. So, with me, the good thing about me. I'm so grateful for this.
Bryan Mandrell:There's several things in my life I'm very, very grateful for, and this is one of them. I built two businesses before the internet, and so I know how to do things offline. I know how to market offline and I had did. I've done fairs. I've done you know business means in the morning. I've done lunch and learns. I've done all.
Bryan Mandrell:I've done all these different things, and one of the things that I learned and do the process was two things is where, where are my clients? Who had who has my clients? I got tired of going to this like like B9 meetings in the morning. You go have coffee with people and there's like real estate agents and there's a wine person and there's an auto salesman and you all stand up for like 30 seconds, you give your or spill and then you pray and hope someone sends someone to you, right, versus. I figured out like, okay, where are my clients? Who has the clients? Okay, and when I mean clients as we, as we talked about earlier, there's different phases in the selling phase and the buying phase with with people.
Bryan Mandrell:So as humans, we go through a three step process and buying something. So we have to discover the servers that we want to actually heal our, heal ourselves. So, again, if someone has like a have headaches, they find say massage therapy, like like helps migraines. So they go out and they start doing research over how do massage, how does massage help migraines? And then they. So that's the discovery phase, is that massage helps migraines. The information gathering phase is what type of massages helps migraines? And the third step is where is a massage therapist near me that works on migraines, especially on that right? So you want to position yourself always at the very end. You don't want to have to move someone through the, through the information gathering phase, the discovery phase, and then the and then the actual buying phase. You want to position your business and your practice and yourself in the buying phase. I'm taking only clients that are ready to buy from me and so in doing that you have to think of who has my clients. Where are my clients?
Bryan Mandrell:Okay, so with my stop smoking clinic, why I was very, very busy with that. One of the reasons took. There's two reasons. I was a very busy. Busy in that practice. A was my online marketing. I was ranked number one under certain keywords for SEO here in Denver.
Bryan Mandrell:And the second thing is is I had a lot of doctor referrals, and so what I realized as a practitioner back then, as a as a hypnot therapist, is that who had smokers? Where were the smokers right? Where doctors? And if a doctor referred to me, then that puts me as the authority in the client's eyes, which means that they will get better care and they will respond better as well. As it's not really a sell. You're like doctor, brought this, talk to me to actually see you how many of you charge. Okay, that's good, right, so you're looking at as a practitioner who has your clients.
Bryan Mandrell:So with me in my shamanic business is I built this business as well? Was I have psychologists? Like a refer to me? So I talked to psychologists people that had trauma, who's your? And I went and talked to them. I've had lunches with them.
Bryan Mandrell:Okay, also as well in my my hypnosis business, I did doctor lunch and learns. Once a week for six months I would go to all these different doctors, go in, act like a pharmaceutical rep and say, hey, when's the next one next luncheon? And I would actually physically go in and buy lunch for like the staff and talk to like the doctors and explain to them what, how hypnosis can actually help their clients. And so that we're so like want to say, outside marketing. I talk about sometimes going and talking to people face to face and people are like, oh my God, that's so scary, I can't talk to someone face to face. And I think this is why a lot of people try to hide behind social media is that they don't really want to go out and present themselves because they don't have the confidence to try to do that. And the confidence comes from knowing that you're not selling, your educating. So I never sold a doctor on anything. I never sold anybody anything. I've only educated them. And then they decided that I was a good fit for them.
Marcie Walker:I love that point about getting out and you know out in public and talking to Joe public.
Bryan Mandrell:But only talking to people in the public that have your clients that are in alignment Right.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, the Haggard. So again, let's say, let's say, here in Colorado, one of the things, one of my plans of doing, is trying to get in with EMTs and like paramedics, and so I'm going to try to find a place to go and talk to paramedics, because they're out with people, with the lower vibrational people, they're around people that pass away, so they have a lot of energy work which they need to be done on themselves, and so if I get in green with the paramedics, I know that I'm going to have a constant supply of clients, especially on maintenance, because they're out in this environment all the time and so they need monthly clearings.
