A Millionaire Entrepreneur’s Crash Course in Operations...

The Millionaire Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating Systems for Success at Work and Home

A Millionaire Entrepreneur’s Crash Course in Operations and

Systems

The mechanics behind the highly profitable 6- or 7-figure lifestyle

business you love

by Fabienne Fredrickson

www.ClientAttraction.com www.TheClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com

© 2014 Client Attraction LLC. All Rights Reserved. www.ClientAttraction.com

All rights reserved. No part of this program may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holder,

except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.


Hi there,

OK, from one entrepreneur to another, let’s be honest with each other…

If you’re anything like me and the other millions of entrepreneurs, you started your business for a few different reasons, one of them to make a difference in people’s lives and the other: FREEDOM. Freedom to do what you want, when you want, and how you want to do it…

Many entrepreneurs start their own ‘thing’ to create a desirable lifestyle, one that gives them freedom of time, as well as financial freedom. We call this type of business a ‘lifestyle business’ and once you achieve it, it really is wonderful.

There is a glitch in the process of growing a lifestyle business, though. The majority of entrepreneurs never reach the ‘lifestyle business’ stage because 1) there’s not enough time to get things done, 2) there’s not enough of them to go around, which leads to 3) they become the bottleneck in their business.

Because of this, the majority of business owners never achieve financial freedom (they can’t make more money because they’re mired in the details of actually running their business) and they rarely achieve freedom around their time because they do everything themselves and don’t have strong enough boundaries around their time, especially when it relates to separating business from their family life. One leaks into the other and vice versa.

What ends up happening is entrepreneurs often spend their working hours multitasking between business tasks and personal/family tasks and doing work during what should really be their “off” time, family time or personal time.

What you end up with is the furthest thing from a lifestyle business. Essentially, you’ve created a J.O.B. for yourself, working more hours than you did working for someone else.

It’s time to change that!

Hi, I’m Fabienne Fredrickson and I’m the founder of The Client Attraction Business School™ and I run a multi-million dollar business I started called ClientAttraction.com. I am also a mother of 3 small children I love and I’m proud to say I have a wonderful marriage too.

I’ve successfully taken my business from scratch to multiple 7-figures, working with hundreds of clients I love, being able to shut down my computer at 5:30 every day to enjoy time with my husband (who works in the business with me) and our three munchkins under the age of 10, while taking many vacations per year (including August and December off). We give back generously, and one of the ways we do that is by building schools (11 so far) the Masai Mara region of Kenya, Africa.


(I don’t share this to brag, that’s not my style, but instead to perhaps give you a glimmer of hope or the inspiration to see the light at the end of the tunnel.)

You see, it really can be done, all without sacrificing your family time, your sanity OR your business—but you must have the right systems in place—systems and support at work and at home.

Spend some time with me here where I will share my personal and professional systems and priorities that will help you authentically live what I call “the ideal life” of meaning and happiness that comes from having a lifestyle business.

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Fabienne Fredrickson www.ClientAttraction.com

p.s. If you don’t know much about me yet, you can visit www.ClientAttraction.com and request the Free CD there called, “How to attract all the clients you need.” It’s really free (I even pay for the shipping, no matter where you live in the world) and it’s all content, no sales pitch. You’ll learn a lot about what it takes to attract and sign on lots more of your ideal clients, in record time.

It’s my way of starting our relationship on the right foot. Enjoy!


Step one Release Your Inner Control Freak Let’s face it. There is only one of you. And oftentimes there’s just not enough “you” to go around and there’s not enough time to get it all done. But here’s the thing, it’s not about managing your time—it’s about managing your priorities. You won’t get everything done, ever. There is no such thing as a completed to do list when you’re an entrepreneur.

I’ve always believed in getting help.

Today, I have a whole team of people supporting me, to who I am able to delegate. Some people might say, “Yeah, that’s fine for you, but I don’t have a million-dollar business yet.” Even when I was making less than $50,000 a year in my business, I knew that if I wanted to make more money, I needed to focus my time on money-generating activities like marketing, networking, speaking and staying-in-touch with prospects (rather than ordering supplies, scheduling client appointments and other “necessary” things that don’t actually bring money into the business.)

