Ep 107 Transcript: The Leverage Strategy That Helps Women Grow to Seven Figures with Fabienne Fredrickson
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.
Shauna Lynn Simon (01:50.35)
Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Fabienne Fredrickson. She is the founder of Boldheart and for more than 20 years, she's been mentoring thousands of women business owners and helping them to grow and scale without sacrificing their freedom or their relationships or their peace. She is known for helping women move from overwhelmed at six figures to building leveraged, self-managing businesses.
on a path towards seven figures while reclaiming their time, including the bold goal of having 14 weeks of vacation a year. Imagine making seven figures and actually taking that much time off. She's the author of The Leveraged Business, How You Can Go from Overwhelmed at Six Figures to Seven Figures and Get Your Life Back. And today we're gonna be talking about what that leverage really looks like, how to scale without burning yourself out, and how to build a business that supports your life instead of.
consuming it. So Fabienne, thank you so much for joining me.
Fabienne Fredrickson (02:50.766)
I'm happy to be here, Shauna Lynn. Thanks for having me.
Shauna Lynn Simon (02:53.87)
I'm super excited to talk about this because of course, you know, let's talk seven figures is kind of the hashtag goal. But what I find when I'm speaking to a lot of women is exactly what you like. You've touched on this. You've you've nailed it with the I'm already overwhelmed at six figures. How the heck can I scale to seven? And this is such a common misconception that in order to "grow" you need to just do more of all the things you're already doing. And when you're like, I'm already at capacity, how can I
possibly take this to the next level. how are you finding that you're like, how do you help people? You talk about this leverage to take that overwhelm and transform it to 10x their business. How does that, what does that look like?
Fabienne Fredrickson (03:40.078)
Well, it looks like knowing that what got you here, whether it's overwhelmed at six figures, multiple six figures, even seven figures, what got you here will not get you there. Okay. And this is like page number one of my book. This is where it all starts. So I'm going to break that down because it sounds a little too easy. The activities, approach,
Shauna Lynn Simon (04:00.878)
That's 101, let's start at beginning, yeah.
Fabienne Fredrickson (04:10.254)
Team, systems, marketing, mindset, pricing that got you here won't get you to seven figures with your life back. Okay,
Shauna Lynn Simon (04:22.069)
Okay, let's dig into that. Sorry for a second, because I think you're hitting on something that I think a lot of people, this sounds obvious and at the same time is completely not. Like so many people are thinking, well, I've had all these clients for all these years. These are the clients that are going to take me to the next level. This is how I've priced myself. This is going to take me to the next level. The mindset, I mean, I know what it was like when I was first starting my business. I was like, you want to work with me? Sure. How can we make that happen? Like super, super eager. And now I'm like,
You want to work with me? Great. Let's talk about whether or not this is the right fit for both of us. You know, there's a different shift that you go through, but I think that so many people unconsciously aren't making those shifts. So, and I think that's a big deal for people because we get so comfortable in our clients, in our pricing and all the things that we're doing. So how do they, first of all, just start making that shift, letting go of the fact that like all of that, that got them here.
I think when we say, what got you here won't get you there. We know that we've heard that this is not a new phrase. But there is, but what you're saying is we have to, we need to actually let go of certain things. How does that even begin?
Fabienne Fredrickson (05:32.734)
It begins by hitting a wall. It begins by either getting to burnout or getting so close to burnout that you look at your business and you realize that it is not a business. It is a job that pays you less than you would ever allow a job to pay you that requires you to work on evenings and weekends without paying you more.
that requires you to take meetings and phone calls and say to your kids, more email and I will be right there while you're on vacation. Right. And all of that makes you realize like, is this really worth it? Like I'm going through the motions of my business. I, I'm not sure that it's worth all of this. So that's point number one. And point number two, when you get to the place where sheer grit and hustle is what got you here long.
evenings, right? And over-functioning and scope creep and, you know, giving your time away and not getting paid for it. All of that has you realize that you actually have no time, no time to grow your business. There's no more view. There's no bandwidth. So when you're looking at your whole business and your life, it's not really working, even though on the outside people think you've got it going on. look at her with the car and the...
You know, all the nice bag, but deep inside they don't know the anguish, not to over dramatize it. So when you realize that you can't get to seven figures, there's just no more of you to go around. There's really only three things that happen. One, somebody continues doing that for the rest of her life until she just can't anymore. The second person will say, you know what, I'm just, I'm going to stop. And the third one,
looks for a different approach and starts to look around and say, how are other people doing it? How is that person making a hundred thousand a month? And I'm trying to, I'm hustling to make a hundred thousand a year. And once you realize that you start to look back and say, okay, how did I start with my business, with my business model? was probably one to one. It was.
Fabienne Fredrickson (07:56.448)
I'll do everything because I had more time than money, right? So I couldn't buy for anybody. So I did everything myself. There's this control enthusiasm where you're like white knuckling everything and you have to start questioning everything. And that's really what it comes down to. Again, it sounds super simple, but this is kind of a dark night of the soul. Some people call it a, you know, come to Jesus moment, whatever you want to label it.
What got you here won't get you there and you will burn out.