Bryan Mandrell:True, my dad was the first non-union contractor in Northern Nevada and you know, as CFO of the business Like I, didn't learn any marketing because all of our client or all of the customers for the construction company were built off of a handshake in the 70s and getting out and building those relationships is so stinking important, yeah, and again, I think it's important because one, two resources which we have as practitioners that are in very short supply is our time and our money, and if we need and this is again having clarity on really getting on what do I want, what type of client do I want, what services am I providing? And then who has those clients? Who has those people who? And then going out and then marketing just to those people. So again, I don't do a lot of external marketing but, like when I do, I'm only targeting people that have my clients ready to buy.
Marcie Walker:What's your takeaway for the people at home listening? Do you have top three?
Bryan Mandrell:Top three. You want to talk about something else yeah, clarity.
Bryan Mandrell:Again, doing a lot understanding. I think it's understanding the sales and the buying process, and this will go hand in hand with social media. And what's happened, what I've seen today with, like my coaching clients, is they put a lot of time, as you said, into social media. Making content is very draining Time, consumes a lot of time, and what I think they do is they see other people on Instagram like, oh, they're actually doing it on Instagram. I built my shamanic business zero social media. I have three posts on my Instagram. I have nothing on my Facebook. I have zero videos on my YouTube channel. When I use a social media channel with this business, with the brick and mortar business, it's going to be YouTube. I'm going to start there first, because then you can move your content. You can shoot one video and then move that content to actually different platforms.
Bryan Mandrell:But one of the things I think what happens is in the sales process there's a sales funnel at the top of the sales funnel. It's called tofu, mofu and bofu, and tofu is top of funnel, mofu is middle funnel and then bofu is bottom of funnel and what happens is people are making content on social media and they think it's like middle of the sales process. And so they get discouraged and they make all this content that's not moving anybody anywhere. They throw a piece of content about something that's not relevant or they actually make a piece of content that does not drive someone to somewhere on their website, like a free download onto something. So every piece of content that I make, I'm making it with a purpose and I make it where it never dead ends.
Bryan Mandrell:It never dead. It's just the first step in moving them on down the funnel. So, for example, if someone had, if I did, like a YouTube video or like an Instagram video, or I would say, if you want more information about this, go to a commercial website and download the free workbook which explains this in detail. So then that moves them into the middle of the funnel and then, on dashboard download, you actually have them on your email list and then you sell them on a low ticket offer into like a $29 online something, membership or something, or a video or training, and then then you actually move them down to like a higher level price product. And so what happens when people, when they're actually making content, they make a piece of content that goes nowhere. It's just a dead end content and that's just a waste of time and money and effort and there's no point in that.
Marcie Walker:So and you to your point, I think, is that you, if I'm putting out a piece of content right, it's not always I'm not moving that person through it, because not necessarily they may not. They may take a hiatus from social media and they may not see the series of events that I'm trying to move them through the funnel.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, but, but you had to. But again, what? So this podcast is a top of funnel, top of top of funnel content, right, and so that's going to be on your, on your platform on, and then in the down below somewhere, I'm sure that you're gonna have like a link to your website, which then links to like a piece of content, which then leaks links into something. But I see like a lot of posts on Instagram stuff that, for example, like it drives me crazy is like these, these, these healers, that these girls and they're like little bathing suits and they're dancing in, and I was like that's good, I understand why you're doing it.
Bryan Mandrell:Why are you actually doing that? As in wanting to actually be an influencer, but you're not moving anybody, any customers. That will be long term, long term customers, right, so, like, for them, I see it as more not really ego, but they're just doing it, just to do it. Either they don't get out of ego or they don't know what else to actually do and they're copying everybody else. You know, and that's what I see with that as well, and that drives me crazy is because, oh, if you have some good services, because I don't want to be influencer, I want to be the authority and Denver I want to, even though I'm not the number one shaman practitioner Denver not even close but I want to position myself at that position as authority. At some point in my lifetime I may be I'll be a better practitioner, but in the moment, in my marketing scheme I want to be like a authority in my field.
Marcie Walker:One of the takeaways that I had this morning was not totally just escape. My mind was basically about I don't even know, we're going to have to cut that out, or maybe not. Yeah, so I don't know.
