Losing Corporate, Finding Yourself: How a Sales Pro Built a New Future w/ Denise Murtha Bachman

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Hi, Denise. Welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 00:05

Great, thank you for having me here. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Brett.

Brett Trainor (: 00:08

My pleasure. I'm looking forward to this conversation because we're, we met not that long ago and had a really interesting conversation. And I think one of the first things I said, you've got to come on the podcast and too bad we didn't hit record. one of these days I'm going to get better about recording those initial conversations because there, was a ton of value, but, uh, definitely we want to kind of three things. One, get into your, your escapee journey. Cause I think it was interesting, some things you learned and you know, some advice you'd give others that are maybe earlier in there.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 00:20

Thank

Brett Trainor (: 00:38

escapee journey. first for the audience, why don't you explain a little bit of what you're working on and maybe what your background was and then we'll take you back in time a little bit.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 00:49

Yeah. Okay. So maybe I'll give my background and then what I'm doing, cause that's really super helpful. So I spent over 30 years in corporate sales. So I sold a bunch of different solutions, but primarily the majority of the time was spent in some sort of software. And it was the latter half, specifically in AI machine learning and automation. So I developed this real enthusiasm.

for this passion for AI. And so I started my company. I'll share a little bit about my journey. So I won't really dive into that and do a spoiler alert just yet. But my company today, I took my sales knowledge and my passion for AI. And now I most certainly spend about 10 % of my business talking about how to leverage, how to adopt and adapt to AI technologies within the sales process. So, you know, I do believe that there are four key areas.

within that process that we should be leveraging new technologies. But then the remaining 80, 90 % of my time is really focused on how do we elevate that human connection in the sales process? How do we foster that human experience that the buyers of today demand? And we can share a little bit more about that later as well. But I do a lot of consulting, coaching, and fractional sales work. And I even have a sales rep.

that I can drop into some of these founder led businesses and offer some sales, some sales activities to help them as we're coaching them to do their own founder led sales. So hopefully that's a great explanation of what I'm doing today.

Brett Trainor (: 02:29

That may be one of the best synopsises we've had on the history of this podcast. So well done because it makes sense. The one clarifying question I'll ask and you mentioned at the end is founder led. So is that your ideal target now is kind of startups or founder led companies or who's your

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 02:32

Thank you.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 02:42

So it has been startups. Yeah, so founder led startup companies is what I've been focused on. I'm still going to continue to foster those types of clientele, but I am increasing my threshold. It used to be anything below a million probably. Now I'm looking at somewhere between one to 10 million is where my threshold will be. Probably my sweet spot is about the five million space.

Brett Trainor (: 03:05

Yeah, and we share that passion of helping that zero to one to 10 company breakthrough. So no, it's good. And I love it. And we will get into, again, AI is something I'm passionate about now. The sales piece, I think, is so important. you've taken some different approaches. Or I wouldn't say pivots. Well, maybe you have pivoted. We'll get into that in different areas. But let's go back. Your last corporate job was how long ago?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 03:25

I guess I've been given, that's fair.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 03:32

Uh, in, I left in 2022, so it hasn't been, it's only been a little, almost three years.

Brett Trainor (: 03:36

Okay, so reset.

Okay. So: 2022

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 03:44

I was in a sales role, not a leadership role. At that moment, I was in a sales role, yes. And I had gone from, so maybe I can give you a little bit of history. I had, what really drove this urge to do something new was I had been at one company for over 11 years. So 11 and a half to be more specific.

Brett Trainor (: 03:47

still

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 04:07

And I thought that they were my family, right? And I had year over year, I had been consistently successful, right? Otherwise I wouldn't have had such a position for such a long period of time. I had one terrible year and I ended up being let go. And that rocked me to my core. Like I was crying and sending out messages, know, trying to find a new job because it was though, you know, having spent that much time, having given everything that I had, I would,

You know, I worked super hard. I exceeded my quota most years and you know, I hit quota or exceeded quota 85 % of my qualifying years, right? Made a lot of great money, made some amazing friends that for me were family at the time. And I had been told that I was safe, that I wasn't going to be laid off. Now in reflection, I realized that layoff was really my own demise. And there's a whole long story to that, right? But ultimately at that moment, it was

really heartbreaking for me. And while I had, you know, like think five job offers within the first month because I busted my butt, as soon as it happened, I was, you know, trying to do whatever I could to find my next position because I hadn't experienced that in a while. Now they gave me a great severance package, but it was still, you know, I knew I couldn't sit idle for very long and I didn't want to wallow, right? That was my biggest fear. What I uncovered though, as part of this process, one is,

probably should have wallowed because I didn't probably deal with my grief over having been let go and losing a family essentially is what I felt, right? I should have wallowed a bit longer. The second was is that I had a lot of baggage from past history, from childhood trauma that I hadn't dealt with that were for some reason resurfacing or maybe just surfacing for the first time.