Shauna Lynn Simon (08:29.442)
When I think a lot of the people who are listening to this, these are service providers for the most part. Most of my Accidental CEOs are creative women who started with more passion than plan. And so they just want to do the super cool, fun thing. And what we often realize, of course, once we start our business is that that super cool, fun thing is about 10, maybe 15, maybe 20 % of what you actually do. And the rest of it, like you said, is that job part of it where you're just running the business is a job. There's so much that becomes a part of it.
And then as a service provider, it's hard to balance the time you're spending on your business, the time you're spending in the business and the time you're spending actually just servicing your clients versus that administrative stuff when you're wearing all of the hats. And it's really difficult to kind of see, well, how do I move beyond this when I'm literally trading my time for money? So you want to take every job that comes in and then that takes your time away from all these other things.
So I know you hit on the one thing, like there's the one-to-one element of it, which I think a lot of these service providers probably can't think beyond how they would ever extend past one-to-one. So for them, is there an option that you can see? And to give some examples, we kind of talked a little bit about this pre-interview of interior designers, home stagers, photographers, creative type of professionals.
Those are mostly what we're talking about here. So they're not someone who's going to go out and say, like, let me create a course that I'm going to sell to a whole bunch of people or a membership site. And let's face it, like, those things are, I'm not saying that's the answer for everyone. A lot of those things are kind of a bit of a dying breed if in certain ways. So how does someone, is it the delegation that they need to be focusing most on? Like, what's sort of the first thing that they should be looking towards to get out of this place of being stuck?
Fabienne Fredrickson (10:19.82)
I'm going to show you, if you're watching this video, you'll see that I'm pointing to my book. It's called The Leveraged Business. And the reason I'm pointing to it is the entire formula framework methodology is in here. So you say, where do we start? We started with the first chapter, which is leverage your team. And let me explain why. There is no such thing as a self-made millionaire because
you just only have, let's say, even if you work 16 hours a day, that's just not enough. So what you have to realize is that not everything in your business, not every hour that you spend on your business has equal value. There are things that you do, especially if you're a creative, that are worth, you know, hundreds, if not thousands per hour, but there are also things that are worth like 15 an hour, 10 an hour, 20 an hour. And...
I think that we confuse the fact that our time is used on both to think that we should be working on both, especially creative people. I've worked with, I'm working with a floral designer now, a website designer, an interior designer. It's often the same thing where she comes to you or me and she says, I can't do this anymore. I've lost my passion.
and I want to close down my business. And I say, hold up, give it one year, but do it my way. And what happens is she came in because she likes the creativity of it, but she ends up, let's say if it's an interior designer, she likes, you know, the creativity of it, but then she's spending most of her time waiting for the contractors or chasing the client or dealing with a broken thing and in there. a team.
comes in here, when you know how to hire right, you can hire a team member to come and take all of those things off your plate. Now, you may think as you're listening to this, that you don't have the income, the revenue, the cash flow to hire the team, but that is not correct. You're looking at it backwards. If you don't mind me saying, I'm going to say it lovingly backwards, right? You're thinking, oh, that costs like 50,000 a year or 75,000 a year. No, it does not.
Shauna Lynn Simon (12:33.838)
Please do.
Fabienne Fredrickson (12:42.784)
It costs, especially if you're, it costs for one month. If you're hiring a part-time person, whatever they could be like a thousand a month, you can afford that. And here's why. When a team member, well, actually going to backtrack your team member, you want them to pay for themselves and the way they pay for themselves is twofold. The first one is that they take things off your plate so much that you gain back a few hours a day.
Okay, and let's say you're paying them 20, 25, 30 an hour and you charge, let's say 200, 100, thousand an hour, then you use that time to get more clients. The second thing is you hire them to work on exponential growth activities or you hire them to work on money generation activities. And from working with thousands of people, women, I've seen
over all these years that it takes three months when you hire properly, three months for the person to pay for themselves. And let's say you're paying her a thousand a month. It's not 50 or 60, it's 3000. So you can afford that if you hustle to get a new client to pay for that person.
Shauna Lynn Simon (14:00.546)
And I think I really like what you're touching on here because I think often, you know, especially when I'm talking with clients, they'll say, well, I need to hire another designer because I need another me. I need someone out there making the money, but we underestimate what it would take to bring in an administrative person, a marketing person. I'm going to circle back to the marketing one as well, because that's a whole other can of worms there sometimes. But we forget about what some of these behind the scenes people do for us because
on paper on a day-to-day basis, it doesn't look like they're making us money. But you're exactly right. They are making new money if you are replacing the time that you spent doing those tasks. And I also want to add to that, not only is it the time you're spending doing the tasks, it's the time you're spending procrastinating on doing the tasks you don't want to do. So a task that you shouldn't be doing is going to take you probably two to three times, if not longer, than it would take someone else to do it. So that
Fabienne Fredrickson (14:47.864)
Exactly.
