Are you utilizing videos for your business? If not, listen now as Stacey and Fran drop actionable steps you can do to market your business.
In today’s episode, Fran Boorman, author, entrepreneur and a mother discuss the potential growth of your business using forums, facebook lives and live events. Fran also shared how after five years, she was able to scale her business by going against the old school networking rule. Nowadays, Fran’s passion is to help startups take their businesses to the next level and developing social enterprise.
Key Takeaways:
Resources
Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed
Connect with Fran
Fran B Global Facebook Group - Online Forum
The Vault Contact Information
Are you utilizing videos for your business? If not, listen now as Stacey and Fran drop actionable steps you can do to market your business.
In today’s episode, Fran Boorman, author, entrepreneur and a mother discuss the potential growth of your business using forums, facebook lives and live events. Fran also shared how after five years, she was able to scale her business by going against the old school networking rule. Nowadays, Fran’s passion is to help startups take their businesses to the next level and developing social enterprise.
Key Takeaways:
Resources
Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Syed
Connect with Fran
Fran B Global Facebook Group - Online Forum
The Vault Contact Information
Welcome to the volt, tune in every week to unlock the marketing secrets of some of the fastest growing businesses. You'll have practical tips, strategies and case studies, will help you build incredible mountain campaigns for your business. And now here's your host, Stacey Kehoe. Hello and welcome to the show. I'm so excited to introduce you to today's guest. Fran Boorman is the owner of Sellable limited, a network marketing business that she has built to an excess of eight point 5 million pounds turnover, the fastest growing in her sector. She supported over 1000 business owners to create their own business success by using her growth strategy and aligning with social causes. Fran is passionate about helping business owners to find the joy in their business beyond the bottom line, and by doing so has actually attracted more loyal customers and dedicated staff to those growing businesses. She's also author of two best selling books, runs a free online business forum and is in the process of launching a new social enterprise to support the homeless through a football initiative. Fran is so incredibly authentic and is a really strong advocate of how facebook live can help you build your credibility online. I can't wait for you to listen to the marketing tactics she uses in her business, so let's open the Volt and dive right into this episode. Hello fran and welcome to the show. I'm so pleased to have you here today. We've got lots of exciting things to discuss.
fran:I can't wait. I'm really looking forward talking to you and a great to be talking to another amazing business lady.
stacey:Oh, you're very sweet. Thank you so much. Let's kick things off by talking through how you got started. What did your business begin and what has your journey been like?
fran:Well, my business really began. I think I've already had always had that kind of slight entrepreneurial spirit and my dad, he's a an entrepreneur, has his own business, so I think it was sort of in my blood, but when I really delved into it was when I got married. Me and my husband knew we wanted kids and I was living at my day job going, this really isn't going to be very practical when it comes to having children, so even though we weren't quite yet ready, I don't think you might need to find something. So my first kind of delve into a proper business was actually started in online crop, which was okay, but I got bored with it quite quickly. But through networking that are then came across a network marketing business. I'm most people in business, will have heard of network marketing. It's the sort of direct sales business where you can build a team and I just loved the business model. I sort of such a clever idea and I loved the the community and the support that went around it. So I dived into it head. I didn't really know what it was doing, but I took all the training that the. It's a bit like a sort of mini franchise. So there was loads of training and support around that. So it really got stuck into it and it kind of snowballed. So my first 10 years in business, were just mainly focused on building a network marketing business that I still have to say and that I still absolutely loved.
stacey:That's brilliant. I think we can all relate to that. I think we've all seen the network marketing businesses out there and I think it's so great to see who you speak so positively about that sort of thing because I also have some experience in the network marketing industry and I too actually ook at it in a really positive outlook in terms of the skill set that I've learned and the types of people that you get to bond with and build relationships with, not only with your team but also with clients and customers. And I think that's not very common in that industry.
fran:I mean I was a bit of a rebel in the industry because I didn't do things completely as I was told that if you speak to most that locked it, they'll say just follow the system to do as you're told. And there were certain things about it, it didn't sit right with me and it is effectively a sales business whether you like it or not, it's about sales. But in my view, every business is about sales. Whatever you do, you've got to sell. And also every business is about managing people, which is exactly what network marketing is. But the industry probably has a little bit of a bad name because it has had over the years, very pushy sales people, people that aren't honest, you know, they say"come along to a meeting" and then it's something completely different to what the person was expecting and all these kind of practices. And one of the reasons my business is actually growing in it sector and that was really because to an extent I kind of stuck two fingers up to the rules and said I'm going to do what I feel is ethically right and what I feel suits this business because I could see the power of the business model but maybe didn't like all the practices. Of course when I started doing that, it took some time. In business the success is what happens when no one's watching. It's all those little things I was doing in the background for years and within five years the business had just exploded. I was being followed by people that are also loved the business model, but wanted to do something that was a bit different and that wasn't the pushy sales but was actually about genuinely wanting to do good, and that's something that you now see in network marketing across the industry more. But there are still, like in any industry, there are still practices that could be improved.
