Mignon François (Founder of The Cupcake Collection)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes, but first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back.

Guarantee on this book.

I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why?

Two reasons.

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So that's the first reason this is.

A risk and I'm gonna de risk.

This book for you.

Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it.

Highly recommended. End quote. But here's the thing.

In order to qualify for this money back guarantee, you got to do two things. Step one, pre order five Mere Christians in any format, hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And then step two, go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form on that page and that's it. But you got to do it by midnight Eastern Time on May 9. By filling out that form, you'll also get all of the pre order bonuses listed on 5 mereChristians. Calm and be entered to win this.

Crazy, epic trip for two to Europe.

So visit 5meerchristians.com right now to sign up. Now, please enjoy today's episode. Hey friend.

Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor.

How does the Gospel influence the work of mere Christians?

Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as Hairdressers.

Welders, and law clerks.

That's the question we explore every week.

And today I'm posing it to Mignon Francois. She's the founder and CEO of the.

Cupcake Collection, a booming cupcake brand in Nashville, Tennessee. Mignon's business savvy has earned her title of Woman of Legend and Merit by Tennessee State University and the title of Emerging Business Leader of the Year by Black Enterprise magazine.

Mignon and I recently sat down to talk about how the fact that prayers.

Never expire changes how she works. We talked about the impact that Sabbath.

Has had on her business and team.

And how she gives God the glory.

For taking her business from $5 to.

More than $10 million in sales. Please enjoy this conversation with my friend, Mignon Francois. Mignon Francois, I'm so freaking excited that you are back on the Mere Christians Podcast. Welcome back, my friend.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here, too.

Hey, so for those who don't know, think it should be fairly obvious from the name. What is the Cupcake Collection?

The Cupcake Collection is my family bakery that I run out of what used to be the home that I raised my six plus one children in. It went from being the thing that I started on the last $5 I had for dinner one week, and I turned it into an over $10 million business.

I love it.

You're based in Nashville, Tennessee. You guys have got a few stores now, right?

Yep. We're based out of Nashville. We have a store in New Orleans, and then we have two new stores under construction coming in north and south of Nashville. And then we also have a little food truck. We call her Joy.

I love it. So you already touched on the founding story. Let's go deeper. For those who haven't listened to your episode from, I don't know, three, almost four years ago, what's the story behind what God did with the founding of this business?

Yeah, so I was losing everything that I had, and I didn't know how to bake, not even out of a box. When I heard the man on the radio telling people that they could get out of debt by having a bake sale or a garage sale. Problem with the garage sale was we sold everything we had to get to Nashville, Tennessee, where we lived. Problem with the bake sale was I didn't know how to bake. I had these little girls that were baking all of the time, and I thought I could sell whatever they would make at night, after school, during the day. But after we got started on the Idea. My oldest daughter let me know she really wasn't interested in Mom's little bakery business. So I've got to learn how to bake. I used my past to inform my future. I had been in school to be a doctor. I couldn't apply the science to the human body. But in my kitchen 17 years later, when I needed to get out of debt, I was able to apply that science to flour, butter, sugar and eggs. And I made a recipe for success that propelled our family and our business. So what I love most about what God has given me, that is he's allowed me to create a living and to leave a legacy for my children in an industry that my forefathers weren't even allowed to have, free enterprise. So it's not wasted on me that my father was born on a sugar cane plantation and I get to build wealth and leave legacy in that same industry of sugar.

I love that so much. I love that you've drawn those parallels yet. This is a very American pull yourself up by your bootstrap story. But as Christians, right, we understand, to quote one of my favorite passages from Deuteronomy 8, that it is God alone who gives us the ability to produce wealth and success. How do you discipline yourself, though, to.

Celebrate what God has done when I'm.

Sure the world wants to celebrate what mignon has done?