Shauna Lynn Simon (14:56.942)
$20, $25 an hour you're paying them, imagine how much time that is saving you. then I think the, you know, so I think reframing how we're looking at investing in some of those behind the scenes people, but a marketing person is another thing that this is a world that is really blown up in recent years. And I know that so many of my clients feel this and I've experienced this myself. I think everyone has experienced this, the, do I know
who to actually work with. like there's obviously we're not going to say you're to get into bringing them in house versus hiring someone from exterior or whatever, but these guys are looking for thousands of dollars and we're looking at it and saying like, well, where do I get my money back on that one? So that, think that one's a really hard one for people to get. I'd love that. Yes.
Fabienne Fredrickson (15:43.054)
to that one.
So when I teach marketing, that's chapter five of the book, when I teach marketing, teach that they're every, I see this because I've been teaching it for 25 years. There are four real buckets to marketing. And we are taught that we should do all four of them and I'll explain what they are. And then I'll explain the methodology because it is about leverage. And then we can break down leverage a little bit further.
Shauna Lynn Simon (16:13.806)
I definitely do that. And I think we also want to go through like, after you cover this, let's go backwards a little bit and we're going to cover all, if we can cover the eight steps, just high level. Yeah, but this is great. Okay. Yeah. Go on. Yeah.
Fabienne Fredrickson (16:26.168)
So let's say the bucket one for marketing is speaking in video. You could call it reels, you could call it YouTube, you could call it webinars, speaking from the stage, doing your own events. Okay, that's bucket one. Bucket two is writing. Writing could be a book, it could be blogs, it could be any sort of written content, white papers, all
Shauna Lynn Simon (16:51.189)
any sort of content basically.
Fabienne Fredrickson (16:56.406)
The third is referrals. We're specifically talking about word of mouth referrals. Okay, most of your business comes from there. It's actually, it doesn't have to be a reactive thing. We can talk about that in a moment. And then there is networking. Now, sometimes people want to put both of them together, but I separate them because word of mouth is
reactive, but networking is where you go to a thing and you meet people to either get a new client or create some referral partnerships. People get overwhelmed. We get overwhelmed because we think we have to do it all. And my take on this all these years is to say, which one is it that comes naturally to you or which one is the one that you're currently getting clients from? And so I want you to
Imagine that you had a file cabinet like the old, you know, steel file cabinet.
Shauna Lynn Simon (17:54.098)
I've still got some of those. You mean they're out of style now? What?
Fabienne Fredrickson (17:58.048)
Probably. But imagine that you took all of the manila folders out with all your client names and you spread them out all over the floor and you grab your Sharpie or whatever and you were to grade all your clients. A being brilliant. I mean, I could just have every one of my clients be like that. B good. C and then
You make a pile of all the A's and you look, where did I get that person? Did I get that person from, I went to that networking group and, and, my God, that other client was also from networking. Wow. This is very interesting, right? So just making a mental note for me. It's speaking in video. Number one, we usually have two speaking in video number one and writing is number two. Okay.
So it's not that I don't get word of mouth referrals and it's not that I haven't networked in the past, but for this stage of my life right now, this is where they come from. So this is where you wanna use leverage. The concept of leverage is essentially the 80/20 rule, the Pareto Principle. And I think it's really interesting that my brain thinks like this with everything, the clothes I wear,
how I cook in the kitchen. I'm always looking at what is the minimal amount of input of work, number of ingredients in a dish, performance ingredients, right? So I don't have to have 12, I just need three. It's the same thing with marketing. What's the least amount of work that I can do that creates the greatest output?
Shauna Lynn Simon (19:37.922)
to make them.
Shauna Lynn Simon (19:53.198)
I love being this yes. Okay. Sorry. Go on. Yes
Fabienne Fredrickson (19:53.965)
you
No. And so when we end up talking about chapter three, which is leverage your time, I'll dive into it a little bit more, but I don't, I don't want you to do all these other things. If you are an excellent writer, for example, then write your brains out and do that for two hours a day. And you might say two hours a day. Yeah, but you don't have to do anything else. Right. an hour a day, write a few blog posts, write a few carousel.
whatever they're called carousels for, for your Instagram, write to people on LinkedIn, write papers, write a book, write a book a year and use that book as a lead generating book. Okay. If you are somebody who is gets word of mouth referrals and you're like, I really hate to do social media. And I, I don't want to go to a networking group. Fine.
Create a referral kit. Create a referral marketing plan and put it in place. Don't just be like, okay, I'm ready for the referrals now. And you've heard the birds chirping, right?
Shauna Lynn Simon (21:09.044)
And hope, just hoping that, yeah, hope is not a strategy.
Fabienne Fredrickson (21:12.014)
I Hoping is not a strategy, but there are things that you can do on repeat, maybe three, four things per month, five, nine, 12 things per month that will absolutely triple the number of referrals that you're in word of mouth referrals that you get now. So it's about really leveraging that, a little bit of putting a pause button on the 80 % that is only driving 20 % of your revenues.
Shauna Lynn Simon (21:38.732)
And here's what I'm on the.
Fabienne Fredrickson (21:40.11)
20 % that is actually bringing in 80 % of the revenues. That's the leverage mindset.