Bryan Mandrell:So today we went over clarity today, getting the actual big picture of your business, how things fit together, becoming now second oh I remembered.
Marcie Walker:Okay, woohoo, I remembered it was about it's. You know like, with social media, I feel like I don't get my target audience, hey, you know. So then I'm out doing out of office marketing to people that don't have my clients One and then the other part of that, too, is that I'm helping build someone else's platform.
Bryan Mandrell:Right, you mean like. And what does it mean? Like who else?
Marcie Walker:is helping Zuckerberg build his his product.
Bryan Mandrell:And that's why and again, that's why it's important so on my, on my coaching business, so on my website I host. So I don't host it, but but I have embedded on my site all, all of my podcasts as well as my as my podcast videos as well, and so in doing so, I'm driving people to my website, not to Spotify, not to Apple, not to YouTube. I want them to watch it on my site because that helps me with my rankings, my SEO rankings, because because that's, the longer that someone is on your site, the extra more authority your site has. And so I'm always driving people to my website, not to my podcast, on like, say, you know, spotify, or like or like Apple. I don't do that. I put everything into my own platform. And again, that's the importance of owning your own platform is because, because, because what happens is so.
Bryan Mandrell:Let's say, for example, I built my, my hypnosis business on, let's say, if, if Wix was like around at the time, if I built on a Wix in 2007, all the SEO, all the, all my backlinks, all my posts, everything they would own it.
Bryan Mandrell:And then if I, if I like, went away from them, then it was gone. All those years of just backlinks and work and blog posts, and all this because there's an SEO, there's so many factors to it and, like when, the factors on the ranking is the age of your site, so if you have a site longer. That's why if I have a business idea that I'll say, well, let's say like, for example, here in Colorado next year, in 2024, they're going to start having health care centers or care centers for psilocybin use, and so I built and I bought a website six months ago, planning ahead, so it has age to it. Once I should launch it full time. There's age on that site, so it so we ought to actually rank faster. So, again with my hypnosis website that's been producing money for me nonstop since since 20s, like 2007, 2008.
Marcie Walker:Yeah, so when you say age of site, it's actually when the domain was purchased.
Bryan Mandrell:It was when Google first index your site, so, so it has to be your actual domain and then, and then the first page of your, of your website, that's, that's built out. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, so again, again. That's why I really harp on owning your business, because your site's going to pay off for you Not only this year, but 10 years down, down, down the road.
Marcie Walker:It's a long term game.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, I'm thinking long term. So, again, like with it, my Shamaic practice, I'm looking at it for years to come and then, if I want to give it to my daughter, markela she's a practitioner as well she can have it, and so it's one of those things where I'm really thinking, thinking ahead, and then again, that's what you think about long term where do you want to be, what do you want to do? And you start planning for that now and again. That's why I actually love, I love SEO. I built businesses off of that, off of off of like a Google's website, because it pays for you forever, almost forever, but it's free. It doesn't cost you Once you have everything up. It's free. I don't. I don't spend a dime on a Google ad. I don't spend a dime on on Facebook ads, nothing. I don't have to.
Marcie Walker:Fascinating. Yeah, well, before we downshift and I ask you about modern shamanism and your opinion of that, do you have any other snippets, any great insight coming through that a healing practitioner like myself might need to know? I would just brain dump a bunch.
Bryan Mandrell:I think I need to ask you what did you learn the most today? And that would be what the takeaway would be.
Marcie Walker:It was definitely about owning my own website.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah.
Marcie Walker:Because I host my websites through a different place. And then what you said today about owning it and what if they price you out, and all those things. I was like, oh shit, yeah, that's a very valid point, and even though it's easy it's easy for me to use and design my own thing, and it has found these fancy tools I could still get screwed in the future.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, and that's why I think with your business, you can still have that software platform, but I was thinking about it after today, this morning, that maybe you should build a site that drives traffic there, so you can still use that as your platform, as your emails, actually emails and all that, but then use that as your own platform. Yeah, I guess we'll hash that out on Monday when I see you again. Side note to that, right, side note to this.
Marcie Walker:Yeah, so modern shamanism, the medicine wheel. How has that really changed your personal life?
