How To Build A Brand That Moves Hearts And Minds - With Franziska Iseli

Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Franziska Iseli.

Franziska is the co-founder of Basic Bananas, The Business Hood, Oceanlovers and Moments of Humanity.

In 2013 Franziska was awarded the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award recognizing her innovation, creativity and philanthropic involvement. Franziska is a board member at the Entrepreneurs Organization, sits on the judging panel for Singularity University and has run think tanks at the United Nations to address the UN sustainable development goals through entrepreneurship.

Franziska is the author of four bestselling books. Sir Richard Branson wrote the foreword for The Courage Map.

She is regularly featured across the media including INC, Forbes, Business Insider, Virgin Inflight Entertainment, Marie-Claire, Cosmopolitan, SmartCompany, Dynamic Business Magazine, BRW, 2UE, Channel 9.

Franziska is a Swiss born Australian (or Swaussie) and is known for her down-to-earth attitude, infectious energy, integrity and courage to take the lead.

Resources / Links

https://www.basicbananas.com/virtualsummit

@basicbananas

@franziskaiseli

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Transcript

Tom Bailey  00:07

Hello and welcome to succeed through speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results. Hello, I'm Tom Bailey and in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Franziska Iseli, who is the co founder of basic bananas, The Business Hood, Oceanlovers and Moments of Humanity. And she's also the author of four best selling books. So Franziska hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.

Franziska Iseli  00:43

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Tom. It's great to be here.

Tom Bailey  00:46

Amazing. Thank you so much. And, and because we've got a global audience just out of interest we're about to you based right now.

Franziska Iseli  00:52

Right now I'm based in Sydney, Australia, but because some listeners will probably hear an accent. I'm Swiss originally sound nice with Australian,

Tom Bailey  01:02

Australian. Fantastic, I love it. And thank you so much. And just wanted to share a little bit more about you before we do get started. So, Franziska has been awarded the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. She's a board member at the Entrepreneurs Organization, and has run think tanks think tanks at the United Nations to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals through entrepreneurship. The title for today's episode is how to put together a one page marketing plan for your business. And Franziska is going to show us how to do that in just seven minutes. So question one today is who are your ideal clients?

Franziska Iseli  01:37

So for basic bananas, and also our agency, the business would we mainly work with small, medium sized businesses. So for basic analysis, it's anywhere between solo entrepreneur up to 20. Team members, roughly and then for the agency a little bit bigger.

Tom Bailey  01:53

Great, fantastic. And when you think of these small business owners, let's talk about business, bananas, or basically been on his story, what's typically the biggest challenge that your customers face?

Franziska Iseli  02:03

Yeah, we do a lot of surveys with our members in our community to see how we can support a more through marketing. And there are generally three main challenges. The first one is understanding how to grow the business. So really understanding marketing, and marketing strategies. And then secondly, overwhelm. Usually a lot of these business owners feel very overwhelmed, lack of time, lack of information, feeling overwhelmed in every area of the business, and life also runs into life, too. And number three is leadership. So a lot of businesses have challenges managing team or attracting the right team or culture.

Tom Bailey  02:42

Yeah, yeah, completely uncertain. And I guess those three combined don't lead to a very productive or efficient business. So what would you say is the impact that these challenges can have on your clients?

Franziska Iseli  02:53

I think, you know, the combination of things. But I think the most important, or the biggest impact that lack of information on marketing or lack of time, lack of having the right team members has is really to running a business that is more frustrating than than pleasurable. And also, the ripple effects that this, this impact has on other areas of life usually starts in business, and then it's because it's frustrating, and overwhelming, it then runs over into family, the entourage, you know, they're their immediate friends. So the impact usually is much larger than just the immediate impact on themselves as a person or, or the business.

Tom Bailey  03:38

Yeah. And I guess, you know, we sometimes leave our careers to go into entrepreneurship, because it's fun, it's exciting. You know, it's something that we're really passionate about. But then, as soon as frustration and overwhelm sets in, I guess, some of your clients might start thinking about, should I go back and just get a job?

Franziska Iseli  03:53

Yeah, and some do, and some stick with it. It definitely, as you probably know, being an entrepreneur and talking to lots of entrepreneurs, it's quite a roller coaster ride and, and entrepreneurship, I don't think is for everyone. I think there are, you know, a certain type of person that is happy in this uncertainty of running a business. A lot of people don't like this uncertainty, and it's probably not the healthiest way to, to live in this kind of space of uncertainty. It's, it's something that I personally love about business, and life is uncertainty. So for me, this is great. But I know, for other people, it's probably a better option is to support a business and support entrepreneurs in their journey,

Tom Bailey  04:38

yet completely understand. Okay, so thinking about these entrepreneurs that are going to stick with it, they're going to stay in this uncertainty. What's that one valuable piece of advice that you might give them to really help them solve the problem of marketing, consistency, frustration?