Shauna Lynn Simon (21:46.382)
And I think, so this is what I'm loving about what you're talking about is the leverage mindset, this whole shift of thinking about how to make things easier while still not just easier on yourself just so that you can have a better life, but easier that still brings in the money that still works in your favor. And I think I'm, I constantly hear the same thing from my clients telling me like, well, I know I should, hate the word should.
It should probably just be removed from the English language because I should do this and I should do that because what they're hearing in their life are a bunch of people with all these shoulds for them. And the challenge is that this causes so much confusion, so much chaos, so much overwhelm. And I have people coming to me often like, I heard on Instagram I should be doing this and I should be doing this. should be like, I don't know. I just do whatever I want on Instagram. And people don't like that answer.
And some days my Instagram performs great, other days it doesn't, I don't really care. That's just.
Fabienne Fredrickson (22:45.358)
Here's why that's a brilliant way to approach it. Because if you, so I've been teaching mindset for 20 years, big events, hundreds of people, all of that. What I've known for a very long time is willpower is only 5 % of the reason for your actions. 5 % and it wears out. 95%.
of your actions come directly from your subconscious mind. And what I mean by that is your identity, who you see yourself to be and your beliefs, what you believe to be true. Now, if you should, that is the identity of somebody who doesn't enjoy something. And that's going to last for three months, three weeks, three days, or just three hours. So if you say, you know,
January 1st, I am going to get fit and run a marathon by January 3rd. You've stopped because you don't actually have the identity of a marathon runner or you don't actually like running. It's the same thing. If you don't like being on social media, we either have to do two things. Tell you to stop or change your identity to be somebody who is comfortable with visibility, somebody who is comfortable with consistency, et cetera. It's really just a choice.
So you're absolutely right, because if you don't like it, or you're not good at it, and you're not interested in getting good at it, you are wasting your time and energy. It is much better for you to do something where it could be totally quirky, but if you enjoy it and you have good energy, you show up every day, you're consistent, that, no matter if no one else is doing it, that is going to get you clients.
Shauna Lynn Simon (24:40.454)
And it's funny that you say that because I actually just wrote recently wrote an article about exactly this and I was talking about I said, authenticity is dead. And what I mean by that is it's become such a buzzword that people are touting about their authenticity while feeding you a story that is a bold-faced lie essentially. That said, authenticity isn't actually dead. It's the made-up authenticity that we need to get away from.
But I've been learning this lesson since I was in my late teens. When I started university, I had moved away from my hometown and I go to this new university and what was really liberating for me was that I had no identity going into this. So I could start fresh essentially and be who I wanted to be, not who people thought I was, not who people expected me to be. I could just literally be who I was. And it's not to say that was that different.
from who I was in my previous town, but I leaned into it so much more. You know what happened when I did that? I attracted people who were similar to me, who were like-minded, who enjoyed doing the things that I enjoyed. And this is something that I've been practicing my entire life. Anytime I find myself getting away from my core beliefs, my true self, I notice that the people around me change. I notice that the things that I enjoy don't seem to be as available to me.
And the more I lean into who I am, the more I attract the right clients, the right money, the right space for me. I've made some massive changes in my life in the last few years. Have all of them worked out perfectly for me? No, of course not. That said, there are certain ones that I can really go back and pinpoint and say, I was really being true to myself with that one. And that really panned out. How can I lean into that a little bit more? And every time I do those reflections, it pays off. Now I will say.
The other thing that I've learned over the years, and I teach this to my clients as well, and I'm sure that this is probably a part of your book somewhere as well, of that you need to have the mental bandwidth to be able to reflect on these things, to be able to see these things. And when you are in the hustle and grind every single day, it's near impossible. But again, the more you lean into, what do I actually enjoy doing? What do I actually want to be doing? And you can lean into that.
Shauna Lynn Simon (26:57.804)
the more it starts to pay off and the more it frees up your time to be able to do more of it. It is this kind of circle that keeps paying for itself essentially. So I love that you are talking about, don't do all the things, do the things that make the most sense for you because I people need to hear that more.
Fabienne Fredrickson (27:14.422)
I'm always saying that when you are the fullest expression of who you really are, and I'm going to say that again, like the fullest expression of who you really are, you become magnetically attractive. Absolutely. I spoke about this in my first book called Embrace Your Magnificence, where we try to put on a mask to belong, and that is actually the thing that repels
opportunities, money, and people. So the opposite is what if you just take all the masks and this is where it requires a bold heart because that is where you have to be brave and courageous and believe that, so I'm a spiritual person, so sometimes I say the word divine, believe that the divine made you on purpose, for a purpose, with a purpose,
exactly like you are, like for a reason and that whatever you want to call it, blessings, abundance, that is when that gets built onto you. And if you understand that in business, but in life, there has never been anyone like you in 13.7 billion years.
and that the divine or source energy or God, goddess, whatever you want to call it, made you specifically that way and you try to be somebody else, how's that going to work? Right? Nobody's like you now and no one will ever be like you again. So let's go back to the leverage methodology. And this is step number seven, which is leverage your differentiation.
Love this. Be who you really are. If you're quirky, be quirky in your marketing. If you're sarcastic, be sarcastic in your marketing. you have pink hair, have pink hair in your marketing. If you dance, dance in your marketing. Yes.