I don't really know, but they were coming out and because I didn't deal with my grief and because I hadn't dealt with my old baggage so long ago, it was coming out in ways that I hadn't anticipated. was depressed. I I mean, I hate to admit this on a podcast, but I think it's important for others to recognize or realize that they're not alone, but I was self-mutilating as a way to navigate that stress.

Brett Trainor (: 06:00

Yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 06:25

affecting my relationship with my children, my relationship with my husband and with myself and my own health. My health was deteriorating. I wasn't dying. But I had exceedingly high elevated liver enzymes. My kidney function was really low. was consuming tons of sugar and wasn't really eating at all. My husband had to take over the cooking. I mean, it was really bad. Now, I found a home, but I

I found a new job at, you know, shortly thereafter, right? Within that first month I had it, I was already, you know, sitting in at a behind, you know, another computer, someone else's computer that they'd issued me and with another company, but I had had an, since then I accept, let me repeat that. We have to cut and re-fix that. So I'd been sitting behind a desk, you know, in front of a new computer. And I did that for about a year and a half. And then I went to go find a new location. So I struggled with finding a home.

Right, BMC had been a home for me and I found it really difficult to find a new one. So as I started to go through this journey of healing, which is probably more than what you asked for, but as I started to go through this journey of healing, I was encroaching 50 and my children are still young. They were eight and 13 at the time.

And I realized that I needed to do something different. And I also recognized that there was this huge gap in the sales world today, or at that time, which was we were introducing all these new technologies within the sales process, but we weren't really adapting effectively. We weren't leveraging them as we should. We were causing extra work versus augmenting our work. We weren't really spending time on higher value activities. We were inundated with too many tools.

without great training and not knowing which tools to leverage more effectively. so given that I was in this place mentally and physically, meaning my health, and realizing I wanted to be a better mom and a better wife and really just a professional, I knew that I could take advantage of this gap that we had. And I left the corporate world. I went to my husband actually, and I said, Andreas, do you care?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 08:41

I really think I need to start my own business. I've been wanting to do this and here's what I think that I can do. Will you support me?" And he sat there and he said, I guess, I don't know what that means, but okay.

Brett Trainor (: 08:53

Yeah, I love the support. Absolutely. Yeah, one, but thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I know. mean, there's so many people have these variations of that story, right? And I tell people all the time, my wife, I hadn't quite left corporate yet. She's like, what the hell's the matter with you, right? Everything on the surface seems fine and had even gone through that process. But the number of people that are in the community now that have been laid off, it just, hits differently. I guess part of my career was

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 08:56

Yeah, yeah I see.

Brett Trainor (: 09:22

wrong place, wrong time many times. So get a little numb to it after the fourth time that you get let go. But it's yeah, it's in that place. And what's interesting with sales, I always tell people I view that as the closest thing to an entrepreneur. Because for the most part, you're controlling how much money you make. The better you are, the more you hustle, the more money you can make. And most of the time this sales org leads you alone if you're delivering. But the real downside is what you highlighted, right?

that 11 and a half years didn't matter because yet there was one year for whatever reason, you know, they just decided that they're going to make a change. so one, like I said, thank you for sharing that. And you're definitely not alone. I know people are, that's going to resonate with folks. but then two, when you were, you thought about the business, obviously, and something I didn't do was I didn't have a plan. So as you were going through, did you have a plan? What was

And I do want to touch back on, well, before we go into that plan, the one thing I do want to highlight, which I think we'll get to later is the human aspect of sales and AI. You know, the one thing that just doesn't crack me up, it makes me laugh is Salesforce is going through all these layoffs, but yet they're hiring a thousand people to sell their AI sales tool. I'm like, wait a second, you're selling an AI sales platform to small businesses so they don't have to have salespeople, but you're bringing salespeople in to sell that sales.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 10:40

thing.