stacey:Yeah, definitely. And I think, well I think just makes sense, doesn't it? To want to enjoy what you're doing, to actually focus on building relationships with people, which is ultimately the reason a lot of people get involved, because it's one of those businesses that often, you know, might be a stay at home mom that gets into it or somebody who's looking to start a little side business on top of maybe the existing job with the option to exit out of it and go into that full time and you're looking for that community, you're looking for that support. So I think that makes sense to just focus on the people from the beginning and do things ethically and in a way that makes you feel good. And that makes good business sense to me.
fran:Absolutely. And whilst that may not get the fastest, quickest results is when you see the differences, when you stick to it, that's when all of a sudden you find that you've built a reputation, you've built trust with people. My business was always compared to other businesses within our company and mine seemed to have much more sustainability. People were staying indefinitely and they were continuing to work, they were making a genuine difference. And that was again, all built around these good ethics and actually going"Yes we've got to sell, but let's do it in a way that's nice and that we enjoy"
stacey:Sounds a little bit like the tortoise and the hare, so he's doing everything the right way is a little bit like that. So you've got this business to a point where you're pretty comfortable and you were working in pretty passively. So then what happened then?
fran:So, you know what, I still love my network marketing business. I still grow. It's still there but it. But it provides me with an income and therefore with an opportunity with both and income but also for some free time to look at other things and starting to expand my capability. I learned so much through that journey of building that business for 10 years, but I suddenly realised I was sitting on this wealth of knowledge plus a real desire and also the finance and the time to do something different. I think sometimes you don't realise the value that you have. I'm very British. I don't like trump i find all that stuff quite difficult. I got to point where i realised i was actually sitting on a huge amount of knowledge that will genuinely help people. I just had to get over myself and start talking about it. So I started a little online community under the brand franbeingglobal, which is my twitter handle and it just got used for that. So created an online forum where I'm helping anybody that's really interested in business and just sharing loads of advice and tips and a lot the emotional stuff that it takes to go through business as well as the practical stuff. I'm not going to claim to be an expert, But I can talk about my experiences and I got an amazing response from that. So that's developed now into doing coaching, training, retreats, those kind of things to help to share some of that knowledge, but also really pull people together who are on that journey and don't want to do it on their own. Business owners know it can be incredibly lonely and it's something that I've had to deal with over the years and even if you have got people around you, it can still feel quite lonely and to have a community of people that you can be really honest and share the challenges and the highs and the lows and then also mentors and supporters that can also help you. That's really powerful. So that was one thing that evolved. And then on the other side I then started getting lots of opportunities talking to lots of people. I started doing some strategic workforce, bettering corporates and helping them look at their business strategy. And then I ended up meeting an ex pro football and he asked me to do some work with him and to see if I could support the foundation. And that's when I was funnelled into a whole other company, which is incredibly exciting.
stacey:There's a couple of really good nuggets that I think our audience would really enjoy hearing about. So I think when you talked a little bit about starting your online forum in fact in a facebook group, right?
fran:Yeah that's right! As i said before I'm not an expert but I know you can have pages, whatever, but I just did a group because I felt that people were going to share stuff in there that maybe they don't want their friends seeing if they're having challenges, so in a group, but at least they know it's only the membership of that group and everyone that's in that group is going to pretty much saying the same thing, so it's a good safety net.
stacey:And it's just a great forum to be able to share the successes challenges, but also, um, ask questions and really helped to progress outside of what you're portraying on perhaps your key social media pages, whether it's your facebook page or an instagram page or whatever. So that was great. Another thing that I've obviously observed you doing within that group, and I think across facebook too, is you utilize facebook live a lot and I'd love to talk to you about that because I'm actually a big fan of facebook live and I think it's a phenomenal way to get growth and to get to improve your reach far beyond anything you would get organically. So talk to me a little bit about how did that, how did you get started doing that and how have you. How have you found that's helped your group or your coaching?
fran:Well, I think the interesting thing was prior to doing that and I tried to do very professional, prerecorded videos and I spent time editing them and so on and at the end they were pretty average and because I felt the pressure of recording and then disliking some of it so it turned into lots of cuts and takes. But still the actual quality of it wasn't very authentic and it wasn't very good and I remember having a chat to a very good friend of mine. He said to me, it's just not you. It doesn't reflect who you are and you need to get better at reflecting you are. And I just thought, oh, I'm just going to try and do it live, so I just thought I'm going to do it live and just see how it goes and bizarrely although you feel quite subconscious because you can't delete it and undo what you say. In a funny kind of way, it was really good because once it was done, it was done. The fact that I couldn't change it was a good thing because it saved me hours of spending doing it and it meant that like the generated content much quicker, but also I felt it became much more authentic if I said something wrong. I just sort of had a laugh and then I love the fact that once i'm live people can interact and their thumbs upping and see them asking questions. So it just became a really nice way to actually communicate and to share that message and I think because people are part of it and they're watching it live with you, they feel more part of it as well. So they feel like you're talking to them. So yeah, it's just a real authenticity. So yeah, two main reasons that authenticity, but also to be quite honest, saving time.