Shauna Lynn Simon (29:25.39)
Yeah. And you know what? We're going to dig into this just a little bit more. We're going to talk about, again, we've covered so many of the different leverage activators that you've got here. So we're going to come back to that in just a moment after this short break. We'll be right back after this quick message. This episode of the Real Women Real Business podcast is brought to you by, well, potentially you. Are you a brand or service that supports passionate female entrepreneurs who ready to turn their vision into profit without the stress and overwhelm?
Perhaps you're an accidental CEO yourself, now on a mission to make work and life easier for fellow passion driven boss ladies. Our podcast is experiencing an exciting 30 % month over month growth, reaching entrepreneurs who are building stronger, working smarter and dreaming bigger. We have limited partnership opportunities available for brands that align with our mission of redefining how working hard looks and feels. Visit aboutshaunalynn.com/partner
to learn more about becoming a partner in our rapidly growing show. And welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. All right, welcome back. This has been a magnetic conversation with Fabienne and we're talking about how to really leverage. And I think people use leverage as such a buzzword, but Fabienne, you are talking about it in a way that's actually making sense in a very practical, like here's a how to do it. And so let's talk about.
how to really maximize that leverage, maximize those differentiators, leaning into who we are. But before we get to that, can we just take a step back? You've got eight different leverage. What do you call them? Sorry, are they leverage activators or? activators. Okay. Just want to make sure I have the terminology right.
Fabienne Fredrickson (31:05.294)
If I may, the reason why I call them activators is I want you to imagine that a lot of women entrepreneurs are kind of in the dark about what to do next. So I want you to imagine that you're entering a dark room. You can't see anything. There's no visibility, but you put your hand on the wall, you're, you know, kind of trying to figure out where am I? And all of sudden you see a switch, like eight switches and you flip one on.
the light comes on, it's a little bit, it's a little less dark. So you're activating. then when the more you activate team, time, systems, marketing, business model, et cetera, the more clarity there is and everything gets brighter. So cheesy or not, that's why we call them activators.
Shauna Lynn Simon (31:54.542)
No, and I really liked that. remember back when I was just growing my business and I've told this story before about my, first business, which was a home staging business, almost failed in the first couple of years, did a whole lot of things wrong and then took a step back, shut things down, rebranded, refocused, leaned into my strength, into my personality, leaned into all of that a lot more. And then all of a sudden business just took off when I relaunched it. And I remember meeting with one of the first business coaches I ever met with.
And he asked me, said, well, why do people hire you? like, cause I'm the best. Like, no, seriously, why do they hire you? like, no, because I'm the best. And it's like, no, but seriously, why do they hire you? And it was the first time I was forced to actually think about what did I activate? What did I actually do? I knew I had made changes, a bunch of changes, but these were surface changes. Like I knew I changed my website and I knew I changed my look.
because I toned down my look to take the pink out of my hair for some obscene reason that made zero sense to anyone. Because I have literally had pink hair since 2007, I believe, was when I first started doing this, long before it was cool. So when I tell people that story, they can't believe that true and authentic me, that I did that. I'm like, yeah, we all make our mistakes and we think we need to fit in with the crowd, right? But when he asked me that,
Like said, I done all these changes, but what at the core did I do that made the difference? And that's what I had to look back on of what actually, to use your term, activated that. And when you know what those activators actually are, they're repeatable. And you can actually utilize them to leverage them exactly how you're saying. And I think that this is just hitting in a way that just takes it beyond just this vague.
Here's what you need to do. I mean, sure, we're not getting into a ton of specifics because obviously there's a lot to cover. But when we start realizing the shifts we need to make in our mind, the shifts we need to make in how we're operating and identifying that these things need to happen in the first place, that is massive to results. And sometimes, like, don't worry, there's always action that needs to come with things. But sometimes the most subtle changes in your mindset end up initiating actions that you don't even realize.
Shauna Lynn Simon (34:14.316)
you're activating when you're doing it. So I absolutely love this.
Fabienne Fredrickson (34:17.55)
But let's bring some practicality to this. Leverage your intellectual property. And this is how I first got to seven figures nearly 18 years ago. So when this was baby Fabienne, I'd just become a business coach in the year 2000. 2000s? Yeah.
Shauna Lynn Simon (34:25.132)
Okay.
Fabienne Fredrickson (34:48.549)
And somebody asked me to speak at like just in front of entrepreneurs. And this was the very first of how I got to have my own business and fill my practice and all of that. And when asked how I did it, I was like, I don't know. mean, you know, I just got it. But then they're like, well, you have to come up with some steps. was like, oh, okay. And like.
I just put it together. had five steps at the time. And I said, this is the client attraction system. And when I said that it's like the molecules in the room changed. And I want to take you back just a few weeks before that somebody had said to me, why should I work with you? And I would say, you know, I'm just going to coach you. Well, how does it work? Well, you know, you'll ask me questions and I'll coach you. But when I had my client attraction system,
I was able to say, the reason I'm going to help you get to six figures is that first we're going to make client attraction a priority. Then we're going to, how do I say, position you in the marketplace? Then we're going to get clear on your ideal client profile. Then we're going to work on your marketing materials. And then we're going to get you out there in a big way and blah, blah, blah, blah, close the sale, all of that. At the end of me describing the steps, they were like, okay, sign me up. That makes sense. Yes.