Yeah. Because I know that I prayed for not just a good idea, but a God idea. Right. Mark Batterson says it all the time, like, we all have good ideas, but all you need is one God idea. And I know that I didn't have the ability to do this, but I prayed and asked God if you would make me successful. I will tell anybody who will listen about what they could do if they believe. God was waking me up at 3:17 every morning to invite me into this story that he wanted to write with me. And I think a lot of times when we're in it, we don't know that a story is being written. Like, we don't know that we're being invited into a story. We don't know what chapter we're even on. And we don't know that if we would just stay the course, that around the corner the hero is going to show up. Right. And that's what I learned in my own story. That as I just finished writing my own very first book, that in the process, as I look back, I can see where God was leading me the whole way. Kind of like that Footsteps in the sand poem, like when I thought I was alone. God was just carrying me. I know that this is nothing but God, he told me as he was waking me up in the mornings. It was like every day, like clockwork. I would hear this alarm go off that wasn't set. And when I wake up, there's no alarm going off. So why am I jumping up at 3:17 every single day? And I went and I sat in the room and I turned on tv, because that's what I do when I'm up and I can't sleep. At least that used to be me. When I was up and I couldn't sleep, I would turn on tv. I turn on the TV and there's this man on the TV saying, the morning breeze has something to tell you. Do not go back to sleep. And he starts talking about, you think you're getting up because of. You got to check the children, you got to make sure the doors. And I gotta make sure you turn off some. Like, how does he know my life? And he said, God is trying to speak to you, and this is the only time you'll be silent. And I was like, oh, God, please, I'll show up to hear you as long as you don't talk. Because if you start talking, God, I'm running straight out of this room. And I started realizing that God doesn't speak in a voice that we can audibly hear from him, but he uses other people's voices to tell you what he has to say, if they will let him. So he used the voice of the man on that television show and the man on that radio to tell me what he was trying to say. And I started showing up with a notebook every morning at 3:17, opening my Bible to wherever it would fall and writing down whatever, whatever came to mind. The entire cupcake collection was given to me at 3:17 in the morning in a journal book.

I love it, by the way. I'm curious, since it was 3:17 over and over and over again, did you ever go through Scripture and look at every instance of chapter three, verse 17?

That's how I did it, Jordan. That's how I did it. I just opened the Bible to wherever it fall. And I started in chapter three, verse 17 of that book, thinking, there's got to be something to this 3:17. And I would read all the way through till the verses weren't applying in my life anymore or they weren't making sense. And then I'd go to the next book, and if there wasn't a chapter three, verse 17, I read verse three, you know, all the way to 17, something like that. And I read the whole entire Bible that way. And one of the last verses that God gave me, I started In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verses 19. You know, reading that 3 to 17. And that particular day, Joshua 1 and 9, I set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that your family will live. Do not turn from what I'm telling you to the left or to the right. Meditate on what I'm telling you day and night. These were the instructions that God was giving me. And so as God was telling me what he wanted me to do, there were ways that he wanted me to run this business that were coming to mind. And there are still the things that I do to this day and why we've had wild, wild success.

Yeah, I want to get into that in a minute. But first, before we talk about how your faith is shaping how you do the work, let's talk about why the work itself matters to God. Why do cupcakes matter to God? How do you see cupcakes as a vehicle for accomplishing God's purposes in the world? You know that I believe that they do, but I want to hear you talk about this.

Yeah. Because cupcakes are not what we sell at the cupcake collection. It's just the vehicle that we use to bring what we're trying to bring to the marketplace. And that is joy. And so we believe that, you know, joy is not something that you can hold in your hand, but if you can feel joy when you come here, then you'll come here looking for joy. You'll come here and buy cupcakes to receive that joy. We give out so many hugs at the cupcake collection. There are so many people who are telling me, oh, my gosh, your story changed my life, and it showed me what I could do. I'm mentoring bakeries and other cupcake and cookie and popcorn, like all kinds of things, because what God has for me belongs to me. You can't take it from me. Right. So it doesn't hurt me if you open up something similar, because at the end of the day, if I was the only one doing it, I would pass out trying to serve all the people who just needed the one thing that I provide. And so I've been able to now mentor other people to understand what your unique selling proposition has nothing to do with what you're actually bringing to the marketplace. It's the thing that God is doing in your life that you're allowed to be able to share with other people. Because it's him who decides whether you'll be successful or not in the first place.

Amen.

Yeah.

Wealth and honor come from him alone.

Right.

And so we could say blessed be the name of the Lord, regardless of the results. But let's circle back to what you said before. You are running this business in a different way, right? I'm sure your faith is informing how you're running that business. Talk about how your faith is leading you to run business different, differently. Be as specific as you can. What are some ways that are distinct in the way that you're operating the cupcake collection?

Right. The instructions that God gave to me was to honor and keep the Sabbath. So I actually honor the Sabbath from Friday night sunset to Saturday night sunset. And so my business doesn't open on Sabbath for that reason. Now that's the instruction given to me. That's not the instruction that given to someone else. Right. So my business doesn't open during that time. I find other people who are on my team now keeping a Sabbath, and they're finding their lives are enriched and changing not because they do it the way I religiously am responsible, but they're seeing the value of that rest that God worked for six days and then he rested. So that if he did it that way, that we're also were left the example to do it the same way too, that we worked for six days to give up our labor to God and the one belongs back to Him. And so I'm seeing my team do that another way that God is showing up in our business. Instead of a daily huddle, we pray before we open up our store. And you know, I've had atheists on my team. I've had agnostics on my team, and they still come to prayer every day. And then as they left, my team come back and say, I still do that thing you taught me. Because they see it as being valuable to move the needle in their own life. So instead of a daily huddle, we ask God to come in and show us what only he can show us. Show us something supernatural that mere mortals couldn't tell us about today.

