In today’s episode of BEP Talks, I sat down with Marie Fratoni to explore the journey from corporate employee to thriving entrepreneur, especially for women. We discussed the mindset shift needed, the importance of building a strong support team, and the secrets to getting clients everywhere—even at retreats in Italy! Marie shared how clarity in your offerings and deep connections create lasting success. If you’re ready to step up as the CEO of your business and build a community that fuels your growth, this conversation is a must-listen.

Ready to Level Up? Connect with Marie Fratoni and become part of her dynamic community. Who knows—you might be sharing wine and wisdom in Tuscany next year! https://www.getclientseverywhere.com/

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Welcome to this edition of BEP Talks, where

people from all around the world, all areas of expertise, different

industries, professions, come and generously share

their beliefs, their experiences, and their

passions. It's all about BEP: beliefs,

experiences, and passions.

You know, they come, I said generously, because it is a generous thing that they

do. They come and share information. Designed to

motivate and inspire you, to educate you, sometimes just to

entertain you, or a combination of all of the above. And we never

have an exception to those rules. And today we

keep going with another wonderful guest. My guest today comes

from a very interesting and diverse background, which we're

going to talk about. She works with

entrepreneurial women mostly. That make transitions from the

corporate world into entrepreneurship, the changes that have to be

made and how to do that. So I'm not gonna tell you how, I'm

gonna have today's guest, Marie Fratoni, who I

welcome to Beb Talks, come and share some information

about that. Welcome, Marie. Hey

there. There you are. Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much

for joining me here today on Beb Talks. You know, I was saying in

the, introduction, you come from a

diverse background. I guess we all come from

a little bit of diversity, but you have so much experience in the

corporate world. And then you made— I'm not going to say a

necessary transition, but you started to make a segue into

entrepreneurship, which I think we're seeing.

And I'm going to say particularly among women more doing that.

Going, taking their corporate experience and going into

entrepreneurship. Is that always an easy

transition? Oh, I don't think it is,

no. I think it's very doable if you get the right

support, get the right assistance, and you're tagged into a good

community that can level you up.

But if people are accomplished and they're doing good things, I mean, I think there's

so much hullabaloo now about starting your own business,

and there's all kinds of ways to do that. And I think many

people want to do it for a couple of reasons. One is they really want

the extra money to pad in, you know, as things expand and

increases show up in our life. And what we

also want to do is take advantage of the wonderful tax benefits that we have

for being an entrepreneur in this country. You know, why leave

money on the table? But making the transfer from

the mentality of an employee where you've got a boss and you've got to show

up and you have a set amount of dollars that you're going to earn and

a set amount of benefit package, when you go to leave

that and you begin to create your own journey as an entrepreneur,

there's a very different mindset that has to happen in that, you know, I mean,

women don't talk to themselves as if they're the CEO of their business,

whereas I always say I'm the CEO. I'm a small CEO. I mean, I'm a

small business. I'm not a multimillion-dollar business, but I

own all of it. Yes. I'm in charge of all of it. And I think

that's the kind of thing that women need the support to grow and

find. How do you get clients? How do you make money? There's a lot of

people that are working that aren't really making any money. So how do we do

that and kind of dovetail those together? So you've got a successful ongoing

profitable job. One of the things that intrigues

me about you, and just for the listeners, Marie and I have never

met except a couple of times virtually, but She captured my

curiosity because the name of her company is Get

Clients Everywhere. And for anybody, and I believe we're all in

sales, no matter what the product or service is, selling is

part of it. Selling is a necessary component in any kind of

business. The challenge that I hear so

often is that I need more clients, I need more leads. So

what's the secret? To getting clients everywhere?

Well, I think there's not just one secret. There's probably many secrets, right?

But I think, you know, when you're beginning a business and you're starting it, even

you could be an established business and opening up a new line of something, we

all need to go back to who are we, what is it that we're offering,

what is it that's good about what it is that we do, the transformation

that we provide, because that's what people are buying. They're buying The

transformation and the result of working with us. And

then what do we charge and who's our audience? Who are we marketing

this to? What is our messaging geared to? And once you have

a lot of those things in place, you can start to really look at where

do those people that you want to serve, that you know that you're best for,

where are they living? Where are they working? Where are they socializing

so that you can meet them and start getting them into

your energy field.