Then what I had my client attraction system for a few years, it helped me go beyond one-to-one in my business model because then I created, there were 10 steps of the client attraction system and I created a 10 week program. And that helped me get growing. And then I turned it into a one day workshop, a three day workshop, and then a year long program, and then a two year long program, a product in a box, et cetera, et cetera. And that same
10 steps has made tens of millions of dollars in my career. So you can leverage your intellectual property and diversify it. You can leverage your business model, which is what I just described instead of one-to-one. If I have, like I said, a floral wedding designer that just, who is that? Probably 200,000 a year.
Fabienne Fredrickson (37:11.714)
doing everything herself.
Shauna Lynn Simon (37:14.553)
goodness. I mean, good on her, but wow.
Fabienne Fredrickson (37:17.87)
Good on her, but you know what? She's getting, I think she's about 56. She's like, I don't think I can go much longer. This is heavy work. It's not sustainable. so of course we created a business model so that she can do many more weddings with staff. she just, you know, she doesn't have to go break down the wedding at 11:30 or 12. You know, like there are many different ways to do it. That is how you leverage.
Shauna Lynn Simon (37:25.89)
Yeah, it's not sustainable.
Fabienne Fredrickson (37:45.336)
And because then you can work with so many more clients. Amazing. Scale.
Shauna Lynn Simon (37:52.992)
Amazing. Okay, so let's break it down. What are the eight leverage activators?
Fabienne Fredrickson (37:58.258)
Okay, so you want to leverage your team in the sense that you only want to be doing things in your business that you're uniquely brilliant at. So let's take an interior designer. You're just talking to the client. You are doing all the creative stuff, but you are delegating everything else to your team. Yes. What's good about that? You get better and better at your art. Delegate the craft to other people.
Shauna Lynn Simon (38:24.298)
And you would.
Fabienne Fredrickson (38:27.278)
But you're also, if you believe in energy the way I do, you become really magnetic to people and opportunities and money because you're vibrating higher because you're grateful for the work you're doing. So it's not just strategic to hire people. It keeps you in this deliciously attractive energy. It also means when you leverage a team that you have so many more people implementing, not just you.
So your job could just be to do the creative part and then go slay the dragon and get another client. Go get another client. Exactly. That's leverage your team. I mean, I'm taking a whole chapter and I'm like boiling it down.
Shauna Lynn Simon (39:06.36)
course, yes. We're talking high level here. You want the full formula, go buy the book. But like right now we're starting high level just to kind of scratch the surface a little bit.
Fabienne Fredrickson (39:16.302)
So when you've got the team, you actually get a few hours back each day. You get the team to write the systems. You're not writing the systems. Absolutely. Nobody here is going to write the systems. not in your unique brilliance. So the team writes the systems, creates SOPs. Now the team.
Shauna Lynn Simon (39:29.581)
Not your job.
Fabienne Fredrickson (39:40.942)
which means that you're not pulled into all the fires and the whack-a-moleing of the business. And again, doing the things you don't like to do. So now you have the team working from the systems. You've gotten back your time with both of them. Then we go into the third activator, which is the leverage, your time activator. And I'm not talking about time management, Shauna Lynn. I'm talking about real leverage. Understanding that we all have the same 24 hours, but
if we are burned out, not making enough, not scaling, it's because we're using them wrong. So this is this concept again of the 80/20 rule that rules everything that I do in my life is to look at why am I doing that if it's not actually moving the needle? And why am I not doing more of this, which is actually moving the needle? So it's about determining what is the 20 %?
of let's say what are the 20 % of marketing activities that are actually generating the clients and the money and why am I doing anything else? So we put the pause button on 80, like let's say eight hours of your day, a 10 hour day, eight hours of your day, not producing any results or minimal, pause button on that. Take the 22 hours of the day. What are those things? Quadruple that, do eight hours of that.
We can just start right here. You will get to seven figures if you do that. Absolutely. It's also about understanding that the way that you use your days can be focused on exponential growth activities. And you can actually schedule an exponential growth activity day every week and an exponential growth activity week every month. And when you do that, you're working on activities that will produce exponential results.
Shauna Lynn Simon (41:35.438)
Yeah, and I think that's a hard one for so many people because it sounds easy to say, just do more of the things that are bringing in money. like, all these other things need to get done. But if we've already done the leverage your team, like you've talked about and leveraging your systems, now this feels doable and manageable. So I can see why they're in the order that they're in, because you have to
to terms with one before you can get to the next one. And again, all of this again starts with what we talked about the very beginning of shifting your entire mindset that you need to get rid of how you've been doing things, how you've been thinking about things, the beliefs that you've had to be able to move yourself into the be able to executing these actual systems and putting them into place. Yeah. Okay.