The willingness to get support is simply a mind-set.

Delegation requires that you relinquish control of actually doing everything in your business by yourself. This is a big struggle most for entrepreneurs as they grow their business and hire people to support and assist them. Why? Because getting your business off the ground and making it successful does require a certain amount of control-freakishness (in a good way). I call it decisiveness.

However, for you to continue to grow (even multiply) your business and serve many more people, while taking excellent care of your family, being fully present for them and even modeling success for them as well, you need to learn how to let go of control and start to delegate effectively.

What do you delegate? Understand that it’s a process and you’ll probably start small, but eventually, you want to delegate everything that doesn’t fall under your ‘unique brilliance’ and that doesn’t directly make you money.

At one point in my business, before my husband Derek and I hired real, live, in-person Team Members, I had several Virtual Assistants (VAs) working for me. Here’s what I delegated to each of them:

VA #1 (Operations Manager) Team leader, Customer service, Product fulfillment, Oversee continuous compilation of Operations Manual, Training all other VA’s, Put client


charges through, Input new orders in Bookkeeping spreadsheet, Tracking numbers to bookkeeping spreadsheet, and more. VA #2 (Client Contact and CRM) Client care, Client scheduling, Call reminders, Add my appointments to schedule, Sending out welcome packets, Oversee mastermind member communications, FreedomVoice messages, Lunch set up, restaurant reservations, client gift orders, and more. VA #3 (Team Leader, Technology) Technology strategy, Ezine, Autoresponders, Marketing campaigns, Broadcasts, Shopping cart setup, Shopping cart maintenance, Website tweaks, Tracking links, Affiliate program set up, and more. VA #4 (Technology) Ezine, Autoresponders, Implementing marketing campaigns, Broadcasts, Shopping cart maintenance, Website tweaks, HTML tweaks, and more. VA #5 (Membership Site Coordinator) Book guest experts, Contracts from speakers, Script for calls, Help members get set up, Answer questions, Set passwords, Weekly calendar updates and reminder emails, Update CAIC member-only page, Upload recordings and transcripts to website, SOC, and more. VA #6 (Social Media) Facebook, Blog, Twitter, Other social networking sites, Online article bookmark marketing, Hub pages, Squidoo, Social Media promotion/announcements, and more. In-Person Assistant (twice a week) Mastermind Meeting Coordination/Attendance Preferential client care Post office box weekly check-in Packages to be sent Errands around town Buy flowers for my desk Groceries and lunches Returning items to store for refund Drop off laundry and pick up Costco Personal party planning/kids’ birthday present buying and wrapping And more

Now remember, at first, I did this all myself and little by little, I began to delegate these things. Cash flow (or lack thereof) prevented me from doing this from the beginning. But over time, I delegated more and more, which allowed me to work on more and more money-generating activities, which drove my business growth and revenues up dramatically.


About the reluctance to delegate… It’s normal.

We ALL have an ICF (Inner Control Freak) who wants things done the “right” way. I understand! I have one too. But let’s be clear. Your Inner Control Freak, although very necessary in the beginning, gets in the way at some point. When everything has to go through you for approval, you become the bottleneck in your company and you actually become a hindrance to your growing company.

Now, I’m not saying you should practice “Drive-by Delegation” either. That’s when you just hire a bunch of people and then toss a project or responsibility onto your team members without much direction or involvement at all. You toss it and run, hoping it gets done right but instead it causes chaos, resentment and will make you not want to delegate at all anymore. No, let’s be strategic instead.


Step two Create Systems for Effective Delegation—then Document Them So where’s the balance between the being a bottleneck in your business and drive-by delegation?

Systems and documentation!

Effective delegation requires that you not reinvent the wheel each time you do something that’s been done before. It means creating best practices so that things are done a specific way each and every time (this prevents things from falling through the cracks) and most importantly, documenting everything you do in excruciating detail.

So much detail that every aspect of your business is reduced to a repeated process, procedure or checklist that, if you’re not around, could actually be following successful by a super smart 6-year old.

