0447 | Fabienne Fredrickson

Hello, this is Fabienne Fredrickson, founder of Boldheart.com and you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews, episode 447, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's expert Authority Effect interview. Have you wanted a bigger business? Have you felt like your corporate job just wasn't fulfilling you enough? Do you feel like you're a powerful woman in a male dominated space? If so, you're going to love Fabienne Fredrickson on today's episode. I love women, I love business, and I love ambitious women. And she works with them to grow their business. And instead of being at that overwhelming six figure mark, she's going to help you go to that seven figure mark. I'm going to bring her up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Fabienne Fredrickson. Fabienne, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me today.

Oh, I'm excited for you to share because I know you've helped so many women in business and you have such a passion for it. I know you have your book. Why did you decide you wanted to get started with it? Because there's a lot of things you could do. Why women and why business?

I've actually been in business for 22 years. There are a few business coaches who can say that. And it started for me with a real need for myself. I had opened up a business and I thought, you know, I had an eight year career in marketing and sales and I thought, no big deal, I'll get clients, I'll make money, I'll be free.

That's not what happened. So 22 years ago, I created a client attraction system for myself just because I needed to. And I was, I realized I had become unemployable and I could not go back to work in corporate and other. And I filled my practice, practice to full capacity in eight months. And other people started asking me how I did it. I stopped doing my first business. I opened up a business coaching practice and I eventually used, I used the same client attraction principles to fill My second business. And then I got to six figures. And instead of it being this, you know, so proud of myself celebratory moment, I realized at this new level, there was a new devil. And what was that? I was working evenings, weekends. I was saying, one more email and I'll be right there. I was resenting my business. There was no more of me, no more time to, to grow the business. And I found myself with no light at the end of the tunnel. Overworking.

Over promising, under delivering, underpaying myself and thinking, I'm not sure this whole self employed thing is actually worth it.

And this is when I, you know, like through, I'm giving you the really short story. But I discovered a process for myself again, for myself to do less, better and leverage certain aspects of my business. Which in 2008. So you remember what happened in 2008, the financial crisis. That's actually the year that I tripled my business to over just over a million. With three little kids at home and other women.

Let me pause you right there temporarily. How did you. I know everyone's wondering, okay, the world's in chaos and you tripled your business. How did you do that?

Okay, well, and essentially people asked me that and I said, you gotta leverage your business. The premise around this, Mario, is that what gets you from, you know, four or five figures to six figures is hustle. It's marketing. Sales, marketing, sales, marketing and sales. It's you, you, you doing everything yourself and being kind of like a control enthusiast at six figures when you don't have time. What got you to six figures will never get you to seven figures, not even multiple six figures. You have to begin leveraging, doing less, better. You actually have to work less and think more to be able to get to seven figures. And I'm happy to. I'll show I reverse engineered exactly how I did it, how I got to seven figures. It's a combination of strategy, mindset and accountability. But there are eight levers.

That each time you, you use a lever, it gets you to get out of the day to day operations of your business so that you can think and focus on exponential growth activities rather than money generating activities. And while that sounds counterintuitive, that's actually what makes you grow.

By leaps and bounds. Like the quantum leap that we all say we want and a lot of people bandy about, but that's actually what happens.

So with each of these levers, is it safe to say each one that you pull is worth about 150, 50 grand extra a year?

I Never thought about it that way, Mario, but that's it. A minimum.

And I have, I was gonna say 150 to 200.

Yeah. I've been at multiple seven figures a year for 15 years. My little kids, you know, I crossed the million dollar mark when they were really little. I had a baby, I had like a, I had a three month old in 2009. And that it's by using these eight levers. And this is what allows you to get your freedom back and take many, many unplugged vacations per year.

Congratulations. First off. And I absolutely do want to dive into those, but I want to back up just a second because you left your corporate career and it sounds like you left a corporate job that was probably lucrative but just wasn't fulfilling. You and you created a corporate job that you didn't like in your own business. Safe to say. And then you realized, I need to change this whole formula because I don't love it.

What typically happens. So a woman will come to me and she'll say, I'm not sure it's worth it. I'm working into the evenings. I feel guilty that I can't be with my kids or I feel like it's affecting my marriage. I'm thinking about throwing it away. And what I say is, just give me one year.

And when we remove her from the day to day operations of our business, because the key is that she still loves deep down what she's doing.