Fabienne Fredrickson (42:20.622)
They're absolutely consequential. Team, systems, now you have back your time. Absolutely. This is about using it to focus on the activities that will help you scale. Once you have your time, you start thinking about your business model. Can your current business model get you to seven figures with 14 weeks of vacation a year? If the answer is no, then we have to move some things around. And this is where you start thinking about leveraging either
some "mini-mes" right? Other stagers, other, you know, junior interior designers, junior web designers, or you start taking your intellectual property and leveraging that. There are literally countless permutations of how you can deliver your work to clients in a way that doesn't require you to do all of the heavy lifting. Right. So I have close to a hundred.
high level clients, but I'm not having a call with them every single week, each of them that I wouldn't even be feasible, but I have something better. I've created a business model that create that provides direct access to me, private time with me and lots of other little things. So it's what I call a hybrid type of business model. It's different for everybody.
Shauna Lynn Simon (43:30.412)
It's not feasible.
Fabienne Fredrickson (43:50.924)
But we're looking for the lever there. And those are the first four. Those are what I teach in the first year because they're absolutely foundational. If you don't have those in place, you cannot get to seven figures. And then the next four are about leveraging your marketing. And of course, somebody would say, why aren't we talking about marketing at first? You need the team, the systems, the time, the business model. Once you've set up a business model that can run
effectively 10 times the number of clients you have now without you imploding and crashing and breaking out, then that's how we want to start using omnipresent marketing. And omnipresent marketing is really just a way of approaching marketing from a leverage perspective of instead of you doing all of these marketing activities, we want to start creating marketing assets.
Shauna Lynn Simon (44:27.502)
Yeah.
Fabienne Fredrickson (44:48.204)
marketing assets that live beyond you for years, like for years. So a book is an asset, right? You write a book and then it can live out there in perpetuity and generate clients for years to come. A podcast is the same, even though you're showing up and you're doing this, you know, it still takes an hour, you know, for each episode, sometimes a little bit more, but those episodes can then
live in perpetuity, somebody can binge your podcast and be like, my God, Shauna Lynn, she's, she's my girl. Right. Right. And then you can then leverage that because you can create reels. can take your episodes, transcribe them, write a book. There's like a million ways you can do that. So this is about looking at leveraging your marketing so that you have the appearance of being everywhere all at once, but you're not actually everywhere all at once. Your current is.
Yes. Then you have leverage your accountability. And this is about getting your team members to grow your business for you and with you. This is more advanced stuff. This is where we really into like KPIs and things like that. is kind of like year two when we have all of the other things in place. Leveraging differentiation is about creating you being so yourself, your business being such an essence and representation.
of your true authenticity, the real you that, and setting it up so that you have no competitors because you provide your clients better results than they can get elsewhere. And you provide a better feeling that then they can get anywhere else. And then they don't want to go anywhere and they receive it anywhere else. they, um, and they give you referrals and
The last one is leverage your lifestyle. And this is where we bring on a second in command to run your business for you and with you so that you have a self-managing business and you can decide how much you want to be in your business. And it allows you to take as many weeks of vacations as you want.
Shauna Lynn Simon (47:06.632)
And that sounds like the dream that, and you make it sound so achievable. mean, like none of this sounds, I think that this is the challenge sometimes that we see, let's call them influencers all over the place these days that are touting this lifestyle, but not really making it feel like it's something that we can actually do. It feels farfetched, it feels unachievable, but everything that you've outlined there, like all of this makes sense.
Fabienne Fredrickson (47:34.315)
It's, you know, sometimes people say to me two things. They say, why did you put your whole program in the book? Why?
Shauna Lynn Simon (47:42.124)
Scarcity mindset, yep.
Fabienne Fredrickson (47:44.854)
I said first, I like to be trusted. That's one of my values. And I've read books, I don't know if you've read books where you're like, seriously, I just put five hours into this and I still have nothing? Mine is quite the opposite. It is so full that people's, well, first women say they cried in the introduction because I really got them. So there's that.
Shauna Lynn Simon (47:57.471)
Nothing out of it, yeah.
Fabienne Fredrickson (48:12.55)
but then you give so much content that people trust you before they even meet you. And, that really helps. The second is that in isolation, it's going to be really hard to put all of these things in place, not because they're difficult, because you can't grow a business in between client appointments. So when you have a roadmap, when like the book, everything is in here, you're like, wow, wow.
Wow, this is amazing. I trust the process. Okay. My intention is somebody who reads the book. If she's the right person, she gets the chapter four. She's like, okay, okay, sign me up. I don't want to do this alone. want access to her every week. I want a community. I want mindset help. I want all of the scripts and the templates and all of that. It's not for everybody, but that's what I recommend.
This.
Shauna Lynn Simon (49:10.862)
This is okay. So first of all, for anyone who's listening to this, think obviously the first step is go get the book because I mean, everything you talked about today, like I said, it's practical. makes sense. Um, you make it sound achievable, something I can actually implement that doesn't just sound like this far fish that's going to take me. Like, I know you talked about this. This is not a process that happens overnight. It takes two years, but
Fabienne Fredrickson (49:32.024)
two years.
Shauna Lynn Simon (49:35.158)
I can already see that, you know, just in those first steps, even just reading the eight steps and becoming aware of them and starting to shift your mindset, that's going to have immediate results to it. So sure, it might take two years to get to the finish line. And I mean, let's face it, we're never at the finish line in our business, you know, there's... But, you know, to get to the point where you've got the seven figures, you've got the 14 weeks vacation, sure, that might take you two years, but it's not gonna take you two years to get results.