stacey:Yeah. I can totally relate to that actually because I think recording video you can just do it with the podcast recording intros. I can't tell you how many times I probably recorded an intro 16 times and I'm like, what was wrong with the first one? But you just record it because it's not perfect and you just waste a lot of time. Coming off as an authentic and credible person is easier to accomplish that when you just do it live and you, I think if you live what you say. So for example, you always talk about being authentic and being transparent and just that's just who you are as a person and I think that translates through all of your brands. So that's easy for you. It's easy for you to just be who you are across those facebook lives. I imagine the only time that it becomes a challenge for anybody in business is if you're not as authentic as you say you are.
fran:Yes, maybe that's because, effectively, I'm now coaching other startups, entrepreneurs. I'm working in corporates and there is that thought of, oh my gosh, they could go on and see a facebook live I've done and not like it, but then I go, well, do you know what? That is who I am. And if they don't like it, I'm probably not going to be the right fit for them anyway. So having that real belief and faith in who you are and what you stand for is so valuable, and it's what people want these days, we're all fed up with the fakery that actually we want people that aren't perfect. I guess as long as you're willing to that you aren't great at one part, but then using it to your advantage. For example, if I find something that I want to share with my audience that I'm not great at, I'll find somebody within my audience and say, hey, come online with me. And I think that's quite empowering because it shows that I'm still learning as well and it makes them feel better about themselves.
stacey:It just makes you a real person. Somebody that you'd want to do business with. You know? So my next question, you mentioned there that you, through the process of setting up this group and talking to lots of different people and you've got speaking engagements then you met a pro footballer and you're about to tell us about this next business, but how did that come about? How did you, I guess one, how did you build that group winner? Where did your people that are inside the group come from and how did that lead onto those speaking engagements and getting introductions to high profile people?
fran:Well, several things were happening at the same time, so one was making this decision to start the group. If we wind back a little bit from there, I started talking more, openly, before I even start to the group, I started talking much more openly about what I was doing. Some of the advice I was giving and I feel one motivation is not about making money. It's about impact and helping people. So I thought, actually, I just need to talk about this stuff and help as many people as possible. So I started crafting some talks when I went to networking events and talking to people and that helped then refine my message is to get a few key messages of how I could help people and when I go to, for example, a local networking events, I would speak to somebody and I would share with them a bit of content rather than trying to sell to them. I would share with them a theory or an idea or something that I thought would help them or I would try and connect them with someone else that I thought would help them and very quickly I became quite a trusted member of those communities and then I stopped being asked to talk at some of those events and I think if you do any networking events in business, if you've got really good content to share and you have to work hard. Again, it's not like it just comes to you in a lightning bolt, you actually have to sit and spend some time thinking about how I do things, why I do them and crafting that into a really useful message. But once I've done that, I could then go to these events and I could talk at these events and offer real value with no expectation of return, but just to say here's some great value. And that started to build an audience of people were interested in what I was doing, what I was saying and so they wanted to follow me. So the next natural progression was to start this forum. So we already have quite a few people that were friend requested me on facebook. I hadn't been into Linkedin or into twitter prior to any of this, so all of a sudden I started getting into those forums and then started connecting with people through those, so that on the day that I decided to launch this forum. In the first week we got a couple of 500 members in the first three weeks, so it went really, really quickly, but the exciting thing about it was because I kept offering really good valuable content engagement rate was bonkers and it's still up at about 95 percent of the members were engaged in the forum, so people were not just becoming members. They were actually engaging in it and I think that just comes from offering this good content.
stacey:Great. I think that's a really important point because that's the source of any great marketing material which is offering value to the end consumer. You don't want to just be focused on pitching what you're doing all the time. I think if you just go into it with a mindset of offering value and actually don't even expect anything back in return, that guess what? Funnily enough, it actually does come back in three fold.
