Claire Giovino’s passion for travel led her on a search for the perfect work-from-anywhere business.
Learn how Claire’s background in higher education and counseling allowed her to uncover new ideas resulting in new clients and then serve them with a superior level of communication and empathy.
In 2017, Claire launched InboxDone and grew the business to six-figures in 11 months with zero start-up capital. Claire’s wisdom and calm-but-mighty execution of an idea will inspire you!
STEPHANIE
Hello, freedom friends. Thank you for joining us. I'm Stephanie Wankel here with my Freedom friend and co-host, Kristen Beatty. Today, we're talking to Claire Giovino on our podcast.
She has spent years optimizing inboxes for seven-figure clients who are leaders in their industries. Her background in higher education and counseling allowed her to represent clients with a superior level of communication and empathy.
In 2017, she launched Inbox Done and grew the business to multiple six figures in 11 months with zero startup capital. She currently manages a growing team of remote inbox managers, and upwards of 3000 plus emails a day, all while traveling the world. Welcome to the podcast.
CLAIRE
Thank you for having me.
KRISTEN
I'm so excited [laughter]. I'm jumping right in, Stephanie.
STEPHANIE
Yes.
KIRSTEN
Because I just have to know what optimizing inboxes is.
CLAIRE
Yes, good question. So, it is removing...
It's first identifying what is the greatest contribution that you have to offer through your business, and then removing everything that's not essential. The goal with our clients and the people we work with is maybe 10% of the emails that come in are really important to the growth of your business.
But, the majority of the stuff that we get is really not and usually they're not things that we have to be answering. And so, the three-step system that we go through this optimization is starting with that organizing. We're going to minimize and reduce all the stuff that's coming in. We're going to clear the backlog. Get down to inbox zero. We've seen backlogs everywhere from like 100 emails to 400,000 emails. We are going to create folders and filters. We're really creating this well-oiled machine within the inbox using as much automation as possible to get it to a point where things are going where you want them to go.
And then, after we've used all that automation has to offer, that's where we're bringing in this personalized aspect. So, after all the organization, step two is your responses. We're going to look for patterns in the inbox. What are the emails that you're seeing or receiving a lot and sending out a lot.
For you guys, I would imagine you're sending a lot of emails to guess those types of things where can we gather responses and turn them into templates? We're never going to send out cold emails. We're always going to personalize them because we're really big on building relationships. Because people love knowing when they're interacting with real humans on the other end of the screen.
But the goal being never to have to start an email from scratch, if possible, always to have an outline to go off of. And then, the third step is more the proactive side of things where we're doing the outreach. That's where the growth phase really happens-- cultivating those relationships. So, that's a very short overview of the process.
STEPHANIE
Wow, how did you get started with this concept and this idea?
CLAIRE
Yes. It's a couple different things came into it. I have a background in academia, and I was teaching English and communications, which I love, and I love writing. And then, this whole world of working from your laptop opened up to me about five years ago. I was a little bit late to the game, but I was so excited when I realized that you didn't necessarily have to trade your time for money, time being as the most precious commodity.
And so, I really began looking for ways to transfer my teaching to just online because all I wanted to do was travel. I started reaching out to past students. I started asking current students for referrals to other people who might be interested. And, I started my first online business.
It was very small, teaching English and writing skills to graduate students and business professionals. And so from there, I kind of experimented with different ways to earn money online. As I'm sure you guys know, there's some not so great ways to do that and there're some really good ways. I started with ghost writing and I realized I really didn't like not getting credit for my writing. So I stopped doing that soon. And then, I started sending out these emails that I would spend hours writing and essentially pitching my writing skills and my communication skills and my organizational skills to different bloggers that I followed.
And so, one of the bloggers he brought me on. I did some writing for him for a bit and it kind of evolved into me taking over his inbox because he had outsourced every other part of his business, except for his inbox, and it was still this big time suck in his life. And so yes, implementing all those three steps. We got him to the place where now he just checks it once a month.
STEPHANIE
Wow.
KRISTEN
Oh my god.
CLAIRE
Yes.
STEPHANIE
One thing I love about what you're saying, which is something all of us can do, is experiment, right? You knew your goal was to not be tied to a nine to five, butt in the seat kind of job, and you took an inventory of what you're good at-- writing, organizing, and then, just started experimenting.
CLAIRE
Yes, exactly. And anyone can do that. And that's really where this process starts. It is identifying where is your contribution the most unique because that's ultimately going to be the most monetizable, right? And it's where's that overlap of your skill sets? Where did those come into play? For me, it was organizing, overlapping with communication. And so yes, anyone with asking themselves a few questions can narrow down what comes naturally to me, what comes easy to me, what do I lose time on because I get so deeply focused on what I'm doing? What do people ask me for my opinion about? Those are the questions you can ask really narrowed down, like what is your unique contribution?