Brett Trainor (: 10:48

platform. If that's not corporate in nutshell, I don't know what is. But I think it gets into what you're talking about back to the humanizing of sales. we'll get there in a minute. I'm sorry, took us down a rabbit hole. what was the plan? Are your husbands on board or kind of sort of sick? All right, go for it. What did you do?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 10:48

Yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 11:07

Well, interestingly enough, I'd had the bug for a while, long before I had even gotten laid off. I had always wanted to own my own business. thought at some point I thought I'd write a book, which I do still think I'll eventually do, but I had these grand endeavors that never really panned out one way or another. So during the time, even while I was at BMC before I'd been laid off, I'd hired a sales coach or a business coach.

And so I hired him to kind of help me figure out what I wanted to do. So I didn't have a business plan. I didn't have anything engraved in stone, but what I knew was that I had a need that I could try to fulfill. I had an experience and an expertise in that area. And I had a business coach who really built my confidence level such that I was able to just leave the

corporate world and go straight into establishing my own company. But interestingly enough, it was called success with AI. And I thought I'm going to go out and I'm going to evangelize the benefits and the value of leveraging AI in the sales process while still retaining that human element. But first off, I did not have a following. I was not a thought leader and no one wants to be educated. So as you can imagine, even with

the best laid plans, although they weren't like, you know, etched in stone, the best laid plans, I wasn't making any money, right? So I had to then make a pivot, right? And I think that's, you talk, you mentioned something about some of the pivots I'd had, that was a huge monumental pivot for me because I recognized that, you know, I needed to do something while it was great to talk about AI, that I really needed to take my experience and my success.

and maybe marry the two, which is why then I started focusing on coaching and consulting as it relates to sales, but most certainly leveraging AI technologies.

Brett Trainor (: 13:06

Yeah, it's so good. And how long was it before you realized? Was it a couple of months? Not even that long that you realized that?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 13:13

It was probably about eight months, about six to eight months, because you know, for the first few months, you're trying to just figure out this whole entrepreneurial thing, right? Getting a rhythm in place, right? You know, having to figure out what tools you need to purchase, getting your messaging right, right? And then you're starting to build your content out on, for me, it was LinkedIn, you know, whatever social media platform, but the more then that you started to engage and build content or create content,

Brett Trainor (: 13:21

Yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 13:41

you started to reform your messaging. But I also, as I was reforming that messaging, is when I realized, you know, six to eight months later that I needed to do a shift, right? I needed to really, I needed to do something that could actually bring me in revenue where I could really coach, share something that people actually really needed because right then at that moment, AI was more of a fear, right? It was either super excitement because they were introducing, you know, they just introduced ChatGPT.

So they were writing the band, you know, the, the title wave, or it was this extreme fear of, my gosh, AI is going to take over a little. they know AI has been around for a long, long, long, long time, right? Well before chat GPT, but, but so I had to make a shift and I had to do it kind of quickly. So I hired another business coach. Cause at this point I had, I had already, well, no, I had, I hired, don't know. It doesn't really matter in what sequence it was, but I hired a new business coach to really help me formulate.

Brett Trainor (: 14:21

Right.

sure.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 14:39

What I then put together is my Cell Elevators program, which is sales and AI.

Brett Trainor (: 14:44

makes sense. you know, one of the things curious to because all of a sudden, one of the adjustments I had to make was owning your own schedule. I'll send you have all this time. And I think there's two parts of one, how do get it organized and make sure you're working on. But the other one, I'm curious, if you felt this way was guilt, right? Because if you weren't working on the business, versus taking or being more focused, right. And so I went through an evolution of

over index and being way too structured and working way too many hours to not having enough. And now I've found it a happy medium, but I was surprised at the number of folks that it took them a while to figure out how to manage a schedule in your own time. And two, the guilt of not working more and more and more because you don't have the revenue you wanted to be at. And I think that's it. You do need to work and you to put the hours in, but there's probably overkill. So just curious if you had gone through any of that, a little bit of evolution as you were starting.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 15:40

I did, and I think mine was a bit different because I was going through this journey of healing at the same time. So I was navigating this whole journey of trying to solve to 50 years of, you know, the stuff, right? Because once you get, once you resolve your, your, primary trauma, you know, you have all these ancillary things that then pop up, right? That, you know, you've, you've learned to be this way because of something that you've experienced. So you get rid of that something that you've experienced, but now you've got to learn how to