Yeah, totally. Hey, let's drill down a little bit deeper into Sabbath. I mean, you're closed on Saturday for other bakeries would be maybe the top day in sales, in revenue. Talk about this more because I'm a big believer. I think Chick Fil A is a great example of this.

That Sabbath, while not commanded under the.

New Covenant, still stands as wisdom. Right. I actually think Sabbath makes us more productive, not less productive. See Chick Fil A as case in point.

Do you think giving your team one day a week to rest is part.

Of what's made you so productive in.

This business over the last few years?

Absolutely. It was a mandate given specifically to me.

You felt like it was obedience for you.

It was obedience for me. You know what's so crazy? At the time, when I started the cupcake collection, I was married, and my husband told me that I was crazy. He was like, if you don't open up your business on Saturday, you won't be successful. I said, so what you mean to tell me is if I don't do this thing that God told Mignon to do, that that my business is going to fail? You're telling me that if I don't open up on this one day, all of the other six won't matter? Is that what you're saying? Absolutely what I'm saying. And I would tell you that this. This thing has brought more attention in interviews. It has brought more attention to people who then want to go back and talk to God about what he requires of them. Not if he requires the same Sabbath, per se. But what are you requiring of me, God? And so it's allowed me to stand as a lighthouse in the community to show them what business looks like. And how do you get there? I've had other people sit back and try to study my business because of it. So if this is the one thing that makes us stand out in the world to make you pay attention to why my business is successful, it's not on me for the business to be successful. It's on God. Oh. And that just gave me an aha and a revelation that I've been looking for.

Write it down. Come on, let's go.

Really good. It's not on me. It's on God. Awesome. Thank you for that. You always give me something I can use. Jordan.

I love it. We need to spend more time together.

I know, right? I agree. I agree on your office hours. I can tell you one other thing that does stand out to me, too. From our last conversation. When we had our conversation last time, God had just told me that he wanted me to tithe more than money. God told me that he didn't care about my money, that he cared about my time. And so I started tithing my time. And I remember at first I was like, okay, God, well, no problem. Sure. 24 minutes a day. You got it. And God said, whoa, Whoa, whoa. Not 24 minutes. That's not what that is. It's two hours and 40 minutes every day. And I was like, well, God, I mean, how am I supposed to do that? 2 hours and 40 minutes? I don't have time for that. And God said, but what if I don't give you one minute? Like, what if I turn my back on you for one minute? What if I withhold myself from you for one minute? God, I would die. And he said, then I want you to find 2 hours and 40 minutes in Jordan. It has been a game changer. I started getting up earlier in the morning. I had told God that I wanted to be an early riser. So this was how he gave it to me. He gave me that early rising by requiring it. So I started getting up at 4 o' clock in the morning to get those two hours in before it was time for me to go to work at 6. And then I would do the last 30, 40 minutes when I got back home. What God showed me was, if you would do this for me, I will give you your time back. Because he's a redeemer of time. Right? And so, like all these things that you've already, you know, secured in time, God was showing those things to me.

It's pretty remarkable to hear that sitting here. We're recording this in November of 2023 because the last time we recorded an episode of this show was on. I checked it before today. It was February 26, 2020. One week later, there was this terrible outbreak of tornadoes in Nashville that impacted your store. Oh yeah. And then Covid shut the world down like a week after that. Right. Did your team see in those weeks and months of absolute crisis that could only be explained by the holy spirit in you?

The first thing was we went online and we told people that we needed to have help with a pop up shop. That because my business is run off of cash flow, like we're a debt free business, so we only have whatever we make. Right? I told people that I needed to have pop up shops and so I just was looking for five pop up shops. And when I got with this company who said, you know what, I can do better than that. How about we just do pop up shops at all of our locations and you do them until you get tired. I was like, okay, God. And then we did it for the next two years and it was a major thing for us because had we not made that connection, we wouldn't have known how big of a little giant we were that we were able to move the needle for them as well as they move the needle for us. And so while our stores closed down, as far as, like, people coming in and out of the store because the tornado hit us before the pandemic did, we were already making adjustments. So those adjustments, we took them into the pandemic. And so we started serving people from the street, and we started serving people from our porch, and we started bringing our cupcakes to other places that were also bagging them up and taking them out and serving people right wherever they are to keep those distances. And we were able to bring their dessert menu income up by 166%. It kept our store going. Well, we were the little engine that could. Like, we didn't know that we could move the needle for other people, not just ourselves. And so that's what we learned.