Let's say it's a designer, whether it's an interior designer or web designer or, you know, it doesn't really matter what this can happen for law, it can happen for nutrition, coaching, whatever. The thing she got into it for, which is the thing she loves to do, she's uniquely brilliant at, is like hidden under sales, marketing, the operations of the business, the legal, the, the administrative, the delegation, the hiring, the, the. All the stuff that she hated in corporate. And now, you know, at least some other people were working on that in corporate. Now she's doing it, everything, everything herself. And she's like, this is not. I didn't bargain for this. I thought I could just do what I love and feel free and make my own money. And that's not at all what happened. And so that's part of the. These levers, what I call these activators. They're like, they're like light switches on the wall. So if you walk into a really dark, pitch black room, a lot of people don't have a lot of clarity in their business. And they're like, I just want clarity. Fabienne. And I, I, I had this image once that you can walk into this room and imagine that you're touching the wall and you see eight light switches. And like you said, each time you flip on a light switch, the room gets clearer. You have more clarity. And as you flip all eight switches, everything makes sense.

You can see the big picture.

You see the big picture and you can, you can transform what's not working.

And you can walk through it easily without stubbing your toe or running into a wall.

I love your analogies.

It's just what I'm seeing. You're the one sharing it. So I want to. Real quick, about the sales and marketing. You said you had a career in sales and marketing. And I think a lot of people think if I do sales and marketing, and I don't disagree, this is the answer. Sales and marketing is the answer. But how people do it, because clearly you weren't satisfied even being in that field. A lot of people I've come across, they're, they're absolute experts at everything else. But they may not love the sales and marketing or they think if I do this one campaign, it's going to revolutionize the business. And I would say it helps. But doing any one thing, one time ever, isn't going to just flip it around, I don't think.

In my experience, I believe so. I can only speak for myself. When I was in sales and marketing, I was marketing someone else. I was selling ad space in Food and Wine magazine. I, I was selling something else than myself. And, you know, if I didn't sell that month, I still had the base salary. I just didn't have my bonus. When it's you and you're single in the city, right? New York City. And your rent, this is 22 years ago, and your rent is 1400amonth. And you're floating your life and your business on credit cards. There is this fear that runs through you of, oh, my God, what if this doesn't work? Marketing yourself is a totally different thing. And the number one thing that I share with the members of my program is that you are a marketer first. You think you're a consultant, you think you are a designer, you think you're an attorney or whatever. You are not. You are a marketer first. Because if you're not in the marketing and selling game, you don't have a business. You just have a super expensive hobby. And so when you can take on that identity that allows you to get to, you know, to fill your practice, whatever that looks like for you, and to get to six figures. But that hustle factor, the doing everything yourself at that point in time is no longer serving you. This is where you actually have to remove yourself from being the bottleneck in your business. And when I tell women, like I've spoken in front of 7,000 women, when I say you are the bottleneck in your company, they're like, wow, yes. How do you know me so well? You say yes to everybody. You're people pleasing. When somebody asks to pick your brain, you let them instead of really focusing on what's going to exponentially grow your business. And part of that is saying no. Part of that is realizing that your role is not the doer. Your role is to be the visionary, to be the person with the big ideas and the whole idea. One of the levers is to have a team like you make it up. Your second in command makes it real and your team makes it recur. And when you have that in place, everything changes.

I'm so glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you about the team and it sounds like you should have one in place because another pitfall I see people make and I've told people for years, you know, stop doing everything yourself when you are trying to do it all yourself. Obviously you trying to scale it and trying to do it yourself. You're just asking for a losing situation. But have you seen anyone get to even a quarter, half or a mil on their own?

You need, when do you, when do.

You protecting their relationship?

The, the sooner the better. I started getting help when I was making about 33,000 a year.