Brett Trainor (: 15:53

Yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 16:09

you know, grow and change from the things that have become your develop, your organic, you know, from your organic self to actually creating a developed self, right? So that in itself was really difficult to add. But then I also, you know, the reasons why, so when I quit the corporate world, part of my vision, I have a professional and a personal, and the personal one was because of my childhood trauma. I wanted to give my kids more than what I had, right? Because it was something related to my, to my.

my family, right? And so I really wanted to be able to give them more time. So part of my vision is to spend, you know, build a legacy for them that allows me to spend as much time possible doing the things that we love together. And so it was, I would feel guilty that I was working so hard and not giving the time. So mine was a bit of the opposite guilt, working so hard and not giving as much time as I should and living my vision while all still trying to go through this journey of healing. So for me, it was a bit different.

Brett Trainor (: 17:01

Yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 17:05

than maybe someone else. My guilt was the opposite.

Brett Trainor (: 17:09

That's interesting. It's funny. It's the more people I talk to, there's some variation of this journey because when I left corporate, I thought it was purely financial. like, I'm going to go make more money. I want to make more money. I'm done doing that. But then I started to discover the time and then the relationships and it really was a

I don't want to say rebirth, in a sense it was, because my priorities are completely different now than they were five years ago when I started this. I still need to do certain things, but it just, was, I didn't know that was in me that these things were bothering me until you started going down this path. Now I look back and like, man, what the hell was I doing? And I mean, you do it because you have to do it or you think you have to do it, but yeah, it's, when I tell people that are new, they're like, really? You went through a, I'm like, yes, it's.

surprising.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 17:56

Well, I think we all have to at some point as we embark on that new opportunity, new space, because we're having to relearn how to do everything. I we were driven by corporate world, right? Where we knew what the process was, you abided by the process, you you could have fun, but you could also like go do whatever you wanted every now and then because you're still getting paid.

Brett Trainor (: 18:08

Yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 18:20

You know, for sales, you got paid at least a base salary. So if you needed to run and go do an errand, it was fine, right? Because you made up that time somewhere, didn't really matter because you you would make sales. But when you are the owner of your own business as not solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, you know, if you walk away, you may not, that not working affects payment of some sorts, right? It affects revenue in some way or another. Unless of course you're further down the road. But for us who are startups, right?

Brett Trainor (: 18:41

right.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 18:48

you know, we're embarking for the first time down this journey. You then have to learn how to navigate some of those feelings that are associated with all that.

Brett Trainor (: 18:55

Yeah, for sure. And two, the other thing which I didn't appreciate is focus time, right? Because I talk a lot now that, you know, that sounded that the 27 % of our corporate jobs are actually spent doing our what we were paid to do. And the other was work of work, right? Commute unnecessary meetings. So you cut all that out of your your work life, your new work life. And that's so helpful. But yeah, it's still the you still got to be focused with with what you do. So now I mean, it's like I said, it's been a fascinating

fascinating journey so far. And yeah, now I'm to the point where I am starting to focus on the don't have to trade time for money. There's things that are now happening that I don't have to be a part. But yeah, it takes it takes a little bit to get there. So

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 19:37

Well, know, Brett, something that helped me that might be helpful to anyone who's out there that's listening. One of the things that I really struggled with as I was trying to figure out how to harmoniously navigate the different schedules, right? And where to give my time, right? One of the things that was really bothersome for me, especially as a mother, when Emma and my son, Matias, were younger, it was easy for me to work 150 % because

they would, they, didn't have to navigate or manage them, right? They would, I could sit them in front of the TV or, you know, they were napping or I took them to daycare, right? But when, now that they're older, they have softball and baseball and you know, now I've got to take Emma to youth church on Wednesday nights and Matias has practiced twice a week. Emma's got high school softball. So it's like all of these schedules and I could not give as much time. So I felt like I was not, that's where my guilt came in. So

If you think about content pillars when you're creating content for LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever platform you utilize, you always are taught to create content pillars. So you're not talking about the same thing every time. And on average, they say around five content pillars. I took that same concept and I created life buckets. And I said, okay, this is how much time I need to spend with my kids' activities.