We are— it's truly everywhere. I

just want you to know, I— you keep going out, your sound keeps going out.

Yeah, I don't know. So I don't mean to

interrupt this or whatever, but I think it's important that you're heard.

Can you hear me now? I do. Okay,

so let's see if we can keep going. So there truly are

clients everywhere. One of the

mistakes, I believe, as a sales strategist

that people make is really not knowing who they're looking for.

Correct. And wasting time talking to the wrong

people. Right. And delivering, therefore, telling the wrong story

and delivering the wrong message. How do

you help people to focus in and to

define who they're looking for so that they have that

shortest path, shortest path between

themselves as the seller and the potential buyer, that direct line,

so that you're not wasting time talking to the wrong people.

Yeah, I mean, that's, I think, the essential conversation. I mean, I think for

any of us, we always have to really look at is who do we want

to work with? Who do we think we're really good at helping? You know, it's

a place to start, but then starting to look at all of the different

situations that those particular clients or potential

clients are dealing with on a daily basis that you know that you're

the solution to. And then, but most people, I think, in

my experience, don't do the work to really drill down to find out

who is it that they really want to serve, why are they serving them, what

are they dealing with. You know, we don't come up with You can call them

pain points, you can call them concerns, you can call them the what-ifs.

But it's like we haven't really delved deep enough, I think,

sometimes to really identify so that if we're in the

grocery store and somebody's giving you a compliment about your shoes

and you start up a conversation, I mean, you want to be

clear who you are. So you're listening for all of those cues that

people give us. It doesn't have to be at a conference. It doesn't have to

be at, you know, you're the speaker on the stage. It can be just in

your everyday life, sitting in the doctor's office with your kids and just

getting conversations. But when you're clear who you are and

what you do and how you work and how you charge, you can listen

for the conversations out there, and people show themselves to you because you've

done the work on the inside that's attracting those people. And I

think most people don't take the time to, to do that.

It's like if we're not sitting at the desk from the 9 to 5,

we're not working. As opposed to, we know entrepreneurship is

24/7, 365. It's like raising the child that

never grows up, that, you know, it's just with us all the time.

I always say the two sides, it's a gift and, and

it's, it's a challenge to, to

stay successful as an entrepreneur, to become successful. So what

I heard you say then is that it's not just,

You looking for a client, clients can find you too.

Absolutely. That's why we have social media and we have a

presence on social media. We have a presence on written media. We

have a presence, our presence in live events and

conferences and things that we attend or events that we

can do on Zoom. We want to be known. We want to be known for

our expertise. And sometimes, you know, there have been people that have

called me They've been following me for 20 years,

but they've never done any business with me. And then one day they might call

me and say, now I'm ready. I've been following you. I've

learned about you. I've learned many good things from you for all the things that

you've been sharing. Now I'm ready to say, how can we work

together? So, you know, showing up matters

and how we show up matters. Why we show up matters.

When we show them. You know, one of the things that, um, I believe

is that a potential customer or client or prospect owes you

nothing. You owe it all to them as the salesperson.

And what you've just proven by the example

that you gave is that whether someone buys from you now

or not doesn't mean it's over. No can mean

not now, not ready, no, not ready. Um,

But you still made an impression. So they still should leave that

experience feeling better just for having had the

opportunity to get to know you. And then how many years later,

there they are, a paying customer. It happens over and over to

me, especially when I do my retreats. You know, it's an

interesting thing because sometimes, you know, people have been on my mailing list for a

long time. Um, they might see me on social media on the different

pages that I do that. And then all of a sudden one day they call

and say, you know, I've been following you, I've been watching your photos, I love

what you share. If I'm going to go to Italy, I'm going to go with

you. You know, it's like I don't even know them, we've never met. So then

we hop on a Zoom and get to know each other, and then I begin

to look and say, are they the right person for this particular retreat?

Because I know who I want to work with and who I can serve best,

because we want happy customers, right?

Happy customers and repeat customers so that once you go through

the experience of gaining a client, hold onto that

person, have the opportunity for repeats. You know,

for, you mentioned two words, you mentioned retreats and

Italy, and I know that they go together. Share with

us how you do your retreats and is that part of your

business? Oh yeah. Okay. Share that with us please. Yeah. I,

I, I kind of look at the retreats that I do in Italy as kind

of a punctuation mark, you know, for— it's an exclamation

point for having a great year and doing good work out there.