And I didn't have a lot of money because remember I was living in Manhattan at 1400amonth. So that, I mean, just the sooner you can definitely, by the time you're making 75k a year, start getting a team in place. Absolutely. Even if it's a part time virtual assistant. And here's why. If you think about your friends who are working for someone else, or if you think back to when you were working for someone else, you were basically paid to show up, give or take, show up at 9, leave at 6, right. You were paid to deliver. So I want you to imagine you're taking an index card, right? And you write the word delivery on the index card. And that's what you're paid for when you work for someone else. And when you work for yourself, you get paid to deliver, right? Deliver to your clients, your customers. What you said, you know what they hired you for. But this is not it. This is. There's more. There's another index card that says marketing. Oh, you have to market to have clients, right. And that can take three to four hours a day if you're doing it right. And then you also have to sell. That's another index card. Sometimes that's an hour or two a day. And then there's managing the team, hiring, firing, accounting, operations. Accounting, operations, finance. There's keeping the lights on, there's getting the light bulbs and the toner and the dreaded meetings with the team, etc. Do you realize now while your colleagues, your friends are being paid just to deliver, you've got seven index cards. You need you. You cannot grow exponentially. Whether you want to grow to 250, you're 500 people. The trajectory that works is that when you're at six figures, we can easily get you to 200, then 400. From there it's like five or 600, 750 and then a million. Some people do it in a lot less. And it always involves leveraging a team. That is the first step of the leveraged business methodology. It's not rocket science. You've heard about it before. But most people aren't doing it in a way that helps them remove themselves from the day to day operations because they're hiring poorly. They're hiring by putting somebody in place, anybody with a pulse, just to make the bleeding stop. I talk about. This is chapter one of my book, the leveraged Business. It's not about hiring to stop the bleeding. You must be super strategic. I know you know you're hiring intellectually. Yeah. But you're not hiring a person. You're hiring for a role, the position. And a position. Well, actually for a responsibility. Right. It's an, it's. It's for a particular type of responsibility, meaning the person is responsible for a particular outcome. And the thing I'd like to have those who are listening to us today realize is it takes a special kind of person to fulfill a special kind of role.

To hire properly, you need four things to be in alignment. The first two, you know, it's skill set and experience. We all know this, right? We're looking for it. But those are actually the two that are the most non. The most negotiable because you can hire somebody, as I would say, attitude.

Part of that, the attitude falls into the. The third one, which is what I call culture fit. Right. When you understand so. So at Bolt Heart, my company is called Boldheart. I can Explain why in a minute. We have different non negotiable company values. Right. So all above and beyond, always improving, positive and loving. Own it and speak up. And the culture fit is that every single member of the team must live these five values. Otherwise you're not going to be an extension of my brand. Right. And same same for your brand. This isn't the Fabian show. This is me just saying how I've done it. Right. So that's the culture fit. The attitude is part of that. But the thing that most entrepreneurs don't do in their hiring process is to look at wiring.

Different people are different. Right. So you've got some people who are super comfortable influencing people and relationships. And then there are people who love to dot the I's and cross the t's. And there are people who are really strategic. Those people will not be natural salespeople. The people who are naturally enthusiastic and warm and relationship based are not going to be the type of people who.

Don'T put them on spreadsheets.

Right, Exactly. And so when, when we think that we're bad managers or our team continually, continuously disappoints us, the common denominator is not the team, it's us. It's because we're not using a very strategic hiring process and because we think we've kind of fooled ourselves.

Would you say it, would you say it's safe to say people could not even be using a hiring process like, let alone the strategic. They might just. We need someone. Here's a listing. They seem fine.

Yes. And even like, you know what, you're nice. Oh my God, I need some help. Or my friend's, you know, sister or my neighbor or anybody just to have me think that I've taken care of the problem. But you haven't taken care of the problem.

You may have compounded it.

You've fooled yourself into thinking you took care of the problem, but you've compounded it exactly right. And what happens, Mario, is you'll never fully let go. You will be helicopter managing that person, which means that you're going to white knuckle the whole delegation process. And you will eventually take back the work because it will never get done the way you wanted it on time.

According to your specifications. And so just by shifting to a strategic hiring process with assessments, it changes everything. Finally, you begin to surround yourself little by little, whether it's your first part time virtual assistant or you're getting, you know, you're hiring full time people in person or not. We live in a non in person world these days you can surround yourself with people who after a while you can exhale and trust. And when you trust, you can then begin to think you can release some of the day to day operations over a period of three to six months. Because activator number two, lever number two is about leveraging systems. When you've got systems for everything and they're run by a team that you trust, you can remove yourself further from the day to day operations and sounds.

Like that's when you get to grow.

Well, what it does is it helps you leverage your time and instead of focusing on putting out fires or doing all the stuff you're competent at, you begin to use your time on what we call and I call this EGAs. I talk about it in the book exponential growth activities that are not your immediate feel good, I got this off the to do list kind of activity, but something that's going to take a while but will grow your business exponentially.