Fabienne Fredrickson (49:50.986)
I'm not at the finish line.
Shauna Lynn Simon (50:02.486)
I can see that like chapter one, you're getting results.
Fabienne Fredrickson (50:05.134)
Absolutely. And I think that's what that was the second thing that I forgot to mention is people say, why are you telling people that it takes two years? Like, that seems like a long time. And I say back, when somebody says to you that they can get you to seven figures in 12 weeks, please tell me you don't believe them. Right. I'd rather get your respect.
and say, wow, two year program, you don't have to do two years. You can do it in one year, right? Sure. One year. And if you like it, you come back. Most people stay longer because they're getting results that they haven't gotten elsewhere and they like the community. But of course, tell the truth and you will have the respect of your community. You will have the respect of your clients and your prospects. So that is part of that authenticity is saying, yeah, it takes two years, but
On your own, it would probably take 20. So return. If you ever get there. Yeah.
Shauna Lynn Simon (51:05.536)
If you ever get there. If you don't burn out first. Yeah, wonderful. OK, so you've got a ton of resources on your website. In addition to being able to access your book there, I know you've got a bunch of things. Tell us a little bit about what people can find if they go to your website, which is boldheart.com. We're going to make sure this is in the show notes, of course.
Fabienne Fredrickson (51:24.942)
So, you you can get the book on Amazon, but you'd pay the same price. I also give you, if you go to Boldheart, the book with free shipping, I believe, but there you get the assessment that comes with the book. You get the cheat sheet of the eight activators that you can laminate and put on your desk. You get the video series. There's like a whole bunch of bonuses of video. Yeah, whole bunch of stuff. So I recommend getting that even if
That's all you do. The podcast, very original name, it's The Fabienne Show. Is a lot of the mindset, a lot of the inner work, a lot of the identity shifting, what to do about procrastination, perfection paralysis, over-functioning, hyper-independence, and people really love the podcast.
Shauna Lynn Simon (52:04.014)
It sounds fabulous.
Fabienne Fredrickson (52:22.464)
If you want more and you want to just kind of take Fabienne on the road to the grocery store on the train with you, you go listen to that. And then I'll offer this. I don't offer this too often, but there is an opportunity to have a strategy call with me for free. And it's where you have to apply. I have a limited number of these.
Obviously it wouldn't be, it's not leveraged for me to do a lot of these, but you can apply on the website on boldheart.com. I think it says book a call. And this is where you fill out a few questions and you send them in. if you qualify, we get on a call for an hour and I listen. I've got my notes. I will have prepared and I give you what I believe are your biggest.
strategic blocks in your business of why you're not moving faster to seven figures. give you your, we discussed, not I just, I give you, but we discussed your biggest mindset blocks of maybe their money blocks, maybe, you know, over people pleasing blocks, something like that. And then we create your roadmap. If you have questions. It's a lot, but again, it's that, it's that trust that we're building. It's that.
Shauna Lynn Simon (53:35.246)
That's a lot.
Fabienne Fredrickson (53:40.94)
Like the book, like the podcast, it's the results in advance. So if you want to apply for one of those, it's boldheart.com. I would be happy to speak with you.
Shauna Lynn Simon (53:50.894)
Amazing. Amazing. And like a full hour with Fabienne. I mean, I've almost spent a full hour with you and I could take so much more because I feel like I could, we could talk about this all day long. Um, but I cannot thank you enough for everything that you have shared for today's listeners. If, someone listening to this episode, we did, we covered a lot of things today. If they're like, what's the best next step.
that I can take for my business or what's one takeaway maybe from this episode? Maybe this is a little simpler question. What's one takeaway? If they get nothing else out of this episode, what's one takeaway you want them to really sink into?
Fabienne Fredrickson (54:26.668)
you to tally up how you used your hours every day of this week. Make an actual list and next to each, I want you to write 20 or 80. Is this part of the 20 % of activities that is driving revenues, driving clients and scaling my business? Or is it part of the 80 % that if I were to be acting in a more leveraged mindset way, I would find a way to delegate?
eliminate or automate this. That would be my assignment for you guys.
Shauna Lynn Simon (55:00.91)
Love that. Fabienne, thank you so much for joining me on today's podcast. This has been truly incredible.
Fabienne Fredrickson (55:07.374)
Thank you for having me. You're a wonderful interviewer.
Shauna Lynn Simon (55:10.53)
amazing. Well, listen, if you're listening to this episode, what we're saying here is resonating with you. hope that you will allow us to continue to be a part of your journey. Don't forget to tune in every week. We drop new episodes every Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Eastern time. Don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast. It really does help the algorithm. Not only does it help us, it helps other women to find us. And of course, it's always the best way.
to show your support not only for this program, but for your fellow women entrepreneurs is to take this episode and share it, not with just one person, share with every woman that you know that needs to hear this message today. They're gonna thank you for it and we're gonna thank you for it as well. Until next time, keep thriving.