And the people that usually are attracted to the retreats are people

like us. We work hard, we serve people, we're running a

business, we're really filling the cups of other people,

but we don't always take the time to fill our own cups and have been

nourished and nurtured. So part of my value for the retreats

is to have some fun and connection and community. We

laugh our butts off a lot and we just really have a great

time. I'm not really teaching any skill in those retreats.

There are other retreats that I do where I teach a skill, but this is

more for the reward and for networking, building community, and being

able to relax, restore, just

rejuvenate and be in a space that is just so alive with

history and art and spirituality and music and wine and

You know, all the good things of life, the la dolce vita, right?

Wonderful way to create lasting memories

and to fortify a

relationship, to build a relationship, to sustain a

relationship. A trip to Italy. Wow.

So I know you're recently back from a retreat. Yes.

How was that experience? Oh my Lord, it was so much fun. We celebrated New

Year's in Italy. Oh my, we went to the Umbria

Jazz Festival, which is a world-class jazz festival, and saw 3 different

concerts, which was great fun. And we

danced and sang and had food

and drank wine. And no gelato on this trip

though. And now you have a lifetime's worth of

memories. Yeah. And you know, the people that go— I mean,

already I know that there are a few people that were with me that they

got clients because they went on this trip. So we say get

clients everywhere, even when you're on a retreat, even when you're in Italy, even when

you're in Tuscany, even when you're whatever, because people know who you are. And

then we showcase people, you know, we want them to be connected, we want them

to build not just a lifetime memory of the trip, but we want them to

create friendships that last over time. Sure.

So, you know, I brought my virtual assistant one year to Tuscany with me

and she left with 4 new clients. Yeah,

they knew of her through me, through the work that she does for me. But

then when they got to meet her and spend time with her and share a

meal with her, go sightseeing with her, climbing a tower with her, they

hired her and she left with 4 clients. That's, you know, one of the things

that I said when I first met you not that long ago, and it was

virtual, I had so much curiosity about you. There's

something about the, you have such a calm in your voice.

You do such exciting things and you come from such a

successful background. I think I heard 40 years in corporate,

the corporate world, something like that. What's your

superpower? Well, I don't know. I

mean, I think part what I have an external superpower and that's my community.

You know, I love people. I make relationships. I try to

treat people well and try to do well. And so people know me as

somebody who has a vast community and they enjoy that part of me

because with my community, by myself, I'm nothing. But if I

use my community and share it with my community,

then everybody wins. So, you know, that is important to me.

And I think, you know, people, you know, I think there's so many people

that are out there that do business coaching and consulting. And,

you know, we're a dime a dozen. You know, we all kind of do similar

things and maybe in our own different way. But, you know,

my background has been such that I've worked in human services. That's where

I started, you know, my life. Then I went into

financial aid. I was a financial aid director for a college in Boston, you know,

and placement director for college in Boston. And there I went into a big

management association that was the oldest human resources consulting

company in the United States. And I worked with them

for about 18 years as a consultant. And from there,

I always— people always said to me, Marie, you have such an entrepreneurial spirit, you

You should start your own business. You should start your own business. And so I

did. And I did that in conjunction with my

regular job. I've had great jobs. I've been very, very

lucky. And then now I just love the idea of really

taking women who I think have been on the short

stick, short end of the stick, you know, to really help

pump them up to know that if we want to run for

political office, if we want to be a key person in our community, if we

want to be a go-to, if we want to be whatever it is that we

want to be, we have to have the resources and the presence to be able

to do that. And I've been very lucky because I didn't plan

my life. It kind of occurred and it unfolded, and I was very

lucky and very guided and had tremendous support systems

around me. Many people don't have that.

And so if I can help provide that or pull in the people You know,

just like what you're doing, you know, giving voice to people like us

out there, you know, to inspire others to take action.