So you're talking about not doing just I, I feel so good. I got rid of those 76 emails and you feel productive and all of that. But none of them were really that important versus going I'm going to go speak at this event or do 10, 10 interviews or do a press tour.

A book tour or even setting up your operations manual or hiring a mini me so that you can leverage your business model and not have to be the one holding your client's hands. Perhaps for you, an exponential growth activity is to document your intellectual property so that you can create a group program or a SaaS or, or like have a team of associates doing the work for you or write a book that's a lead generating book. Start your podcast. These are exponential growth activities even more so than other things and it takes a while to do it. You'll know it's an exponential growth activity because it's going to take a few months to put together.

I just gotta ask, you were on such a roll there. Do you have any like two, two or three more other ones?

Yeah, sure. I mean shift your business model massively. Most of us start by doing one to one.

Start doing one to many, huh?

Start absolutely without question. You'll never get to a million unless you can get ten one hundred thousand dollar clients a year. You need to shift your business model. You can look at setting up accountability in your business, however unsexy that sounds. That's an exponential growth activity where you on January 5th you meet with your team, you're like what are the 10 exponential growth activities that we're going to work on this year, who's going to be accountable? How are we going to do it so that when wherever we wake up during the year, we know if we're on track, off track. That's an exponential growth activity. It's not sexy. But you know what is sexy is when you work two to three hours a day and you take 14 weeks of unplugged vacations a year and your business continues to scale without you doing everything that is super sexy.

Do you think more people should be focused on boring businesses or boring aspects of business?

No, I don't think the boring piece is what we should be focused on.

Okay.

I think we should be doing what comes to us naturally that other people see us as being uniquely brilliant at. There's a whole section.

Stay in your genius zone.

Stay in your genius zone. I call it your unique brilliance, because that's where 80% of your money will eventually come from.

The things that you take for granted and delegate all the other stuff. The delegation is an exponential growth activity, not as a task, but as an identity, as a process in your business.

But when you say let go of it, you mean you need to let go of it. Not, okay, I have you doing my work. I'm going to check it three times a week.

Exactly.

Okay, I got to ask you about the money aspect of it because, you know, I'm totally getting this picture of this dream team and all of this, and it's inspiring. Gotta be honest. It's. It's great. But I feel like someone could be going, well, what if this person caught? You know, they might be only making 78,000 a year, but the person costs 120. Or someone could be making two and a quarter and they think it's gonna cost this one person a quarter mil just for, let's say, CEO or something. What if there's. That I want to have. Have this great people in the great team, but I'm not sure if I can afford them yet. How did you do it at 33,000?

Oh. So first of all, at 33,000, I hired a virtual assistant. And I said, I can't pay more than for five hours a month.

Okay.

Okay. So just. It's okay. Start where you are. And I said, for those five hours a month, what's going to bring in money? Or there's two. There's two things you should do when you're not sure if that you. You can afford the person you want to hire. Again, this is in the book. I want you to read the book. It's called the leveraged business. Okay? The two things are, one, get the person to take all the extraneous things off your plate so that you can go and get more clients when you.

So if they're not doing sales, free up your time as much as you possibly can for you to do more sales, right?

So imagine in the beginning, in the first three months or so, you get the right person using the process that I'm talking about and the assessments and you get back four to six hours a day.

You're not going to go and go have a beer or eat, you know, candy in your hammock. You are going to hustle. Hustle. And I know I just said, wait, we want to get away from hustle. But right now, if you feel that you can't afford that person, the first thing you're going to do is get more clients so the clients pay for that person, okay? The second thing is you're going to talk to your new person and you're going to say, help me have you afford yourself and then some. What projects can we put in place? What do you see? Where am I leaving money on the table? What could you implement in my business that would bring in more clients, that would have us be more profitable? What could we do to the business model? Two, what could we do to finances, to what could we do to the marketing, to etc. And so it's a question of you having more time to get clients and them paying for themselves.

The second thing I want to say directly related to your question, Mario, is that you don't need full time people. I run a multiple seven figure business. I don't have any full time people. They're all virtual part time people. Even the person who runs my business.

We all think, many people think based on the old model from, you know, the 80s and 90s, that you need full time people. You do not. And we've learned this over the COVID you know, era, that everybody can be part time and virtual with the tools that we have.

I think there's also stats that show even in the eight hour day, if you're going into a professional office and all that, like statistically you're doing about two, two and a half hours work.