Brett Trainor (: 20:57

How interesting.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 21:03

And that did qualify as some one-on-one time because we were in the car together, we got to talk, and that's where Emma's the chattiest, right? When we're on our way to school or I'm taking her to church. So I would have to create sports buckets. I had to create husband bucket. I had to create work bucket. I had to create self-care bucket, which included at that time my healing. I had to create all these different buckets and then I figured out how much time within my day or week

Could I give to each of those? And then I started to be more accepting then of the different buckets that I had to play in, right? And recognizing that they're not gonna be balanced. Some days I may have to work on one thing more and focus on one thing more than the other, but at least I knew around about how much time I should be giving and I could navigate that accordingly. And that really helped me, especially in those early days.

Brett Trainor (: 21:58

Yeah, that's good. wish I would have done that early. Cause I do have that. I do have that now built in, right? Like relationships is a bucket help or wellness, right? Mental, physical, fun. I still build a bucket for fun. And if we're not having fun doing something, we gotta figure it out. So a hundred percent. I wish I would have known that earlier in the process, but you know, it was what it is what it is. And now I try to bring folks on like you to say, Hey, do this differently. Right? This is where you learn. So,

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 22:12

Yes.

Brett Trainor (: 22:27

All right. So I want to go back to tactical. were a salesperson, so you got it. So when you knew you had to get out there and start that the content was going be more of a long game, the things you were building. So what did you do to go get your first, uh, couple of customers? Was it somebody in your network or how, you know, there was the reason I asked, we just had somebody on that long ago, Tom, who talked about his first customers were sympathy customers, right? He was somebody in his network knew him, liked him, had no idea if he could actually deliver on this, but they said, Hey, like, I'll give you a chance.

So just curious how you, and by the way, I'd love that. I wish I would have thought of that earlier in the process, but.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 23:02

I know I love that too. I wish I would have as well.

Brett Trainor (: 23:05

But what did you do? How did you get the first couple of customers?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 23:10

Yeah, so the reason why I love LinkedIn is because all of my work effort came from all of my clients came from my work effort on LinkedIn. So they all came through LinkedIn having at the time when I first started some of my podcasts and live interviews were centered around my journey of healing. But whenever I could, I would talk about how, you know, now I was able to really focus on sales in a new way.

And I started really talking about the value of humanizing sales. So I ended up through my messaging, whether I was vulnerable and putting myself out there, probably a little too vulnerable at moments, right? I would always say live and learn, right? But there's a fine line, like you don't wanna share all of your world, right? But you do wanna share enough. I don't know that I embodied that really well when I first started. But if you think about putting yourself out there and then my content, that's what really

fostered these conversations in both the comments and then over to the DMs that enabled me to start bringing on my clients. Which by the way then, I would say maybe a couple of them might have been sympathy and I didn't really know.

Brett Trainor (: 24:11

Okay. And then we're.

Brett Trainor (: 24:17

It's okay. It doesn't matter how he gets the momentum going. so structuring the deals, did you end up your first deals look different? Because the other people want everything to be perfect. like, the first deal is probably not going to be perfect. You're going to learn so much from it. And it's okay. It may not work the way you thought it is. But unlike in corporate, where you get penalized for a bad quarter or a bad decision here, you don't, right? You learn from it and you move on. So I'm guessing your early deals look different than later deals.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 24:45

yes. Yes. Well, first off, I didn't charge my value first off because I felt like I felt like I knew I don't, you know, this will be one of my first clients. They're not, you know, do they even know? Do I know how to value myself enough? Here's what I think I'm going to charge. And that's what I charge. I over delivered and I mean, I under I over delivered under overperformed and under delivered, right? Over delivered. I don't really know now.

Brett Trainor (: 25:15

Over-delivered but under-promised.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 25:15

Yeah, whatever. Yeah, whatever that is. I charged way less and delivered more value, right? And so then I started the good thing from that is like, I even talked to someone today, who she's not a client right now. I don't even know that she's a prospect, but it was just someone that I met, we were having conversation. And she said something about, you know, I'm worried about this first one, this first deal, I'm going to charge them less. And then, you know, when I go on to the next one, will I do the same? I said, look,

Here's what you do. You have to compartmentalize it. You have to shift your mind space. That first one or two, those are your beta clients, right? Those are your beta customers. And then that kind of compartmentalizes the pricing that you put around them that is inherently going to be less than what you charge for non-beta clients. And if you do that, then when you go to that next client that you designate is not going to be a beta client, then you're less likely to discount.

or devalue yourself as you did in those first, although you weren't devaluing yourself, you were actually trying to build a customer base, right? So they were indeed, or in fact, beta clients, right? So it is a mind space shift, it took me a bit to get there. I had to learn along and winding road type of way to get to, I need to understand what my value is and feel comfortable with my value and charge that value.