I really enjoyed your first book, hopefully the first of many, called Made from Scratch. And I loved. You were commenting on Romans 8, 28, and you wrote that by God's grace, you realize that everything happening to you was actually happening for you.

You know, oftentimes we don't get to.

See the good that God's doing to us on this side of eternity.

Right.

But I'm curious if God has graciously.

Shown you some good that has already come about from the crisis you experienced three and a half years ago. I mean, one of them was, hey, the tornado forced you to figure out operations outside of brick and mortar. What else?

What other good have you already seen.

Come from this really, really horrible time?

Oh, my gosh. So one of the things I was able to tell my team was, don't worry, as long as I eat, you're eating. And so that allowed them to come in and step in and say, well, what is it that you need for me to do? We learned how to repurpose our positions and to work for the good of the business, not just ourselves. So it was an unselfless thing. And then in the process, my son came home and he had joined another team, which brought him back on this coast with us. Because he was on the west coast, it brought him on the east coast. As soon as he got here, he realized what a horrible decision this was. Mom, if you'll have me, you know, I will work really hard to make my salary. And he came in, and I was so grateful for him to come. But in the process of him coming, the whole team was like, oh, we want to follow Dylan, not you. And so he started being groomed to take over my position, and he had a greater vision for where we could take it than mom had. Mom started this out you know, me being mom, I started this out looking for field trip money. He wanted to take it across the country and show people how they could make field trip money. So now the growth that we were experiencing was because I was obedient a to God in that time that he asked me to give. It allowed me to write down this story of where God was taking me, caused the doors to be open for me to have a book deal to write the story. Then took me on tour with the book, which made me unavailable to work at the store. And a son that had come home to run the store, who then elevated his siblings to what they could do to. Now we're opening two new stores, have a very successful food truck. We recently brought back, you know, to the business.

Hey, Mignon, there was this other line in your book that I really loved. Gave me some good food for thought. You say that, quote, our prayers to God never expire. Our prayers have a long shelf life. And if we ever make the time to be still, we might discover that what we prayed for led to getting something we actually wanted or needed. End quote. There's so much there. First, how does knowing that prayers never expire lead you to pray differently for your work?

When I ask God for things, he answers me. I believe that God loves me more than anybody else. You know, I believe I'm God's favorite. But the. The great thing about God is, is that he has the ability for everybody to feel that same way, right? I believe that no one loves me better than God does. So he gives me the desires of my heart if I commit, you know, to Him. So if I give this time to him, his word says, and he's a man that he cannot lie. He neither the Son of man, that he has to repent for the lies that he told, right? So he. Whatever he says, he will do it. And so I believe that if I ask God for something, he's going to give me the desires of my heart because I've already committed myself to Him. And so in that, if I don't get it, then I probably really didn't want it. And so as I'm praying for a thing, I have to really search myself and say, mignon, is that what you really want? So when we ask God for things, we have to know what we're really asking for.

You were generous enough to endorse my new book, the Sacredness of Secular Work. In there, I argue that one of the ways that we contribute to God's pleasure, not that he needs us to contribute to his pleasure, but he allows us to is by doing our work with him and not just for Him.

I'm curious what that looks like for.

You day to day. What does it look like to work with God day in, day out?

Mignon.