I remember being self employed. I would hang out, I mean not self employed employed in corporations. I'd go into people's cubicles and ask how their date on Saturday went and I'd go make another, you know, cup of coffee and you know, all the things out of water again.

Time to go to the cooler.

I'm telling you, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was telling people late 08910 you can do more online, you can do stuff from home you don't need. It's interesting. Only took the world shut down forever and to go, huh, this might be a viable option. And that's when I had an office that I was going to regularly just because I thought this is what you do like you said, but it's not. So please continue sharing what you are because I think so many people need to hear it. And unless you do it and screw up and go, well that didn't work. I mean that's one reason I love publishing books is because you can read your insight and go, I just saved 10 years. This is awesome.

Absolutely. Borrow somebody else's mastery.

So what's the third activator?

Leverage your time. It's not time management. It's we all have the same number of hours.

It's the whole concept of thinking, what if I removed all the things that I hate doing that I'm not good at, even the things that I'm competent at and eventually the things that I'm excellent at.

And I only focused on the things that I'm passionate about that I'm so good at, even if I take it for granted. And the things I get better at the more I spend time in them and that really move the needle. What if 80% of my time was there.

And this changes.

Everything radically once somebody embraces it fully. Now, I don't know if this is true for and I don't mean to be binary but just for. Just for a simple conversation. Today I don't know if it's as true for men, but women seem to have been socialized to be people pleasers and what that results in is that we give away our time.

Because when somebody asks for it because we don't want to be seen as harsh or something not nice harsh or the B word. And what I've discovered so I've worked with tens of thousands of women in these last 22 years. So first of all I'm super grateful and deeply fortunate to have done that. What it also has me realize is that I've had, I've been able to see under the hood of so many thousands of women's business and 100% of them give their time away and don't have enough boundaries.

Simply because they think it's the right thing to do. And what one big thing that I share with women is you can absolutely take back the time that you have allowed. You have allowed other people to hijack. And it's not because you're self employed that you're unemployed and that you can do things for other people. The premise with leverage your time is that you take back your time. The way you do that is to set boundaries. The way you reinforce boundaries or say no to people is with elegance and grace. I call it the big fig sandwich. You begin in gratitude. Big, you know, thank you so much for thinking of me. I'm so touched that you want me to do this. You deliver the inside of the sandwich.

The answer is no. And you don't have to give an explanation. I love that when you give an explanation, somebody will, you know, try to use it against you. So I always say, just no. There's no reason. I choose not to.

Oh, you have time for that, but you don't have time for me.

And then the fig is you finish in gratitude. I know you're gonna find somebody great. I'm super honored that you thought about me. I, I just, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna do great without me. Thanks for thinking of me. Big fig sandwich. You say no. You do it elegantly, with a smile, kindness. You don't give an excuse or a reason and you start pulling yourself out of all the things this, this would we do this exercise in the leverage your time activator with the members of our program. Some women gain back 1500 hours a year.

Wow.

So you're saying the women are too nice and too giving, would you say? And I know your specialty is women, but would you say that some men can be not giving enough? Just the opposite.

I'll say this. I, I, I love the guys. Like I sometimes guys join my program and we love them and we celebrate them, but I haven't worked with tens, thousands, tens of thousands of men, only women. So I don't know how the guys do it.

But you're just, from your experience, you're saying that you think women are just, we're going to be here to be people pleasers.

And no, I think through, through no fault of our own, we have been socialized to put the needs of others before our own.

And that this is just common.

That's great you're getting so much of the time back because I would have to agree because it seems like, you know, the women want to make everyone happy, which I think is a good thing, but it shouldn't be at the detriment of themself.

And it is almost always ask any woman whether she's self employed or not. She puts the needs of other people before her own, more than she would like to admit to, and she's depleted and she becomes resentful and says, I thought there would be more to life than this. But that's another podcast episode entirely.

Yeah, it's a good topic and it's one reason I wanted to have you on. I knew you were helping a lot of people in a big way, and that's why I'm looking to feature and showcase people doing the right things and helping people, not just I'm doing this for me.

So the fifth activator then, if that's the fourth, leverage your time.

Leverage your time is the third. The fourth is leverage your business model. Okay, I don't believe unless you start charging 100,000 or 50,000 and you have 20 clients at 50,000.

If you want to go to a million and then multiple millions a year with your freedom back, you can't do it holding the client's hand.

You have to work less.