Then it’s about documenting all of these processes and repeatable systems (right down to how to order that particular model of light bulb for your office, where to buy it and who’s going to install it.)

That being said, when everything is documented in exact detail, you’re infinitely more ready to delegate an important project or aspect of your business because you’ll actually be more likely to trust that it will get done in your very specific way. When expectations are more likely to be met and you’ve outlined exactly “how we do things around here”, it becomes much easier for you to hand things over to someone else.

The good news is, you don’t always have to be the one writing the procedures down. If you already have someone working with you, either full time or part-time virtually, THEY can detail and document all the existing processes, systems and procedures they work on every day.

Taking the time to train someone will allow you to demonstrate exactly how you want things done. Ultimately, your goal is to combine all of your written documentation into what’s known as an Operations Manual—a detailed, written system for everything you need done at work or at home that can be followed each and every time.

The upside is that, instead of taking a week to train the next employee, this Operations Manual turns into a training manual. You can then use the time you’ve saved to focus your time on doing even more money-generating activities.


Step three Build Your Operations Manual Your Operations Manual is a comprehensive documentation of how your company functions. If written correctly, it should guide someone unfamiliar with your company through the day-to-day procedures for operating your business. Think of an employee or virtual assistant who plays a crucial role in your company. What would happen if that person quit without providing notice? It is vital that you not become dependent on one particular person to operate your business. The procedures or “how we do things around here” should not live in your head or in theirs, but rather, on paper, in a document that everyone has access to. Not only does an Operations Manual save you from relying too much on each individual employee, it also serves to guide and reinforce the training of new employees and allows for the self-taught cross-training of existing employees. Before you start writing, plan the physical layout of the manual. You'll find that the layout tends to dictate the manual's usability. Divide your manual into sections that coincide with the departmental organization of your company, even if it’s just you right now. This will facilitate employee contributions during the writing process and allow easy access to information once the manual is in circulation. Include a table of contents that lists subsections. Operations manuals typically include four types of information: 1. How-to procedures (i.e., how to enter a new account into your system) 2. Locations of items (i.e., keys, passwords) 3. Contacts (i.e., insurance company) 4. Business-related policies (i.e., not accepting personal checks)


Here are some of the sections from my own Operations Manual that we live and breathe by at www.ClientAttraction.com:

Section One - Office Administration/Operations: Hiring, Orientation, Terminations, Human Resources Section Two - Customer Service: Zendesk Tickets, Send Out Cards, Email Section Three – Client Services: Email, Scheduling, New Client Process, Coaching Inquiries Section Four – Events: Growth Meetings, Leverage Meetings, Live Events Section Five – Public Relations: Speeches, Media, JV Tele-seminars Section Six – Online Marketing: Social Media, Blog Posts, InfusionSoft Section Seven – Financial Operations: Bookkeeping, Affiliate Commissions, Decline Process

Remember your Operations Manual is a living, breathing document. Each of your team members should own their respective area of the manual and update it on a daily basis so it’s ALWAYS current and relevant. I know that, when presented with a big new idea, I often like to see an example of it so I can wrap my brain around creating one for myself. So, I thought it would be helpful for you to have an example of how detailed your Operations Manual should be so I’m sharing an excerpt of several sections from the Public Relations section. Keep in mind the level of detail should be such that any team member could read the Operations Manual and know how to handle the particular situation.

The Client Attraction Operations Manual Section Five – Public Relations A. Speech Requests When an inquiry comes in for Fabienne to speak at an event, the response should include the following:

• Thank you for their inquiry • Ask how they learned of Fabienne • Clarify their company name, contact name, company location


• Clarify the event name, date, location, website • Clarify length of speech, whether it’s a keynote or breakout and requested

topic • Share link to Fabienne’s speaker page • Find out expected number of attendees, audience demographic • Find out how the event will be promoted • Find out if there are other speakers for this event and who they are • Find out what their speaker budget is and if they cover travel expenses • Find out if there are opportunities for Fabienne to offer a program or

product from stage or if this is a “no-selling event” • Find out if we have a responsibility to promote the event in any way Once all information is gathered, discuss opportunity with Fabienne. If and when a commitment is made, use the following checklist to track deliverables:

Fabienne Fredrickson Speech Checklist

Event: _____________________________________________________________

Date: _____________________________________________________________ Location: ___________________________________________________________

Contact/Coordinator: _________________________________________________ o Book event day/time on calendar o Book prep time on calendar to update/prepare presentation o Is a contract required? o Submit headshot/bio o Topic/Description: ___________________________________________________ o Speaking fee, expenses covered, etc: ________________________________________ o Audience: __________________________________________________________ o Attendance numbers: __________________________________________________ o Back of room sales/offer: YES or NO o If yes, discuss with Fabienne what offer will be. If number of attendees is unknown, don’t determine a “first x get bonus”. o Does Fabienne need staff there? (For big events, always yes) o Make travel arrangements through Elizabeth to/from and put details on calendar o If there is any revenue coming in from event, give Trish copy of contract


o Submit copy of Fabienne’s intro to coordinator o Provide copy to Haley for ezine, website and FB fan page/events o Equipment:

o projector o mac connection o lavalier microphone (countryman) o sound capability for presentation o table for stage o riser o water o microphone stands (if taking Q’s from audience) o tissues

For Client Attraction Team to bring:

o Product order forms o Sample products o Testimonial sheets o Copy of Fabienne’s intro o Pens for order forms o iPad timer (charged) o iPad stand

o Day of event: Have a folder ready for Fabienne with all key details including detailed travel itinerary, contact names, etc. o Post event: Send thank you card and/or gift to event coordinator/contact person o Post event: Request testimonial for use on website B. Media Requests When a media opportunity is received, research the key info before reviewing the opportunity with Fabienne. All responses to media should include the following:

• Thank you for their inquiry • Ask how they learned of Fabienne • Clarify the media outlet name, contact name, location if applicable • Visit the website and Facebook page to learn more • Clarify interview topic/collect all pertinent details • Share link to Fabienne’s media page, if requested • Find out about audience demographic and size

In general, national media takes priority. Once a commitment is made:

• Schedule the interview through Jenn and place on calendar • Schedule prep time as well, if necessary • Find out interviewer’s name and title


• Get list of interview questions and add to calendar details • Send Fabienne’s intro, bio, headshot and any other related/requested

details • Post interview: Follow up to see how interview went and when it will be

published/aired. Note date on calendar. Send thank you card/gift. • Post interview: Add media to website

C. Creating a Press Release For major news events, product launches and events we create a press release, distribute it and add it to our website. Steps to take:

• Draft release using the template provided on PRweb.com • Submit to Derek for final approval • Submit to PRWeb.com

Our account information is as follows: Login name: xxxxxx Password: xxxxx Select Option C for $199. Once press release is distributed, we post on our blog as well.


Step four Create Systems at Home Too For the purposes of this report, we’ve focused on the Operations Manual for your business. But know this: every single component of an Operations Manual for business can also apply to how you run your home. Systems are crucial at home too! We have systems for making dinner, car-pooling, laundry, scheduling doctor visits, groceries, packing checklists and more. You name it, we’ve likely created a procedure for it. One idea you might benefit from is the 14-page Nanny/Au pair Handbook that gets sent to each new Au pair before she arrives for her yearlong experience in our home. It details all our “house rules”, her schedule, details on each of our 3 children, meal and snack ideas, driving directions, important phone numbers and what’s expected of her and conversely, what she can expect of us. It sounds rather structured but it really is about clear communication so there are no misunderstandings later. And people really respect that. I know I do, on the receiving end. As a busy entrepreneur, the key is for you to create both, systems for work and for home, because ultimately you need systems for everything! I used to think that systems meant too much structure and not enough play time (that’s the rebel in me.) But I’ve come to completely embrace having systems and procedures in my work and in my life because they’ve actually given me the one thing I crave the most… FREEDOM. Freedom to spend more time being with my kids, with my husband, doing what I really love, and living life to the fullest. Just remember… SYSTEMS = LIFESTYLE BUSINESS = FREEDOM And, there you have it! I hope this was helpful… I believe in you… Until we cross paths again! Love,

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