It takes more than just ourselves to

do this whole thing called entrepreneurism and be profitable and

successful long-term. So, you know,

oh, that's something that I so agree with you on, is

that entrepreneurship— and we use the term, you hear it,

solopreneurship— and I think It's a very lonely word

because you can't do it alone. You don't need

to do it alone. So I know what I know, and I will

say what I know I'm very, very good at. I also know

what I don't know. And I've said to

people as an example, okay, so if you're not feeling well,

you say, gee, I need to find out why I don't feel well so I

can get over. You don't have to stop and go to medical school to find

out why you're sick. You don't have to learn that skill skill set. You

go to a doctor, the car's not working well. You don't

have to get under the hood and do it yourself. You go to the specialist

in that. So with so many, and women, women, cuz some women

in entrepreneurship I have experienced have a control thing.

They have this need to control. And I think it must come from all

of their past experiences, which I guess today we're all the sum

total of our past experiences. But you bring up

the great point of support because I'll say

two, two of us here side by side, Marie and Beth here as

entrepreneurs, we're not doing it alone because we're

smart enough to know we can't. And we're

even smarter than that to know we shouldn't,

that we stay in our own lane and build the

support. Do clients resist

that? Have you found that women who want to be

budding entrepreneurs, they want to have the control? Do they really not

understand? What entrepreneurship really is?

It's a great question. I mean, I'm not sure I know the answer to that,

but I will say that, you know,

when I look at the word solopreneur, you know, it means I'm self-employed. It's

just me. I don't have employees, you know, but I

do have a team. You know, I've got a bookkeeper. I call it my Marie

team. I've got my bookkeeper. I've got my online business manager.

You know, I have my colleagues. I have my clients. Close confidants that are kind

of like my board of directors that I bounce things around. I have my

coaches, you know, and then I've got my medical team. I've

got my PT team. I've got my dentist. I've got my spiritual

advisors. They all are people that are part of what it takes to have

Marie show up powerfully in the world. And I

think people who know me know that I've

taken a lot of my years to develop the resources that

I have. And I think I become more valuable to others because I

know people who are experts in the field. I don't know how

to do everything for every entrepreneur, you know. I'm not an expert in AI,

but I do know some people that do have an expertise and a certification,

so I can bring them in to programs. And the more I share

my resources with other people, it just, it expands my

own value And it expands it for everybody that they can take

advantage of that. So, you know, I think it's important to—

we can't do everything by ourselves. You know, I mean, I have house cleaning staff

that comes in once every 6 weeks and whip through my house so that I've

got some order. And, you know, I don't want to spend my time

doing that. But, you know, it— all of those things help

Marie become a better professional, better human being.

You're using solopreneur different than my reference was to it.

So one of the things that I always say to make sure we're all in

the same conversation is to define your terms. Yeah. So

my reference, um, to the word solopreneur, I was taking that

a lot of women think I'm doing it alone, I have to do it alone,

I must do it alone. I have so much, I have to prove that I

can do it on my own. And Maria says, no, she's a solopreneur

proudly because she owns the company. She is the CEO. But she

has her support team just like any

CEO would have. They would have their staff, their

sales department, their accounting department, et cetera, et cetera.

So thank you. So now we've come together and we've really

understood how to use the term solopreneur

and, um, move forward

proudly with that, that you can be your

own CEO. So be the smartest CEO

you can be and build a team and build your team. I think

it makes your life easier. It makes your job easier. You know, I'm not a

bookkeeper. I don't— I mean, I know how to generate money. I'm not always great

at managing it and analyzing it and things like that. I'm a

generator and, um, you know, offer things that

people buy and then they buy them. And then I have my bookkeeper

looks at my books and says, well, you might want to look at this, or

you might want to look at this. So I, you know, embody working

with them because they make me a stronger person. But

I think, you know, like, if you look at— let's just say there's a woman

that's maybe a therapist and has her own business, she could definitely totally be a

solopreneur. She doesn't need marketing assistance, she doesn't need any of the things that

sometimes we do, like in the coaching and consulting world, you know, because it's a

big space out there. But, you know, I think you just have to know, like,

what's the type of business that you want to have. And, you know, when I

work with my clients, I have a jumpstart program, and part of the first

part of it is really looking at your ideal business scene. What is your

ideal scene of working for yourself? What is your business? Do

you want to have an office? Do you want to work part-time in an office?

