Ep 56 - Letting Go of Your To-Do List: Featuring Frenchie Ferenczi
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Special guest, Frenchie Ferenczi, a skilled business strategist and advisor with extensive experience in growing businesses. Frenchie is an expert at helping professionals and creative individuals regain control of their business growth while balancing their personal lives. She specializes in assisting service-based experts with big dreams, ensuring they get the support they need to make those dreams come true. We'll discuss the importance of simplifying businesses and to-do lists to focus on what truly matters. This conversation is valuable not just for business owners but for anyone looking to simplify their life. Stay tuned for some valuable insights!
Carly: Hey friend, welcome back to the show. I am so excited today because I am sitting down with my pal Frenchie Ferenczi. We also met at Mom 2. 0. I know everyone's like, oh, another one. Yep, another one. Because this event just brings together the best, best people and She's amazing. She has a beautiful energy and I really, really wanted to bring her messaging to you all.
So after a quick intro, we'll just dive into it. Frenchie is a business strategist and advisor who helps experts and creatives take control of their business growth without letting their businesses control their lives. Frenchie's background in scaling high-growth startups informs her approach and allows her to use the principles she learned while scaling 100-million-dollar-plus businesses. She is an expert in supporting service-based experts and creatives who have big ambitions and need the support to bring those to life.
Welcome to the show, Frenchie. I really appreciate you being here.
Frenchie: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Carly: Thank you. I know folks might be listening and thinking, wait a second… business stuff. I'm not here for business stuff. But at the end of the day, I know we basically do the same work because you help people declutter their businesses and their to-do lists so that they're only spending time on the essentials.
I know we're going to be talking largely about businesses in this episode, but if you're not a business owner, there is still a lot that you can take away from and use in your home. So I want to encourage you to tune in. And I wanted to say that in the beginning.
Startups and Business Growth
Before we really dive in, can you give us the short version of your background and how you came to do the work that you do?
Frenchie: Yeah, absolutely. As you mentioned, I used to work in startups. I worked most recently at a startup called The Wing, which was a women's membership club.
I grew The Wing from 3,000 members to 12,000 members from four locations to 11 locations. Before that, I opened a hotel in Williamsburg. I did all of their event marketing. I opened another coworking space. So I had a lot of experience in these really big physical spaces and in scaling these larger businesses.
Carly: Yeah.
Frenchie: And in 2020 after a series of unfortunate events that were not only the pandemic, I ended up leaving my job and really having this moment of like where do I go from here? What do I want to do with this experience that I've amassed? I always assumed I was just going to climb the corporate ladder.
I'm going to be a VP and then I'm going to be a C-suite person and all that. As I started to think about it, one of the things that I hated about the work that I did, once I had the space to really realize it was, that I hated working to help investors make so much money while I was bringing home a decent salary, but like nothing compared to what others were making.
What I really started to think about was, that there are so many people who are looking to build small businesses that sustain their lives and their lifestyle, who can benefit from my experience growing and scaling these big businesses, but who don't necessarily have These billion dollar ambitions or hundred million dollar ambitions.
Right. But we're really just like, I want to live a really comfortable life. I want to build a business that sustains that for me. And so I really was like, wait a minute. I have all of this experience that so many small business owners never had a chance to gather. Let me support these smaller business owners with my skills and experience so that they can build the lifestyle that they want.
Carly: I love it.
Common Threads
So Frenchie, what do your clients have in common? And what are some of the phrases that you hear all the time when someone reaches out to you for the first time?
Frenchie: This is such a good question because one, this is by the way, just a quick side note, hot business tip for any business owner, if you can figure out what the answer to that question is you can...
Grow a business just based on that, right? Once you know what the biggest challenge is for people, like there you go. but in terms of me, I think the most common phrase I hear is I just don't know what to do next. It sounds so simple, but I work with a lot of ambitious, hungry business owners, and most of them have a clear sense of where they want to be in five years.
But the challenge is knowing what step I take today to bring me closer to that five-year plan.
Carly: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And to your point about decluttering what is important to get me there and what is just a bunch of fluff that doesn't matter at all?
Frenchie: Exactly. Exactly. I tend to... See, from there, people are like, well, I need to get my website done, and then I need to be more on Instagram, and my LinkedIn, what about TikTok, and then YouTube, should I have a YouTube channel?
You know, and it starts to just pile it on, and on, and on, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's do less. Let's think about what is the one offer that you can focus on, the one channel that you can focus on, truly one thing at a time.
Carly: I love it.
Decluttering Strategies
In the work that you do in the most simple of ways, how do you help people with the actual decluttering of their businesses?