Oh, that's so good, Jordan. So I believe that we are God's handiwork, right? And that he put his signature stamp on our fingertips, that each one of us, we are a signed work of art by our Creator. And getting to work with him means two things. So whatever I put my hands to do, I'm putting it in collaboration with God. When I remove my hand, my fingerprints are there. They are God's signature stamp on me as his handiwork. So that's one way I believe I get to do it with God. The other place I believe we get to do it with God is so God called me to know the creation story, right? God said to me, mignon, I want you to really know this creation story. So I started reading the creation story. I get over to Genesis 2, and about verse 5, God says, Now, no shrub had come up. I'm like, wait a minute, God, you had just said in Genesis 1 that you said it, and it was so. And then Genesis 2, you say, no shrub had come up because you had no man to take care of it. Which is an indication to me that God gives us our vocation, that it is God's idea, this business, ideas that we have, but he doesn't allow them to come into fruition until he's prepared us to be able to show up to it, to take care of it. And so we believe that, oh, these are our ideas. They're God's ideas in the first place. And if we know them to be God's idea, and he's inviting us to do them in collaboration with him, we would take care of them differently. If we understand that when God said it, it was so, even if I couldn't see it, that even though it might not be manifested right now, when I show up to fully do it, then the thing that he's called me to will begin to show itself. And so that's for somebody who's out there, who's struggling with. I thought this business was going to happen. It took me two years working every day like this business was open before I even realized my first paying customers. Because God was preparing me to show up to the business. Had I not gone through those two years of work with God, studying about God, knowing who God is, how he shows up, what he wants me to do, with the business, how he wants me to steward over the business, that when the business showed up, I wouldn't have been ready to do the business the way that he was calling me to do the business. I wouldn't have that wherewithal to say, nope. God told me, I don't open my store on Saturday. You open your store whenever you want to, but the mandate to me is, I don't open my store on Saturday, and it must close by the time sun goes down on Friday. Forget how busy it is for everybody else on Saturday. I did it one time, Jordan. One time. I opened my store on Saturday and it didn't work. I lost money, almost went to jail because I had written checks for things that were supposed to pay me. Like, I wrote checks in advance, and the checks were so big, I could have gone. I could have been prosecuted for those things. But my bank showed up for me and said, I know what kind of businesswoman you are. I'm going to stand in the gap for you. I'm going to cover all this stuff. I just need you to make sure. And my bank stepped in for me. And those creditors, those vendors gave me grace. And so God said, when I tell you, Mignon, to do what I said, you do what I said. No matter what man says, you do it the way I said, don't turn from the left or to the right. No matter how big this great opportunity looks, you do it the way that I've told you to do it. And at the same time, there's been situations where my ox has been in a ditch and I needed a Saturday. And God said, don't you do it.

So good. Really good. Hey, Mignon. Three questions we wrap up every episode with. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending or giving to others most frequently?

Oh, my gosh. Called to Create by Jordan Rayner.

Come on.

No kidding.

Come on, let's go. Are you serious?

The Business Made simple by Donald Miller and the Success principles, How to get from where you are to where you want to be by Jack Canfield. And then finally, made from scratch, Finding Success without a recipe by Mignon Ransom.

Yeah, it's really great. It's really great. You did a phenomenal job in this book.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

No, I loved it.

I have tagged, outlined, written in the margins on my college grade book. I have other copies if anybody ever wants one I can share, but you can't have mine because I have it with me. With Draw the Circle was another one. I was like, God, if you make me Give away the circle maker one more time. Like, I'm just not gonna buy it anymore because you never let me keep it. I always have to give it away to other people. People. So much of these things that have resources that refer back to how God is telling me to live my life, those are the ones that I. That I give away or refer to a lot.

I love it.

Hey, who would you want to hear.

On this podcast talking about how their faith shapes the work they do in the world?

Oh, my gosh. I would say Eric Thomas. Dr. Eric Thomas. I would love to see him on your podcast. He's. That would be amazing. Let me think of one more someone I'd love. Oh, there is a lady that I think you would love on your show. Her name is Shanara Williamson. She has a podcast called Brown Mama Bear. I think your listeners would love.

I'll look her up. Hey, Mignon, you're talking to this global audience of mere Christians. Very diverse vocationally. What they share is a deep desire to follow Jesus as they do their work.

What's one thing you want to leave.

That audience with before we sign off?

One thing that I want to leave you with. That this business that you're in, it's not yours. It's God's idea. And that if God had invited you to an all white party and told you to wear orange, you wouldn't feel awkward because you wore orange to the all white party. You know that there was something special about you in getting this invitation to wear something different to the all white party. And that's what I would say to you all in your vocations. God has given you an invitation to wear orange to the all white party. And I hope that you will wear that orange with confidence, knowing that he has something special in store for you as you get ready to go out into the world and be you with Christ leading.

Amen. Man, that's really good. Mignon, I love you, my friend. I commend you for the extraordinary work you do for God's glory, for the good of others, for your community. Thank you for reminding us of what.

Bold prayers look like, for reminding us.

To work with God and not just for him. Hey, friends, if you want to hear more Mignon's story, check it out in her great book, made from Scratch. And you can learn more about the cupcake collection at thecupcakecollection.com Mignon, my friend, thank you for hanging out with us today.

Thank you so much for making me a part of this beautiful podcast. I love it. I love listening to you. I love everything that you write. I think you're more than Amir Christian.

I hope you guys enjoyed that episode.

Hey, if you've got somebody you'd love.

To hear on the show, we want to hear from you@jordan rar.com contact even if that means you're nominated yourself. Thank you guys so much for tuning in this week. I'll see you next time.

Foreign.

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