And there's a whole bunch of mindset stuff. Like we, when we work on this activator, we are going deep into my mindset. In fact, every activator, we have to deal with the mindset first. The belief systems, the fears, the socialization. Undo that before we propose, let's say, a new business model. So you want to go from one to one to one to many. And there are literally countless permutations of how you can do that. I've done many of them right. You can have, you can automate, you can, you can delegate, you can systematize, you can.

You know, so those are.

All the surface level of what you can do. But what you're saying is the reason that people don't do them isn't because they know. It's because you said earlier they're not doing it. But I would venture to say even deeper, they're not doing it because there's some mental block or fear, like you're saying. And I want to ask you about the socialization. So I wanted to ask you about the fear of this one. But also you said socialization. What do you mean by that?

Well, I, if you think about it, when we first started our business, we, it was like we want to be the hero. We want to be the one creating the results, right? The clients want me. They'll only pay for me. They want me to hold their hand and da, da, da, da, da, da. I am the savior of the day. I got the clients the results. There's a lot of ego tied into that and there's also identity. And when you ask a woman or a man to remove themselves from the hero.

Role of holding the hand of the clients, there's a lot of.

Personal growth and development work that has to do. Sometimes we're looking at people who are getting their emotional needs met through their clients.

There is the they'll only want me, they won't pay for anybody else. They won't get results unless I'm the one delivering the results. Who will I be if I'm not doing this hand holding the visionary, the.

One who's growing the company as you should, is the entrepreneur.

That's intellectually, they get that, but, but when they, they're afraid that the associate won't do it just like them. They're afraid that the clients won't get results or will be resentful and leave. There's a whole. But we have all the things, right? And so little by little we have to undo all of these fears and belief systems, replace it with new belief systems. You know, one of the things we talk about is being high touch in a high tech world. How do you make, how do you create a culture where, in a business where the clients get better results? I talk about this in the book. The whole process is in there. It's how does the client get better results in your leveraged business model than they do with you holding their hand, doing it one to one.

Because at the end of the day the client just wants the results. They might appreciate you going above and beyond and you doing it and wow, I'm so blown away and all this. But at the end of the day they're still more concerned about the results.

People are only concerned about the results. They, they want you because you've been available to them or they assumed that they could have access to you. But in the end, if you can give them the steps, the methodology, the system, the process, that will practically guarantee that they get the results they want, they want or more. And so that's the content. If you create a context for them to fully apply.

What you're offering them.

So that it's not just like shelf help, right? Like, oh, that sounds nice, you know, and then they don't do it. You and I have bought things or hired people and didn't do the work everyone has, right? So if you create a context so that the rubber meets the road and they actually do it, then they start getting results they can't get on the Other side of the fence where they thought the grass was greener. The grass is greener here.

That's part of it. But to have a business that is truly leverageable so that you keep your clients for years and they refer others.

It'S, it's a continual thing. You have to also make them feel what they can't feel anywhere else.

So they get results. This is the leverage your business model. It's not about just going one to many. This, we go deeper.

I totally understand that and I think it's great you're breaking it down because I would say most people have heard one to many and all this. But what happens is the overwhelm because they don't know what that looks like or how if I can, you know, it triggers the psychological. I can hardly keep up with what I'm doing. One to one, how am I going to amplify this a thousand times? One of the first things I did when I started a decade and a half ago, whenever it was I wrote down like I remember putting stuff on post. Its well, that works for about four to five clients. I realized real quick I needed a CRM and I started thinking within a month or two, like will this work times a thousand? And if I couldn't say yes to that, I'm like, I need a better system in place or do something or better person in place. Because I'm like, at any point you can have those breaking points. So yeah, I mean logically, yeah, reach more people, speak to more people. But it's like if you feel like you're drowning with 13 or 30, how are you going to go to a thousand?

Exactly.

And so you leverage your business model and it changes everything. But to you've. This is a process that, that just the shifting your business model needs to happen after you have the team, leverage the team, leverage your systems, leverage your time. Most people will not be ready to leverage their business model until we fully implement the, the first three. And I just want to say this, whatever this sounds like, there's often a false confidence that happens when people hear these steps or they just read them and think, okay, now I know it's about being fully committed to the process I work. It's not like thinner thighs in 30 days. Okay. Like we, we are sold that as women, you know, like, oh, you're going to make a million and you know, a weekend. No, it takes two years. And my colleagues say to me, Fabian, you are crazy to tell people that it's going to take two years and that yours is a Two year program.