Frenchie: There are all sorts of ways, but it all starts with understanding what's the goal, right? And I think this is where the overlap between your work and my work is so clear for you, it's like, how do you want to feel in your space, right? And for me, it's what you actually want from your business.
Because sometimes with businesses, right? We think that it needs to look a certain way. And I'm like, no, it needs to look the way that is necessary for you to get the results that you want, right? And I think... The number one question, and I'm actually curious to hear on your end, is what your approach to this is, but if I'm going through a to-do list with someone, I ask why two to three times about each item, and sometimes then people want to punch me in the face, but if it says make a reel, I'm like, why are you making a reel?
And they're like, so that I can post on Instagram, and I'm like, but why are you posting on Instagram? And they're like, because I need to for my business, and I'm like, do you get clients from Instagram? And they're like, no, and then it's Where are you getting clients from and is Instagram the place for you, right?
Just to use a really vague example. So I think really double-clicking on like, why does this belong? How does this fit into the longer-term plan?
Carly: No, that's exactly the same thing as when I'm talking to people. The way that I find that it's really, really, really similar is that people tend to overcomplicate their systems, not because...
It's the thing that makes the most sense to them, but because they feel like that's the way that they should be organizing it. An example I see all the time is a rainbow-colored closet. It's beautiful, right? People have seen it on TV and they love it and they think it's so great. It could be really hard for them to keep up with and it gets to the point of what is the point?
Is it something that brings you immense joy and therefore you want to keep up with it? Then that's a great reason to do it. Do you want me to do it because you feel like the experience of having an organizer isn't complete until I leave you with a rainbow closet? You know what? That's also a totally fine answer.
Is it because you saw it on TV and you think that that's the only way to organize? That's not the best reason, because if it's not something that you're going to keep up with, and that you have no desire to keep up with, and is too complicated, then maybe we could just simplify things.
Frenchie: Yeah. I have a question for you that's kind of tied to all of this.
It's like, how much does people's sense of identity or perceived identity come into it? And what I'm thinking is I can see myself having a moment one day where I'm like, every good mom has an air fryer, but really, it's just taking up counter space, and I'm curious in your world, do you see that?
Because I definitely see a lot of arbitrary rules that people are placing around their businesses, right? Like every good business owner has a full website or every good business owner is writing blog posts. So do you see similar parallels?
Carly: Oh, totally. Especially, with what you were talking about with the air fryer, it's like, yeah everyone has an air fryer.
That's the cool thing that we're doing. Or the KitchenAid mixer that you also never use or the Instapot or all the bento box things for lunch, but really, your kid actually just gets hot lunch at school because you don't have time. And also, that's fine! Just lean into the thing that works for you versus having a whole bunch of guilt and overcomplicating around the things that don't work for you.
Frenchie: Oh totally. and it's so similar in my world.
I see this on Instagram a lot. I see it come up as this mental block of the only successful people in business who have huge Instagram followings and I know really successful people in business who do all of their marketing through network market, like network, networking events, not network marketing, that's different. Going to events like Mom 2. 0 where we met and that's all they need to do and it doesn't require that full online presence. And so I think it always comes back to really, what is the end goal and what do you really want it to feel like?
Carly: Yeah, and to your point, because I know this is something that you talk about a lot in the work that you do if your end goal is to make money, then you can just lean into the things that are making you money and skip a bunch of the things that you feel like they're kind of sexy components but aren't actually bringing you any money.
Frenchie: Yeah, totally. A thousand percent. And that's like, you know, I talk about staying close to the money a lot. Yeah! That's a big part of it.
Carly: Yeah, oh my gosh, okay, I know I had some questions on our list that I feel like we've naturally covered, but digging in a little bit more, are there some challenges that you see people coming up against, a lot, common themes that we haven't talked about yet?
Challenges and Obstacles
Frenchie: Yeah, so I think that along with just, really identifying the why and all that, I think that there's also this arbitrary rule around how many hours that you should work. And so let's just say I have a client who is a full-time parent are primary caregiver, they do all the caregiving and they're also running a business, but somehow they're tasking themselves with 40 hours of work, but There's no room for 40 hours of work in their week, right?
I think that the other common challenge for people, and that I just see people facing when they are trying to grow their businesses and not do it all, right?
So I just talked about how much time you have and over-committing your time, and I think that alongside that, the other challenge is this feeling of... Just not really treating your business like a business. So what happens is that everything becomes a little bit loosey-goosey rather than thinking about it.