Franziska Iseli  04:54

I really think because there's so much uncertainty in running a business as a business As owner, it really helps to have a plan. And, you know, sometimes you stick to it, sometimes you totally abandon it. But having a plan at least gives you some direction. And we've seen countless businesses with plants that are doing a lot better than the ones that just sort of, you know, do the day to day things, especially when it comes to marketing, putting together a very simple one page marketing plan, helps the business owner to stay focused and aligned with their bigger purpose. The ones that don't have a plan, they're often very scattered. So I think the one biggest piece of advice I can give is put together a rough marketing plan and then action, it's step by step. So have the bigger picture in mind and then just go at it step by step everyday chip away at it. Set aside time for marketing, maybe an hour a week, maybe two hours, maybe half a day, a week, maybe the week, it depends on how quickly you want to grow the business and what what you want to achieve what the targets are.

Tom Bailey  05:56

Right? And I don't know that you can help people create these one page marketing plans. So where should they go to find out more about that?

Franziska Iseli  06:03

Yeah, we do actually session. So we do sessions for that our virtual sessions. At the moment, because of the pandemic, we had to put everything online. Again, we used to run these face to face all over the country in the world, US, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, now we're doing them virtually, which actually is a good thing, because a lot more people can attend these sessions. And it's a two hour session that we run, myself and my co founder, and the link to look at the dates that are coming up is the link to go to spacemaster calm for forward slash virtual Summit.

Tom Bailey  06:34

Love it. Thank you so much. And what I do, as well as I'll put that link into the show notes. So people can just click on that, and they can dive right into that virtual Summit. Quick question. And unplanned question is, Where did the name basic bananas come from?

Franziska Iseli  06:48

You know what, when we started the company, my co founder and I, we wanted something that that resonates with who we are as people so that we could just show up exactly as the people that we are without pretending without trying, I came from advertising. And when I first started this business in 2009, I thought, oh, you know, now I need to, you know, wear a suit and act in a certain way. And that's just that it didn't feel right. So we decided to name it something that is more quirky, more playful, the way exactly how we we already show up in life anyway. And so we just brainstorm names. And the two final names we had were tango, like a mango, which is way too long for a business name. And basically bananas and also basic, because we make marketing, understandable, simple, simplify marketing, and bananas, because banana trees grow really fast. So you know, if you do the right marketing, you grow a business.

Tom Bailey  07:41

I love it. And that creates the ethos behind your business, which is incredible. So your hack so much for sharing that. Now, on your journey, obviously, you've got lots of different businesses, you've worked at the UN, you know, you've had lots of different experiences, what would you say is one of your biggest mistakes along the way? And what did you learn from it?

Franziska Iseli  08:00

Biggest mistake is always when I don't listen to my intuition. So it isn't it not listening to my intuition is usually when afterwards, I realized, okay, that was one of the biggest mistakes, worse decisions, I've made a one recent one, I was partnering with three guys to run another business in a different space. And that was the CMO. And one of the partners straightaway when when I met this person, I realized that this is probably not the right idea to partner with this person. But you know, the other guy said, no, no, this is definitely the right idea. And my intuition was very loud and clear. I even said it to some of the other directors. And my intuition is saying this, but you're convincing me otherwise. So I'm going to go with what you say. And then of course, long term didn't work out. So that's the person where my intuition knew. Without me knowing didn't work out. So it's usually not listening to my intuition. So lesson is to listen to my intuition, no matter what anyone else is saying.

Tom Bailey  09:02

Yeah, understand, I guess that can work from the negative and the positive, you know, avoidance, or even something I feel like I should really go for, you know, go for it and see if it works out. So the last question from me today is what is the one question that I really should have asked you today that will also bring some great value to our audience?

Franziska Iseli  09:23

You know, maybe just the question could be around what I'd like to leave what message I'd like to leave our listeners or viewers with? The answer to that is really three things. The first one is whatever you do, in your business, do it really well. Yeah, it really well. You don't have to be superduper passionate about it. You don't have to make your hobby a business, but you have to believe in it and you have to do it. Well. You can't flog a crappy product. Well, you can but it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. So do it. Well, secondly, focus on giving, not getting always focus on giving not getting focused on how you can add value not how you can make more money. If you add more value, you will make more money. So focus on giving, not getting. And lastly, think about the future. Think about how you can build something that is sustainable for in different ways for you for your environment, for your culture, for your family, but also for for the larger, greater good. So build something that is meaningful and good for the greater good.

Tom Bailey  10:26

Fantastic, create something that's high quality, focus on giving, giving, not getting and finally think about the future and create that long term sustainable impact. Yeah, Francisca, thank you so much again for your time today. I really appreciate how much value you've packed into such a short episode. And again, thank you so much for coming along.

Franziska Iseli  10:44

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.