Brett Trainor (: 26:40

Yeah, no, I mean, it's such a good point and to reinforce that all the time. It's hard, right? Even when I came from consulting, that's what I did initially. Solo was consulting. I mean, the firm was billing me out, so I knew what my market rate was. So that was probably one of the better things happened because I probably wouldn't, know I wouldn't have charged that high. But then when you're on your own, just a hundred percent right. I love the idea of thinking of it as a beta. Hey, I'm going to learn from this. I'm going to get paid.

And then then it's just having that confidence in being comfortable that say, this, this is what it charges. I charged to solve this problem. If it's not worked for you, that's fine. Cause that's the other thing they took a little work to realize that not every customer is going to be that, that perfect fit. And the harder you work to try to get somebody to fit in the worst it is. And the more you get comfortable saying, Hey, no harm, no foul. This isn't the right fit. All of a sudden there's, know in the early days it's hard and you can't imagine doing that, but it's.

shocking that when you kind of turn that and maybe this is the humanizing part of sales, you turn off the sales approach. People are more interested in working with you because you're not pushing them to do it, but you're just talking about it. So yeah, I know that's definitely a pivot, not a pivot point, but a growth point for a lot of folks. go through this. So, all right. So going through your journey, I do want to just couple of other things and we can talk about human and AI and then sales.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 27:55

A growth point, yes.

Brett Trainor (: 28:04

So from there, when you started doing some coaching or consulting, then now you're involved in a bunch of different tests and you and I are two like mine. Like let's test it, see if it works. I think, you know, I did the math over the weekend and I think I've not monetized nine different ways my corporate experience, right? From consulting, fractional, you name it, coaching, there's been a difference. So I like the testing and the experimenting. So.

Why don't you share a little bit of, you haven't even been doing it that long, but yet you're experimenting. So kind of share your philosophy and your journey of how you're approaching that.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 28:40

So this is going to sound a bit woo woo ish. So for those of you, you know, I went through a whole journey of healing as I mentioned, right? So I've, I've really developed this more developed self where I'm, my intuition is really good, really high. My energy is really high. I tend to be in flow more often. I will say.

You know, I caveat that with saying just recently I realized and it hit me like a brick wall. It was someone who said it to me because even though I was undervalued myself at the beginning and I thought I was charging my value, I realized and I'd been going through this process. But when he said it a couple of weeks ago, it hit me hard. Like I became emotional. I cried because he said something that I knew already, but just to hear someone else say it, I was playing too small. And so I went, you know, the, the, so that

Brett Trainor (: 29:29

yeah.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 29:32

For the most part though, I went through a process and having to grieve with the fact that here's all of the work that I've done now. If I'm playing too small now, I've got to shift even again, right? And what that looks like and a little bit of imposter syndrome for a brief moment and just realizing that I have been playing smaller. What if I had done, played bigger sooner? Would I be in a different place? All those emotions that you feel, but essentially what has allowed me once I got on the other side of that and even prior to that, I was attracting.

those things that I was putting out into the universe. Now that I have gotten past that and I'm thinking bigger and greater, even in the last week, I've had some new opportunities. And I guess the answer to all of that is to just be in flow, right? I've learned something that I take with me every day that I think about. When you think about depression, is sadness for the...

past, right? If you think about anxiety, that is fear of the future. When you're in the present and in the moment, that's where you find joy. And while again, that sounds free, it gives me chills just to say that because it is the truth. I live that as much as I can every day, which allows these opportunities when they come in, I'm open to them. I think about them. I play with them and see if they're worth it. And then, you know, I choose to execute or not. Right. And so I've had a lot of different offerings come in and then go back out.

And I think I'll still be going through that evolution even a year from now because it's part of being human and attracting new and inspiring and exciting things,

Brett Trainor (: 31:10

So true. and again, again, mine was took a little longer to get to that point. But no, absolutely. And it is living in the present and being comfortable in the present. You got to be looking towards the future. But yeah, that was a big shift for me to start to embrace everything that that's going on and being again, it's got to work for you. But you direct and it was funny, I just had a call earlier today working on a potential deal that's a little outside of what I normally do. But it's exciting and interesting.