Even if it's a small business, and even if it's only bringing in a few hundred dollars a month, right? You still want to think about it strategically and put those structures in place so that you have a system to keep your plate as clear as possible based on your goals and based on what you're creating.
No matter what you're doing, you always want to treat the business as a business, no matter how big or small it is. It doesn't need to be Amazon to be a business.
Carly: I think that happens a lot too. I see that specifically with business owners and new business owners. Oh, it doesn't count because I don't have XYZ.
So I can imagine that it comes up in industries other than my own.
Frenchie: Yeah, and I also think in some ways managing a house is like managing a business I think there are some interesting parallels there, and even though it's not paid unfortunately and it's a lot of work and there's a lot of logistics to figure out.
You do need to establish what your bare minimums are, and what your capacity is, like, if you can't make lunch, you can't make lunch. And that's totally okay. Your kids are still going to be fine. So I think that there's just a lot of realizing that we can use a lot of business practices and these strategic practices across the board in whatever we're doing.
Carly: Yeah, absolutely.
Immediate Steps for Decluttering Your To-Do List
Are there certain decluttering things that you see in businesses that pop up all the time? If someone is thinking to themselves right now oh my gosh, this is me. Is there one step that they could take today to start decluttering their to-do list?
Frenchie: Yeah, so I think the number one thing is just to look at what you're doing that's duplicative, right? So if you're posting on all the social channels, try to go all in on one and really focus on that. If you are offering the same offer in six different ways and then you never really know which one to talk about, think about how you can streamline.
Yeah, I think we do double the work a lot. I also think the other kind of framing that you can think about is, whether are you spending time solving problems that you don't have yet.
Carly: Yeah, that's a thing.
Frenchie: That's a thing. A lot of people are talking about things not being scalable and I'm like your business is not in scale mode right now, right?
You're in early growth. That's exactly where you are and that's exactly where you're supposed to be. There's no judgment in that. But if you start thinking about scale when you're trying to grow, you're gonna get in the way of your growth and your ability to actually scale. Yeah. Solve the problems you have.
Carly: Yeah. Reminds me, I don't know if you've ever done kitchen work, but when someone is just I love the phrase, in the weeds. Oh, yeah? I feel like it can apply to anything from at home to in your business. Like, when you're just in the weeds, you're in the weeds. But let's not get in the weeds with stuff that doesn't even matter.
Frenchie: My husband's a chef, so I'm like, if he starts calling like, if he starts calling orders for tomorrow's diners they're gonna be screwed.
Carly: Yeah, 100%. And earlier, you were talking about the parallels with how this applies at home, too. It got me thinking, I was listening to Something about, like cleaning schedules recently and all the things that we should do for our cleaning schedules.
And my mind was just racing because suddenly I was like, wait a second, I am not doing a lot of that in that frequency. And I like to think I have a clean house, and then I had to kind of ground myself and remember you know what, we're all doing the best we can. We're all doing what we have time for.
And if someone's priority is to vacuum this often, or dust this often, or wipe down these things this often, and I'm not able to get to it in the same frequency? That's okay. It's not a moral judgment. It just means that we're all doing the best we can.
Frenchie: We totally, totally are. One thing that's interesting when it comes to business decluttering is actually, I know a lot of people who I want to say they're more in like the Woo World.
Yeah. A little bit more into that.
Carly: As a business owner or in the industry in general?
Frenchie: Both. I have business coaches who are into a lot of the moon cycle practices and things that I think are really cool… but I don't know much about them.
Yeah. And... In groups that I'm a part of, I have heard a lot of these people talk about when they are feeling stuck in their cash flow, the first thing they do is declutter their desk and declutter a room in their house.
Carly: Yes
Frenchie: to make space for more money to come in. Now, I will be honest, I have not yet tried this, but I'll let you know when I do.
Carly: And you know what's funny? Along those same lines, I'm in groups that talk about that a lot too. It's like, When you're in a rut, change something. And I follow a coach, who also says to shave something. Listen, I'm not saying women have to shave. That's not what I'm saying.
But what I am saying is to change something. She's like, so if that's shave your legs, if that's shave your mustache, she's like, shave something. But also, if you don't like to shave body hair, then don't worry about it. It's like moving the energy. And I talk a lot with my clients about how sometimes in a room, the best thing that we can do is to start shifting the energy, because things, there'll be corners of clutter that you just don't see over time, they start blending in, and when we get into a space anywhere you can't see my little jazz hands at home, but it's like a hand, little jazzy, Butterfly flutter situation.
When we get that energy moving, then changes can happen, but I can see that being the same in business. You just gotta start shifting around something so that things start to shift.
Frenchie: Totally.
