Ready to stand out from your competition? Meet Franziska Iseli.
In Episode 66 of the Bean Ninjas Podcast, Bean Ninjas CEO Meryl Johnston talks to brand strategist, lifestyle entrepreneur and surfer Franziska Iseli about creating a brand identity & standing out from the competition.
Franziska Iseli’s foray into business
Franziska grew up in Switzerland. She moved to Australia and instantly got into surfing.
Primarily, she started working in advertising because she didn’t have a marketing degree.
Since the death of her father, Franziska started rethinking her whole life. She decided to always do the best she can and started Basic Bananas with her partner Christo.
After finding out that small/medium businesses have no access to advertising agencies and no marketing knowledge, BasicBananas was born. Their aim is to educate small business owners and to help them do better marketing.
If you’re interested in becoming a training organization too, this podcast is for you.
Franziska’s business grew from two partners from Sydney to thirty-three employees across the world.
This business is mainly focused on scale-up companies. But, it also helps start-ups survive their first years in business by embracing various marketing strategies.
Related: Scaling a service business with Mandi Ellefson
Since Franziska fell in love with surfing, she started noticing all the rubbish, and plastic surrounding the ocean. This is when Oceanlovers was born.
The goals of Oceanlovers is to reunite those who seek adventure and to make products that are sustainable, and inspired by the ocean.
The message of Oceanlovers is travelling through their customers; ex. bags with prints like “Hey, next time you go to the beach, why don’t you pick up a few pieces of rubbish?”
Related: How to Build a World Class Brand Strategy
Franziska Iseli on power leadership, team building, and hiring strategies
When Franziska and Christo joined forces, their goals were to achieve “power leadership” together.
The key is to have somebody who’s good at implementation and details, and somebody who’s good at vision and strategy.
“Similar skill sets make it difficult to define roles; there’s too much of an overlap.”
Also, don’t micromanage; holding on to everything will affect your flexibility. Give your team members responsibility.
It’s very important to build trust between co-workers. Also, provide them with proper training, so you can allow yourself to step out from time to time.
“You don’t have to be in everything.”
Related: Becoming a Virtual Warrior: Tips for working remotely from a mum who’s doing it
Franziska hires based on value, then skills. She is looking to create a team that can get along, and fit in the culture.
When hiring, she wants someone who is innovative and generous, and, if needed, the team will help in developing their skills.
“Hire rock star humans, and get them the rock star skills.” Click To TweetThe education business model behind Basic Bananas
Even though Basic Bananas has online programs for educating businesses, they are trying to focus more on offline programs.
The core of the business is a face to face program.
If you have knowledge that you can share, creating and launching an online course might be a great option for you.
“People need to come out of their businesses, to get together as a tribe to share and learn together in real life, not to be home alone sitting behind a computer.” Click To TweetThere’s a twelve-month program called the Clever Bunch. Every month people implement different marketing strategies; they come and work together as a part of a community.
Groups put marketing machines together, strategize on and offline, and work on their positioning and branding.
Franziska explains that when you make a module, you’re constantly improving it. Basically, every innovation is building up to the previous module, so it’s very logical.
So, follow your customer’s journey, know the touch points your customer is going through with you.
Watch this video where Franziska explains the concept of being ‘talkaboutable’.
Franziska Iseli on becoming author, speaker, and lifestyle entrepreneur
You can check out Franziska’s latest book “Perception: Take Charge of How Others View Your Brand, Become Irresistible, and Make a Bigger Impact”. This topic is focused on how to position yourself or your business so you can attract the right customer, job, opportunity, etc.
“Ask yourself how you want to be perceived; think about what is the identity you want to create. Reflect your perception, become talkaboutable.”
Franziska is working on another book, the topic is courage; this book should come out later this year.
The first draft of her book needed some work, so she went to Mexico. She was surfing and writing, and when she was done, she figured she wanted the whole thing rewritten.
Her new goal is to travel around the world on her motorbike. This adventure lead her to the idea of writing a book on ‘courage’.
“I don’t ever want to publish anything that I can’t fully be, completely be proud of and say it’s the best I could have done.” Click To TweetAs she was spending so much time in her helmet, she started getting up super early to write for two or three hours. Franziska isn’t a night person, so she does her work in the morning, or during the weekends.
“I recommend you find out when you can do your best work.”
Franziska decided to complete her motorbike tour in stages, four to five weeks at the time. Her base is Sydney, so she continues her trips from wherever she left her bike.
Also, Franziska is a public speaker, which is one of her favorite things because of the variety of her audience. She aims to be informative and entertaining.
Sometimes the audience is easy so she cracks them up quickly, but sometimes it takes a while. But generally she is making fun of herself about stuff she’s not good at.
Tips for staying on brand
The following infographic explains how to stay on brand and true to your visual identity.
(source: https://www.visme.co/)
Related: The Story Behind Our New Bean Ninjas Logo and Branding Guidelines
Listen in to know more about creating a brand identity and standing out from your competition.
Meryl and Franziska Iseli discuss:
- Franziska starting Basic Bananas
- Branding Oceanlovers
- Power leadership
- On and offline learning programs
- Writing and public speaking
Resources Mentioned
- Free 2.5Hr Blast-Off Workshop – Discover new and clever ways to grow your business and attract more customers.
- How to become Talkaboutable
- franziskaiseli.com
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