And we had had the first call and the second call, I kind of just laid out and like, this is the way I see these things working out. And if it doesn't work for you, the way this I'm okay with that. You won't hurt my feelings. And when we got on the call that, yeah, we're kind of thinking the same way. And I really appreciate you being direct. So it wasn't in the directive saying it's my way or the highway, but just saying, Hey, here's, here's the way I think this is going to work. And if you guys aren't thinking that 100 % fine, it just

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 31:54

That's us.

Brett Trainor (: 32:04

fundamentally changes the way you approach it. So 100 % agree. I hadn't thought about it in the pre, but you're right. Anxiety is the future, depression is the past. You gotta live in the moment and you know, prepare for it. So, no, that's fantastic.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 32:17

And look, that's harder said than done sometimes. It is a total shift, right? And you've got to, it's something that, know, at the beginning you have to practice sometimes even every moment, right? But once you start to practice it, you start to know it, and once you know it, you start to live it every day without having to think about it.

Brett Trainor (: 32:20

for sure.

Brett Trainor (: 32:28

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 32:37

Yeah. And you get smarter with it too. think that's the other thing. Cause when I was making pivots, I'd take, I'd overanalyze it and do I really want to do this? And then I kind of over index the other way that I was making decisions too quick and maybe flip flopping sooner. Now I feel like I'm in a, in a pretty good rhythm, but it's taken a little time to do that. And it's a good problem to have once you get out of corporate, right? You again, it's kind of that evolution of your, your escape path. yeah, I know we're starting to run out of time already, which is crazy. So.

Is there anything else in your journey that we didn't cover? Again, I'm kind of curious what your, maybe your, your take on AI. Cause one of the things I think, you know, I'll just give you my premise and then you can take it where you want, right? With, Gen Xers, that's who this audience is and escaping. I think there's going to be a real opportunity for us with AI, right? Even if we don't develop it ourselves.

But AI needs experience, right? Whether it's business, life, whatever it is in order to make it effective. And so somewhere down the line, and maybe in that too distant future, us partnering with AI is going to add a ton of value, right? Even within small businesses that could leverage it. They don't know how to do it. We may not do it technically, but find yourself an AI guru, partner with your experience, you can build some interesting things.

It's just an early thing I'm working on now, but just curious where your mind is and where you think AI is going and maybe how we could leverage this as escapees.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 34:08

Yeah, so I would say one AI is probably much or is much further along than we even know the idea or the concept of AGI, ASI, which are, you know, intelligent human beings. Those are in the works, if not ready to be launched here pretty soon. So and I don't know what soon is that maybe in the next two years, it may be five and it may be 10. I don't know. But if you've ever seen the movie subservience.

the machines that it's a movie to go check out, the machines that are the waitresses or at the local bar or that are the doctors in the hospitals. We're going to start to see those. Machines are going to most certainly be more prominent in the world in the near future. That being said, if you're not leveraging AI today, and let me caveat that by saying, doesn't mean that it's all

AI, we now classify automation under that AI umbrella, right? So if you're not leveraging new technologies today, you are going to be at some point in the not so distant future extinct, right? You are going to have to leverage it. I truly believe that as of today, there is still a huge need for humans. There's, you know,

Pre-pandemic, we were going around like crazy. We had a million things to do. And I don't think that we really thought about the human connection as much because we were just going from meeting to meeting, room to room. Now that we're in front of our laptops, we were sequestered and isolated at home. We really do as humans crave that human connection. So we're going back to that, wanting the experience. And so most companies that you talk to, they're trying to build an experience for their consumers, right?

All of that is so important. So I do think that you still need to focus and leverage on the human aspect in all that you do, which should be leveraging AI, automation, new technologies so that you can have them do, sign over those mundane tasks, those things that are low level activities so that you can focus on the higher value.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 36:13

which that is where then you foster that experience, right? That's where you develop that connection, build those relationships that build and make amazing partnerships in the future.

Brett Trainor (: 36:24

Yeah, couldn't agree more. mean, I do think you're right. We can scale up the non-value add stuff, which just makes sense. But where you do have human interactions and connections, it's going to be that much more valuable and that much more different. Right. And again, if AI is writing all the content, doing all this, everything's going to look the same, right? It's going to be when you can put a typo in here content or write different or, you know, we're old enough now that we had two spaces after a period, right? You're going to recognize that it's from a human. I think back

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 36:50

Yep.