Freebie: Stay Close to the Money
Carly: Oh, I love it. Okay, we've talked about getting started, we've talked about what you do, please tell us about your freebie, Stay Close to the Money, which when I was looking at it I was like, that sounds great, I want that too.
Frenchie: I love it. So Stay Close to the Money is a freebie that I'm super excited to share. It is all about 37 quick and easy things you can do that are the work that's closest to the money, the closest to actually making a sale. Bringing in a new client, connecting with someone new, any of the things.
When I talk about business decluttering, a lot of times when I ask, like, why are you doing this? When I started to evaluate where people are spending their time, what I started to observe was like, that people are really spending a lot of time on things that are many steps away from actually making a sale.
Which is counterintuitive to what they typically say they want. So they're like, I really wanna sell more, I'm gonna spend the day organizing my asana, and I'm like Okay. That's far from the money. So this is a super quick and easy guide to staying closer to the money. When you're having that moment where you're like, I have 30 minutes and I don't really know what to do with my 30 minutes, but I do want to do something productive or needle-moving for my business.
You can just open up the guide and pick one and it will point you in the right direction.
Carly: I think that's fantastic, and I think that it's really important to have those resources, and this won't have a parallel to home organization, but for the business owners out there, I think it's really great to have these resources where you can look at it quickly and just say okay, what is going to move that needle towards getting me closer to that financial goal that I have?
I know that there's a lot of low hanging fruit that can be overlooked a lot of times where you know hey, instead of planning out social for the whole month, maybe we are texting prior clients that we already have relationships with because we know it's 70 percent more likely to re-sign an older client than a new one and just things like that, that can be really helpful.
I know there might be some clients of mine being like, Hey, wait a second, sometimes you text me and I'm like, yeah, I know, hi, I care. This is me trying to stay in business, guys.
Frenchie: It's both and, right?
Carly: Yes.
Frenchie: It is both and, like you care. I'm sure all your clients are wonderful and amazing, but I'm sure you're not texting the one client who was maybe one day not, or theoretically.
Carly: Facts.
Okay, Frenchie, final thoughts for folks out there. What is the thing that you want them to leave with?
Frenchie: You don't need to do it all. I am, I would say my house is pretty decluttered and there is a parallel here that I'm going to stick with but I'm also the person whose closet gets to a state of total disarray and then I just spend like a full afternoon like getting it back in order, right?
You don't need to spend that full afternoon on your business. Just as you're going through things, like before you actually start doing a task, take that minute to just be like, Wait, why? Why am I doing this? What is the impact of this? And is there something else that I could be doing with this time that would be more impactful?
Carly: I Love it. I love it. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you. And of course, before I let you go, where can folks find you?
Frenchie: You can find me on Instagram, you can find me on my website. I'm not going to spell them out because I'm assuming you'll link them in the show notes.
Carly: 100%. They're queued up and ready to go.
Frenchie: And make sure that you download my freebie, Stay Close to the Money. I can't wait to hear what you think about it.
Carly: Oh yes, I am absolutely going to download that as soon as we get off our call today. It will be linked in the show notes as well. Follow Frenchie.
She's a lot of fun. Her email list is awesome. And if you're looking for business strategy tips, be sure to sign up immediately because it's really fun, but also very impactful. Thank you. Thank you for being here, Frenchie.
We would love to make sure that your questions are answered for a question of the week or a future episode. So we love to hear from you. DM (on Instagram) or you can always email me, carly@tidyrevival.com. We love hearing from you. We love hearing your thoughts about the pod, and thank you so much for hanging out.
If you wanna learn more about how I can help you, feel free to head over to tidyrevival.com to learn how I work with people one-on-one or in our private community. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe so you'll always have access to the latest episode.
We would also love to hear your takeaways. Feel free to tag us on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. The Tidy Revival podcast is written and hosted by me, Carly Adams, and edited by Brittany McLean. Title Song Maverick is by Dresden The Flamingo.
and until next time, remember that…
Links mentioned in this episode
Stay Close to the Money - a FREE guide with 37 quick and easy steps to grow your business, make sales, and connect with new clients. No more wasting time on non-essential tasks. When you have 30 minutes to spare, grab this guide and take action that counts!
Stay updated and never miss out on Frenchie's latest tips and updates. Follow her on Instagram and connect with her on LinkedIn!
Are we friends on social media yet? Whether your jam is Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest or Facebook - follow us @tidyrevival
Embrace the clutter-busting revolution at The Club, where we support and cheer each other on in an inclusive space - low monthly price with no commitment!
Snag your FREE printable decluttering guide to give you inspiration on where to start at home.