Bryan Mandrell:In every way I would say it was so again, I've been in the alternative healthcare field since 1990. I've been hitting with therapists, been trained a lot in hypnosis, went through different teachers with hypnosis, different styles of hypnosis. I'm a master practitioner in like NLP. So I've done a lot of work in my own personal work and I would say shamanism has been the most powerful type of modality or practice or whatever you want to call it, that I've ever experienced has changed my life tremendously Again with my spiritual awakening. It really changed. So that helped me and then I actually saw the power in shamanism. I see it, I'm not afraid of death anymore, which is a bit of a big thing for me, I understand. I think I understand life better, I understand the spiritual realm better. So really I think it has decreased my anxiety and my pressures and stuff like that, because I guess the biggest thing is I'm not afraid to die. So that's a big anti-anxiety relief right. Help for that For sure.
Marcie Walker:The other day I had a new client and it was we did some sexual trauma work and then, after I asked him, I said okay, so how would you explain one of these sessions? And he was like it's kind of like someone asking you to describe what it strawberry tastes like.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah.
Bryan Mandrell:You just have to take a bite and then I think so that's my personal life. And then in my business, in my practice, oh my gosh, this work is just. It has so like, let's say, for example, someone that came in so I just had a client that was like sexual trauma as well. She's been through therapists for years and years and years and she's seen everybody, and so typically with my, if I just did straight hypnosis with her, it would have been four or five sessions and it resolved it in two, and it was just so. I think adding that shamanism into my practice really accelerates the actual results much faster.
Marcie Walker:Wait till you start adding psilocybin, because that is mind-blowingly amazing Adding hypnosis and shamanism with psilocybin to bring that trauma up and process through it's. I'm excited to see where you're practicing yeah.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah.
Marcie Walker:Well, how do people find you?
Bryan Mandrell:They find me, mr, in the Colorado area, and find me at shamanichealingdenvercom, or just Google shamanichealing denver, and I'm ranked number one, of course, because I do SEO. And then are they if you're on my coaching, so my coaching. I'm not taking any new clients until January, but you can find me on building your spiritual business across the platforms, my podcast as well over there, and then my YouTube channel as well. So that's how they find me. Or just brianmandrellacom works as good with two L's, yeah, and B R Y A N M A B R E L L, yeah.
Marcie Walker:Thank you, that's pretty much the only thing you can spell.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's awesome. So just a little bit of a tip about me and my coaching. So if you're gonna come do coaching with me, I'll just struggle spelling. I can't spell for fight crap.
Marcie Walker:So I think people don't pay you to spell. That's right, that's all I have to say. More me either. So that's amazing. And when you're in shamanic sessions, sometimes, when you're in circular time, I'm like I wouldn't. I just even say Exactly, yeah, it's funny.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, it's funny, and it's like one of the things that changed for me as well, before we closed, about the actual shamanic work. In my life, time is different. Time has changed. Time is way, way different in shamanic, in this as a practitioner now, than it ever was for me, and it's like it just I don't know if it's slower or longer. What do you experience? That that your time is different, oh yeah.
Marcie Walker:And so is it?
Bryan Mandrell:how is it different for you?
Marcie Walker:Well, I started planning everything around the medicine wheel and equinoxes and solstices and really kind of attuning myself and my tasks and things around the energy of the earth and the celestial events and that has made a huge difference. But time per se for itself, like I have literally no idea if it's Monday or Sunday, yeah, I'm saying way.
Bryan Mandrell:Yeah, yeah, I'm saying way.
Marcie Walker:And thankfully I have you know. So I set up my schedule, so I'm doing content creation, including podcasts, on Tuesday. So at least I know what day Tuesday- is Exactly yeah, awesome. Well, thank you for taking time out of your whole entire day to spend it with me, because it was a pleasure. You had an hour break, pretty much.
Bryan Mandrell:It was a pleasure being here today.
Marcie Walker:Well, thank you for all of the knowledge that you dropped and being a part of my life, my shamanic lineage, because I know that I call you in every time I open sessions. So thanks and thank you for everybody tuning in. You can find me at thewildsagesocietycom and on Instagram at the Wildsage Society. Have a great day.