But you're not lying to them.

And this is why they trust, because they know that there's a lot to full leverage your team. You're not going to do that in 12 weeks to create operations and become the leader of a process driven company. That's not happening in 12 weeks.

You might not even have the full team you need in place, let alone leverage them.

No. Do you need a full two years.

Once you have these things in place? Plus the next four activators. But, but it's like we got work to do. And I know we live in this world where it's like, what's that Daft Punk song? It's like better, faster, stronger. Like come on, let's go. We can do this like all this hustle and this super.

Just like aggressive energy.

Hi. Like I have three kids. This isn't my only full time job. Like I also have another full time job. Life gets in the way. A lot of the women who work with us say, you know what, thank you for keeping it real and thank you for giving me the space to like know that I can like exhale and put this in, in place. One foot in front of the other, understanding that I have other obligations in my life. Thank you for, for speaking the truth about how long it takes. But I'll give you two years if you can take me to a million with 14 weeks of vacation, sign me up. And that's, I think a big part of leveraging your differentiation. We won't have time to go through all eight activators. They're all in the book. They're also on Boldheart.com if you want to get all of them.

But part of your differentiation is to be your a trusted authority in your marketplace and tell the truth. Enough of this beating people over the head with a 2x4. You know, following these overly.

Sleazy marketing tactics that were so like 1990s. We people want the truth. And what I have discovered is they will sign up for two years if you tell them the truth.

And you're also managing the expectations. I remember about eight years ago now I had a publishing client and he goes, I know you can help me with the book. I've heard nothing about good things from you. How long is it going to take? Because here's the deal. I have my family, I have this. I'm willing to do it in a year if we can, but it doesn't take me away from the family. I'm willing to take a year and a half or two if need Be as long as it doesn't. And it was one of the first times I was like, well, wow, because it was so impressive to me. And when you set the expectation, you're also not overwhelming people. Because you and I, I have the slightest suspicion if I said, hey, we got to tackle this by six months from now, you and I could tear it up, right? But maybe not everyone else feels that. Maybe they feel I'd actually feel more comfortable with taking 12 to 18 months, two years, like you're saying, because for some people, they thrive on that. Let's just go nonstop. And other people, you know what? I really, you know, I know we could, but I don't really want. That's the other thing. I don't really want to, you know. So I think it's great you're laying it out there up front. And I'd say most people aren't, because even recently I saw some stuff and it was like, here's the newest, latest, greatest, this and that. And I'm like, are we over this yet? I've been seeing this for the two decades. Like, you know, that's always going to be there, isn't it?

I don't think it's always going to be there. I think people with low confidence and what they deliver are going to grab at those straws.

When you have gravitas, meaning you own that you're good at what you do, you don't need to default to all that bs.

I love this. Please continue.

I mean, that's it. That's it. Like we, we. We grasp for.

Hype when we're not confident.

Because you do. You would you say it's psychologically because we think that's the answer, because we.

Don'T feel like we are enough.

That we have to resort to.

Hype and smoke and mirrors and formula. I believe in formulas. My whole methodology is a formula. It's a straightforward. People read it and they're like, wow, it's not rocket science. You know that you need a team and you need systems and you need a different business model. It's the way with which we approach it. And my process comes from literally.

Working with tens of thousands of women. And also, like all my dark nights of the soul. How do I know about certain things about hiring? Because I had the revolving door. I had the crazy. Like, are you serious?

You have the experience?

You're leaving?

I've experienced almost all of it. And I can tell you what's around the corner that you don't know is lurking there. And people will Pay for that and people appreciate.

Appreciate the love that comes from. Let me, let me lovingly get you to success. Here's the recipe. You don't have to do it alone. And when you have, when you've done it, when you've taken a lot of people to multiple six and a million or multiple millions a year, just like a regular mom who if you were with behind her in the grocery store with her kids in the cart, you have no idea that she's making a million or more a year because she's just a regular person. When you've taken a lot enough of those people across the million dollar mark, you don't need hype. There's a story.

You don't need the latest shiny object. Huh?

You don't.

That's awesome. Congratulations on that. I mean seriously, I love what you said about people gravitate towards that because they don't think they're enough. When you know, this whole time we're talking about what I'm hearing, all you have to do is focus on what you're good at and actually serve people. Instead of every month and a half or ten years looking for the shiny object. Let me ask you your biggest success story out of all the tens of thousands of people you've helped. Just give us the, just give us the top hundred or two.