KRISTEN
So, a little bit brass tacks is what did that timeline look like as you were experimenting and testing and finding some of these different jobs that you could take on, and how were you earning through that period in order to get you to this amazing business that's now earning you seven figures?
CLAIRE
It's a great question. I am not a proponent of the quit-your-job overnight. I really like to ease into transitions because I'm pretty risk averse. And so, I kept teaching. And then, on the side, in the evenings or on weekends, I was looking for these ways to make money online. I was reaching out to other students on the side in addition to my in-person classes and seeing who would want to start lessons, and so I gradually transitioned my time on to the laptop and less in person and slowly built it up that way. And so, at about a year from when I started that process to when I was able to fully transition to online only, and then, like I said, that client whose inbox I started with, I wasn't really sure if I could replicate the system that I created for him with other people. But, reaching out, we combined our mutual networks and tested it out on a few different clients and realized the same systems can be applied to any inbox. You just personalize it and tweak it as need be. Yes, so about a year for a full transition from in person to online.
STEPHANIE
Wow.
KRISTEN
That’s fantastic. Yes, it does not seem that long at all. I'm sure it was just symphonies off and here you are. It's great.
CLAIRE
A year to launch Inbox Done. And now, we've been three years running, so four years since it all started.
KRISTEN
Fantastic. I know I'm running multiple things alongside. What drives you? What motivates you because it's a lot of work on the side when you're doing a full time gig, too.
CLAIRE
Completely. At the time, it was wanting to travel, that was enough motivation. I wanted the geographical freedom and the freedom to schedule my own days, which I know a lot of people want. I think motivations can change over time, which is totally fine. And so, my goal was to be able to wake up and plan my day, however, I wanted to spend that day.
So, after that first year, I got to that point, and then you realize, "Okay, it's all on me. I have to figure out how am I going to fill this day." And so, it's just all a growing experience. And then, my new motivations became, after financial freedom, time freedom, which I think is the next step.
And so, once I launched the business, my goal was to remove myself from the system as much as possible and train up other people to run the business so that again, my time wouldn't be attached to their earnings. And so that's been such a learning process over the three years that we've been running.
But then, I'm sure you know as well, many people have the goals of financial freedom and time freedom, but once you get the money and once you get the time, you have to figure out how are you going to spend the money and how are you going to spend the time? The freedom itself isn't enough. And so. that's been an interesting thing with our clients. We give them all this free time back, and then, they have to figure out, "Okay, now what am I going to do with this?" Because email can almost be a sneaky way to procrastinate, too. You feel really busy, but you're not actually moving towards your real goals.
STEPHANIE
Oh, yes, that's almost like a whole nother service or offering right? The mental, "What are you going to do once we solve one of your biggest problems?" I love that. Do you actually talk to clients about that? Is that a part of your onboarding in working with them?
CLAIRE
Yes, well and to Kristen's questions, too, this is where my new motivation is coming from and is the psychology behind it. Absolutely. We're not going to change a person's ingrained digital habits overnight. It's going to take time, but most of them are very willing and wanting to change those habits, the compulsive tendencies we all have to check email every 30 minutes or even more than that. For sure, it's something that comes up a lot.
STEPHANIE
Yes, I could see the psychology. It's almost like we might miss our email, or we might replace it with social media because it's a distraction, and so that the idea being you free up time to do something else productive, you almost have to be really intentional about that.
CLAIRE
Completely. Yes. One of my favorites, James Clear, he's a best-selling author and he talks about the --
STEPHANIE
The Atomic Habits?
CLAIRE
Yes, one of my favorite books and he talks about the difference between being in motion versus taking action. And email is often just being in motion. People have, clients have told us they'll spend their entire day in the inbox and then, get to the end of the day, and think, "What have I even done." It feels again, productive because you are in motion. But then, actually taking action is taking those steps towards your goals. And that's where it can be scary because the stakes are actually high because you're taking action towards something that you really want.
STEPHANIE
Yes.
KRISTEN
Oh my gosh, you just described my whole dilemma. Ask anyone. I'm constantly in motion, but I don't know that I'm actually accomplishing anything. So, I probably need to read that book. Thank you for bringing that up. So, I'm just dying to know, what are you filling that time with now that you have the time and money? And maybe the other question is, what's the coolest trip you've been on recently before our current situation?
CLAIRE
Both wonderful questions. I have learned the power of questions through building this business. It is a very unique thing to train someone on how to run your inbox because we make all of these decisions about our email often unconsciously for what action we're going to take with each email that comes in. So, really drawing out all of the information that exists in a client's head makes the handover process really easy by asking those good questions. And, it's also the difference between decision-making and delegating. You can delegate something to someone, but then if they have questions, they're going to turn around and ask you and have the balls back in your court.