Brett Trainor (: 36:54

You mentioned earlier in the conversation about being yourself and authentic and sharing too much. I don't know if you can share too much. think people appreciate the authenticity and there's just not a lot of that. So if you can be different doing it, yeah, in the near term, at least as long as I plan on working on really plan on retiring, but doing some variation of this, think, yeah, the human is going to play a piece and I think it's a.

I don't know. I'm super excited for the future. And maybe that's just the optimist in me versus the pessimist. But I think there's a lot of things for us. So in closing, any other words of advice for folks? Because our audience is a lot of people still in corporate thinking that, I don't know if I can do this. And one, I believe we all can do it. Should everybody do it? Maybe, maybe not.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 37:25

I am too. Yep, I am too.

Brett Trainor (: 37:48

Any other words of wisdom for folks listening out there?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 37:52

Yeah, I'd say a couple of things. I'd say one, make sure that you take care of your baggage. mean, really, you know, solve whatever problems you need. And it doesn't mean you have to go through traditional therapy. There are tons of different types of therapy you can go through. But I always say that if you don't take care of previous issues, they will come back to haunt you in some form or another. And that does limit your success. So

once you get rid of and get past some of that baggage, mean, the success that you will experience is beyond anything because now you're not self sabotaging. not, you understand your value. You know, you have high regard for yourself and respect others. I mean, there's so much that comes with taking care of baggage. That's first and foremost. And then I think the other is that you have to be open to adopt.

adapting, right? I think that I've gone through now, I started out with success with AI and evangelizing, right? Then I went to B2C where I was really just coaching individual salespeople. Then I went to B2B, but really still small, small zero, you know, barely funded startups. And now I'm shifting even more. I've tried different

offerings. Some have been great, some haven't. Some I had, I didn't actually offer, but I had them in my head and wanted to test the thought, the theory, right? And some were great. And then some didn't really meet the pivot that I was going through. I just think that, you know, as an entrepreneur starting your own business, you know, nothing is failure. You're always learning. And if you're willing to accept that there's going to be change and you're willing to adapt to that change,

I think then you can find really what your real place is. Because the reality is anytime you start, it takes a little bit of time for messaging and the conversations for you to really understand where your strength is or where your zone of genius is or what the demand in the market is. I'd say get an idea together, but recognize that you're going to have to make some shifts and changes throughout your journey, whatever that journey might look like. Those would be my two pieces of advice.

Brett Trainor (: 39:53

Yes, so good. I can't improve on that. it's a good place to leave it. Denise, thank you so much for joining us. And if people want to connect to you, which I'm sure they will, what's the best place for them to find out more about you and connect with you?

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 40:02

Thank you.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 40:11

LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn. And that's, yeah, my handle is Denise Murtha Bachman. So it's linkedin.com slash in slash Denise Murtha.

Brett Trainor (: 40:14

And if you haven't read it, it was a good.

Brett Trainor (: 40:24

And those that weren't listening closely, I'll add that to the show notes and you can link to it in the top of it. So yeah, I'm gonna have to have you come back because there's a bunch on my list that we didn't even get to today. But I think I really appreciate you sharing your journey again, because that's what we're trying to do is show people what's possible out there. you know, not everybody is I think there's a misconception that they think you have to be an entrepreneurial genius in order to escape corporate and go on like, man, you've paid.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 40:28

Yeah, because that was a lot.

Brett Trainor (: 40:50

the way you know how to do everything is just kind of reshifting in the mindset is one of the biggest hurdles we've to get folks over.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 40:58

Well, I think, Brett, it is hard to be an entrepreneur. It's hard to break into a new, know, into doing your own business. And it feels so lonely. So I am thankful that you've got a community of people who aren't alone and you've got a podcast like this so that, you know, people recognize and realize that others are out there and they're not alone.

Brett Trainor (: 41:21

Yeah, power in the numbers, right? Every day we've got new people joining. So 100 % agree with you. So awesome. Well, Denise, we'll do a part two in the not too distant future and good luck with everything and keep us posted on what the new venture looks like and where you end up pivoting in the future. But that's half the fun of this.

Denise Murtha Bachmann (: 41:39

It is, it is. Thank you, Brett, for having me on here. And I'm hoping that everyone got some value out of this and feel free to reach out if you want to have any further conversations. So thank you, Brett.

Brett Trainor (: 41:50

Awesome. Have a good rest of your day.