I, I can just think immediately about this woman who she actually emailed me today. She's featured on the website, she's on boltheart.com and she increased her business by 11 million.

And you know I'm not at eight figures. Okay. She is and.

She is helping save kids lives. So it's not about the money, it's about a deep impact. Exactly. Deeply impactful reason behind the big why behind. She leveraged her team, she leveraged her systems. I chills just telling you this.

It's, it's.

That's world changing.

Yes. And this is, this is what was in her email. She's like, I'm reminded yet again about how you always say, Fabian, it's not about the money. It's not about the money. That's not why. Maybe guys get in it because they have a different role in society to be the provider. But most of us women don't start a business to make a million. We start for two reasons. We want to make a difference in people's lives and we want freedom. Freedom to do our business our way. But then when the money comes, it's great too. But that's not why we started. We want to make a difference.

Different Motivations.

Part of the energy. And I know, I know we're. We're over time, but part of the energy of that gravitas that comes is when you're not in it for yourself. Of course you want to make money. Of course you know all the things, right? But in the end, when you. When you understand that you're in the school of service and that you want to use your life.

To leave, however cheesy this sounds, okay? To use your life to make at least a small part of the world a big, better place than when you entered it. And you are here to give now, you must get paid for it, or else, you know, that's servitude. But if you are here to give and to advance people and to help others have a better life, using your work.

That gives you confidence, that gives you meaning, that gives you fulfillment, that allows you to put your head on the pillow at the end of the day and be like, yep, you can.

Feel good and excited about it. Not just, I'm here in a revolving.

Door, like, let me get my fourth Italian sports car in my garage, and then I'll be happy.

That's not life.

Can't go wrong with Italian. But there's more to. There's more to it. I'm so glad I was. I agree 100%. You know, I often think, I pray all the time, God, take everything off my plate so I can be of service to others. And just think, what if everyone was living in this point of freedom and you could literally go, something's on my heart. I want to do this. It has nothing to do with business. I've never done it before. But you wouldn't have that fear of, like, just what people think. Should I be doing it? Is it worth my time? How much is it going to cost? Like, you can just do. And, like, how much better would we all. How much better would the world be better off if we could just all give more? So I'm really excited to hear you're helping people do this and you're not just doing it with a few of them or a dozen of them, which would still be impressive, but you've done it with tens of thousands. So I have one question before we thank our sponsor and come back, but yellow or black?

Yellow.

Okay.

I'm gonna ask you.

Where'D the name come from? I gotta know this. Bold heart.

Boldheart. Ah.

I really believe that the secret to a fulfilled life is that when is when you take your ear.

To your heart and you listen hard.

What are you Passionate about? Who do you want to help?

What would you be deeply saddened by if you left this planet and didn't do the thing? Who do you want to be a hero to? Listen to your ear.

Take your ear and listen to your heart. Hard. That's the heart piece. And once you understand what that is, boldly go make it happen. And it's a combination of the feminine and the masculine. That alchemical energy that is present in nature is what makes everything work. Bold heart.

I love it.

Wow.

We're gonna thank our sponsor real quick and come back for the imperfect action run. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done.

For me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation for than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Fabienne, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I teach imperfect action.

That's awesome. All right, three rapid fire questions. First one, what's the fastest page path to the profits?

Make more, spend less.

Number two, what's the biggest problem? You see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it.

They in isolation they doubt themselves. The fastest way is to be in a community of other healthily ambitious women.

Who are also on the path to seven figures.

Excellent. What is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Give them what they can't get elsewhere and make them feel what they can't get what they can't feel elsewhere. They'll never leave.

We're talking about some books, including yours. What books have helped you in business the most?

In business, there's many.

There is traction, scaling up, how to win friends and influence people.

There are so many Profit first, many, many books.

Great recommendations. Where would you like people to learn more?

Boldheart.com is a great place to go get inspired by the reviews of the program, if only to expand your mindset around what you think might be possible for yourself. And if you want to read the book, it's available on Boldheart.com as well.

The Leveraged Business well, thank you for everything you've shared. I got a lot out of it. I know the audience has and it's just phenomenal. So glad you're helping all these women. So thank you for making the world a better place.

I had a wonderful conversation with you. Thank you for having me.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethod book.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com link LinkedIn. Lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.