So, through these questions, we’re really figuring out how does the client's mind work? So that we can learn to actually think like them. To answer your question, I've become obsessed with the power of questions and asking better questions that lead to really rich answers. And so, in my free time, I've started better question dinners where I gather women together every month and we all bring our questions to the table around a certain theme and discuss. This has turned into a podcast called The Better Questions. Just really intentional things that I would never have had time for five years ago. And then, the best trip, I got to go to Paris last fall with my friend who had never been to Europe before. So, that was wonderful.
STEPHANIE
I love that.
KRISTEN
Very special.
STEPHANIE
So, you have a podcast, what is it called?
CLAIRE
It's called The Better Questions.
STEPHANIE
I love it.
KRISTEN
I feel a book coming on, too. You’re writing a book in there with all these questions?
[Laughter]
CLAIRE
It’s coming, yes.
STEPHANIE
I love it. That's great. So what, if someone… Because, of course, all of us deal with this inbox problem. What might be a couple hints or ideas that anyone can take right now and clean up their inbox and free up some time that way? How might they decide what filters to do? Are there any tips that you employ that people could take and use now?
CLAIRE
Yes, many. I'm really into systems and outline so following that three-step system starting with step one with the organization and minimalizing. You're going to first try and reduce the things that are coming in. That's the easiest place to start. I really like extensions, like Unroll.me is a really good one. You can plug it right into your inbox and it will pull up everything that you've ever subscribed to in your life. And in one swoop, you just go through and click unsubscribe. It takes one minute, and you instantly reduce what's coming in. Then, you don't want to go crazy with folders, but just creating a few select folders that make sense to create filters that will send emails you might want later and be able to quickly reference to these folders.
So, the goal again, is to get down at least to start the amount that's actually coming in. And then, anyone can create templates for the emails that they're sending. There's always patterns to be found, even if it's a few. And so, having those kinds of in a template library, you can have those saved in a Word doc, have those at hand. It just saves you that much time and it saves you the mental energy of having to start an email from scratch every time. So those are great places to start.
STEPHANIE
Yes. I'm going to do the one you mentioned, because I subscribed to everything. And then, I think I really keep wanting the thing, even though I don't look at all of them, and that would really be helpful. So, that's an easy tip that anybody can do. Do people in your company actually respond or, the person, the client is always responding?
CLAIRE
No, we can respond as the client. We really learn their tone of voice and what is their writing style like if they want us to. Or, we can respond as us as their inbox manager. That creates a really interesting dynamic because we act as the buffer, where we're really becoming their filter so that they only have to deal with the absolute most important things and we're becoming this buffer for their time. And so, instead of feeling like you have to get back to people right away, the inbox manager in the interim can send out this response and really become this gatekeeper of your time and your calendar. And then, another tip that anyone can do if you get a lot of cc's, or reply alls, you can also set up a cc filter that will send them all into a folder. Those are usually the most annoying emails for people because you're not being addressed directly. And so, you can just go into that folder maybe once a week, and review the cc's all at once, the ones that actually matter. And, that is another way to get just more out of your inbox.
STEPHANIE
That’s great.
KRISTEN
Genius, total genius. A lot of greats. I mean just immediate hacks which I appreciate you sharing with us because that is part of your business and your service as well, but such nice things that people can implement themselves if I have, I speak for myself, if I have a little bit of discipline [laughter].
STEPHANIE
Yes, that's great. So, you are a business owner. You're an entrepreneur. What kind of challenges do you have on a daily basis and how do you overcome those?
CLAIRE
Hmm. I, again, going back to the idea of freedom, I've realized that freedom also requires structure. And that structure isn't a bad thing. It's something I used to very much pushback against. But, when you are in control of your time, you get to choose what your structure looks like, and you get to choose your routines. It still can all be your choice and in your power. My favorite thing I'm doing right now is with my calendar, I started color coding it. Social things are in blue and self-care is in purple and the business stuff is in green. I'm able to get this really quick visual, based on the colors of where's my time going in these different realms of my life. Like, "Oh, a little touch time on business there. Let’s up the self-care." And, just being really intentional that way with both structure and freedom.
STEPHANIE
I love that. That's a great idea that also anyone can implement to see, yes, like self-care, a great example. If you're not taking care of yourself, then, that's a big gap and the fact that you could just see it, especially when you're a business owner or an entrepreneur, chances are, you're sometimes slipping into too much work and less of that. So that's a great idea.
CLAIRE
Yes.
KRISTEN
And I think, too, I even think about it from a prospecting perspective, I think a lot of small business owners don't spend enough time generating that new business when they need it. And if you were color coding on that on your calendar and saw there was no red or whatever color you were using, you know you're not spending enough time generating new business. So such, once again, another genius hack for people to use. That's really easy to implement.