Do you want to be, you know, a sub stack for

people in another business? Do you want to work totally out of your home? Do

you want to be a virtual nomad? What kind of dollars do you want to

have? What kind of clients do you want to work with? How many hours a

week do you want to work? Do you want to have long weekends? How many

vacations? People don't take the time to, to create that

blueprint. That's a very, very vital part

of understanding how we can move forward,

because plan— develop the plan and

then work the plan. I hope people were taking notes because you just

fired off a whole list of important things that

must be considered needs that

must be solved in some cases in order to

make growing forward a successful, sustainable

business as an entrepreneur are necessary, the things that can make all the

difference. Marie, how do people work with you?

Well, I'm kind of a groupie, so I

run a lot of group programs. You know, I have a program that's called Networking

Savvy for people that really want to develop themselves. Themselves and building relationships and being

powerful online and offline. That's been something I've been doing

for 30-some-odd years, you know. I know, right?

But it works. I mean, it's just like, how do you be a good human

being and show up powerfully in online

and in-person events? I teach sales

savvy, you know, which is— savvy is one of my words

that I do and really teach people, you know, how do you actually

make sales, how do you do that, what is the sales process? 'Cause most of

the people that I work with have never had any sales training at all. I

mean, I've been in sales training for a million years, so it's easy for

me because I've been around that, but for somebody new, like, you know,

people, like, I think you and I have talked about this, people start selling way

too early in the process, you know, it's like, hi, my name is, do you

wanna buy my $15,000 program? Uh, no, what's your dog's name? You

know, it's just kind of fun. So we kind of look at the process and

how to get people warmed up in your market because people never

buy when they're cold, right?

And then I teach Speaker Savvy, you know, and I do the VIP

Speaker Savvy experience where we help people create their signature talk

that really is designed as more of a, like, who are you in the

marketplace? Do people even like you? Do they want to know more about you? It's

a great way to get connections, community, get

people on your mailing list so you can start to nurture them over time

and begin to develop the clients. And then in the retreat, so

I do do some one-on-one mentoring for special people that have a

business and they really want more of the mentoring. They know how to do certain

things, but they need a listening, they need somebody who can really be there

to focus on them. But most of the time I do my programs in

group group settings because the group has it be more valuable,

and the group is always— adds the element of community, friendships,

relationships, energy. And I just like that

model. It suits you and fits

your personality. You are such a social person, and you're doing these

retreats, and, um, probably brings you more joy. And as you

said, people are making connections right there within your group

itself. That's wonderful.

I could go on and on because you and I share so many values. We

share so many feelings. We've come from different

backgrounds, different experiences, but we're all— we're both kind of at the

same place in our hearts

to wanna help other people based on what we have already

accomplished. And you are such—

you're like such a go-to person because you do so many things

and you are an out— resource. And I am

so grateful that our paths have crossed

and that they crossed when they did and why they did.

I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that that happens

when it's supposed to happen. I am grateful

to have you in my life. And I am grateful that you have taken the

time today to share your

beliefs, your experiences, your passions here on

Bebtalks. And I think we're gonna have to have some more

conversations. That would be so fun. You know, that would

be so fun. That would be so fun. So to the audience, I wanna

say you've gotten a, a, a quick study

of this fabulous person. And I wanna say that while so much

of it is very, very evident in, of course, what

she said, how she said it, but her whys and her hows

that you need to be in touch with someone like Marie Fratoni.

And you'll find the information on how to connect with her below. And I

encourage you in every way to do that so that you

can become part of her community. And who knows, maybe

you'll be on a retreat in Italy with Marie and her community

one day. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Hmm, wouldn't that be wonderful?

That would be wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. We gotta get our heads together and kibitz

more often. We do, we do. And we will. We, we definitely

will. So as I always say here at Bepp Talks,

don't go it alone. There are so many resources out there

for you. I just introduced you to another one today.

Take advantage of these opportunities to reach

out and work with pros like Amarie for Tony.

And really, as I always say, is may the best always

be yet to come. And understand that you are very much in

control of that and that you can make it

happen. You've got to get the plan,

have the goal, and move methodically from where you are to where you

want to be. And not just find out at the end of life, well,

I guess that's what happened. You know, what did you cause to happen?

What did you contribute to making it so?

That's the power that we all have. And you do it better when you

share it with team members like a Marie.

So I thank you once again, and I thank the audience.

Please be in touch with this wonderful lady. And until we talk

again, may the best always be yet to come.

Awesome. Bye for now. Thank you, Marie. Thank you.

Thank you.