CLAIRE
Exactly.
STEPHANIE
That's great. So, are you... Kristen should we jump in to the fabulous for?
KRISTEN
Absolutely. Sounds good. I'll start first. Our first question, whatever just comes to mind quickly. It is like the rapid-fire round. First question that we like to ask at Frenzied to Financial Freedom is a friend and foe-- what is one thing you run toward an embrace versus one thing you really stay away from in attaining your goals?
CLAIRE
Hmm, I run towards weirdly, confrontation. I really like to face things head on, and just dive right to the truth of something and I avoid complacency or sameness. So, that's where my resistance to structure used to come from, because I felt like everything always had to be new, but I'm learning how to grow with that.
STEPHANIE
That’s great.
KRISTEN
Nice.
STEPHANIE
Okay, question number two. What is one fantastic win that you've had recently, either professional or personal?
CLAIRE
Hmm. I'll do... I mean, if I can talk about what's relevant right now, it's been amazing to run a fully virtual remote business that is not as of now, affected by what's going on in current events. And so, to be able to give so many people on my team jobs and hours in this time, it just shows the power of remote work, and I think what we’re experiencing right now is this, I don't want to be insensitive in any way, but it is this grand experiment of how much work we'll actually be able to do remotely because now, everyone doesn't have the choice. And so yes, that's just been I'm really, really grateful to be able to give that within this business.
STEPHANIE
Yes.
KRISTEN
And you're poised for success. I mean, how many COVID emails have you gotten with everyone responding to, and rightly so, right. Everyone wants to have a response and show you what their organization is doing. But holy moly, companies I didn't even know I was subscribed to because I hadn't heard from them in six months, and then bam, here comes an email. So, your service is probably highly sought after at this time, I'm sure. So, wow, that's great. I mean the situation is not great, but I'm happy to hear that small businesses can thrive in a time like this.
CLAIRE
Yes.
KRISTEN
All right, so in your area of expertise, what is one future opportunity that you predict that our listeners should get ready for, take advantage of, to leverage in helping their businesses?
CLAIRE
Hmm, it really goes back to what we were talking about earlier in that specialization. I think people feel like they need to really have this range of skills now because of the current job climate and what it is, but really determining where do your skills and your interests and your inclinations and your gifts, where do those things overlap? It's a kind of a nuance thing, but that is what makes you specialize when you determine and designate what that precise overlap is. Everyone says niche down and yes, you should, but that's really what that means to me and that's what makes you stand out, and we'll continue to make you stand out and never be replaced by AI.
STEPHANIE
Yes, that's good, that's very good insight. Okay, so question number four, Kristen and I believe in the whole person and we also are always seeking fitness hacks and how to make that aspect faster, quicker, easier, better. So, we have started asking all of our guests if you have a fitness hack that you can share.
CLAIRE
I love that because especially once you start working from home, I got even more sedentary. I'm just constantly sitting and typing and so, I love that you asked this. The best investment I have made, and I cut costs in other areas so that I could make this investment was to get a personal trainer. My gym is closed as of now temporarily, but I always had this image of myself as not being a gym person and that was the story I told about myself. It was really just because I'm intimidated by the gym. I don't know what to do when I walk in. And so, talk about running towards challenge and confrontation. I don't know if I'll have a trainer for forever, but just having a teacher show me what to do when I go into the gym and what to do and what machines are called has been invaluable. I tend to focus on my brain and sometimes put my body not the priority. And then, I just finally made the connection that if I invest into my body will make my brain that much better. And so, yes, it took me this long to put that together, but the trainer has been one of the best investments I've ever made.
STEPHANIE
I love that. That’s great.
KRISTEN
Yes, we've had several guests who have shared that as their hack. And, I just think the universality of it, (is that even a word? But you know what I mean), as we get coaches in all aspects of our lives, we need one in this area, too.
STEPHANIE
And, I love the different reasons we hear, right? Like, I love that your reason, part of it is to combat like actually the uncomfortableness of getting in there and what do you do? Where for some people the accountability is really important, or different things. So, that's a really great unique aspect of it, too. So, thank you.
CLAIRE
Thank you.
KRISTEN
Claire, thank you so much for being on today. So many wise words. We appreciate it.
CLAIRE
Of course, you ask really good questions.
KRISTEN
Thank you. So where can our listeners find you? Where can they learn more about the business and about you?
CLAIRE
Just InboxDone.com. If you want a free email consultation, it's just InboxDone.com/discovery. It's a time to ask questions about the business but also, like you've asked today any specific questions you have about your inbox, we're happy to share.
STEPHANIE
Fantastic, thank you so much. And thank you, Freedom friends for joining us. We'll catch up with you again next week.