Speaker 3:It's loads of people's help, so why have you done this, what are you doing? For me, the forum is almost a little bit of a game in terms of fulfillment, in terms of like an amazing comments from people that private message me and say this has helped me. It's a sense of fulfillment, but I get this is amazing. I can't believe I'm having this kind of impact and I do it for that. Not for any other reason. Then I get people saying to me will you coach me and can i come on a training course? Which then makes me want to create something... But that's mainly comes from just enjoying it. I guess that comes back to business if are genuinely passionate and enjoy what you do. It's so easy to create content and it doesn't feel like work. It just feels really enjoyable.
stacey:An interesting thing I just noticed that you said there was, it was when people started to comment and reach out to you privately and telling you what an impact you had made that they were asking for what's next. So what I find interesting about that is that you didn't go into it with a pipeline in mind, you just started this community where you just giving value. You were helping people. You were just telling them about, you know, because you do share a little personal information and you know, feelings and good things and bad things and insight into what's happening within your business. And obviously that's what people relate to. And it was only after that sort of proof of concept that you then decided to actually launch a coaching program or some mentoring. Was that right?
fran:Absolutely. And if I'm completely honest, I'm still processing some of that at the moment because I didn't start it for myself but because I wanted to give back, not because I wanted to monetise it. But it gets the point where people genuinely want something. So you have to give people what they're looking for. So I had to then spend some time actually back-pedalling and going, okay, so what could I do here? And understanding my own value I'm looking at it. Great, okay, so I've got so how can I package that up to make it valuable for somebody so that they actually would want to buy it, but to a point that you did buy it, it's going to get them even more value than they're getting in the form of the moment. Yeah. So in need came out for people asking for one for coaching or group coaching sessions. And again, I'm really honest with people. I'm not a professional coach. I have not done any formal qualifications in coaching. However, I built a sales organisation of over a thousand people and supported them in growing their businesses, which is probably better preparation for that kind of business than actually learning how you should do it.
stacey:Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's a tangible result because you've done it. It's not just theory, it's practical.
:I guess that's part of my theory as well as I would always keep growing businesses around this because that's what will keep me relevant and keeps me able to offer good value to other people running businesses because I'm still growing them and i'm still remembering the challenges and the highs and the lows and the good and the bad, how the economy's affecting things at the moment and everything that's going on.
stacey:Yeah, that makes total sense. So going back to these networking events you were doing, you're obviously sharing your value and you know, a couple of the subjects that you really like to talk about. Somewhere in the mix of this, you were introduced to a pro footballer which we think led onto the next business.
fran:Yeah. So actually that came through linkedin. So from raising my profile he was. Well, I say it came from linkedin. Somebody said to him, you need to speak to fran. So he contacted me through linkedin and he said, somebody told that I need to speak to you, I come speak to you, and at that time, and still now I do get quite a few requests like that. Anyway, I said to him, if you can come to me on this date, this time we'll have a cup of coffee and let's have a chat. But actually when he turns up, he had such an amazing proposition and he needed some help and I actually felt like I could help. So what he had was as an expert football, he'd set up a charitable foundation in 2015, which helps homeless and severely disadvantaged 16 to 24 year olds get into education, employment and training. Using the universal passion for football to do this. Now, the funny thing is, I'm not interested in football at all, or at least I wasn't at this point. So I've got this really enthusiastic footballer telling me how amazing football is. But luckily I loved the fact that it was being used for such a good cause. So what they do is they take these 16-24 year olds who usually probably wouldn't accept help because they're very anti establishment, and life has dealt them some pretty tough cards, but because they're coming from a place of football and St Jude, what if you want to come play football once a week for 10 weeks, all of a sudden these young people start engaging. So they get them along to apprenticeship football club once a week, 10 weeks where they do a morning of football training and an often thing of careers and education training. They have 100 percent success record that these young people leave the program either in employment, education and training. So it's hugely successful foundation. So first things first was he wanted me on board, so he may be a director of that foundation, which I was happy to do to support them. But then I wanted to help them find a sustainable funding model for their foundation because what they were doing was fantastic. But it meant them going round like a charity cap in hand, saying two different people, please will you sponsor us so we can do more programs. Now my big belief is that charity is amazing, but if you want to make an impact in the world, you've got to use business. Business is where the resource is and business is also sustainable and scalable. So I suggested that we found a way to make it into a business. Cut a long story short, I came up with a model that he loved so much that we agreed to go 50/ 50 in a new company. So what we're doing now is we are using the street soccer program and we're attaching that to a corporate events package so corporates can sponsor a cohort of young people and when they sponsor these young people as part of the deal, they actually get to come to a premiership football club and then they get to come to these 12 football clubs that we've partnered with and they get to have a kind of company way day. So in the morning they'll do some training around one of the goals that the company are working on and then it goes a little bit of this because then we're going to split them into two teams and what they have to do is in their teams have these are the execs that have come from the corporate, they have to deliver in the afternoon part of the training session to the vulnerable young people, so they have to find engaging, exciting ways to deliver the trainings for young people, which means in the Austin when they get to meet the young people that they're sponsoring to add value, they'll get to know them as well, which will be quite confronting and being at the end of the day, they'll get the opportunity to telephone mentor those young people just 15 minutes a week through the 10 weeks, but also be part of their graduation and we'll get them to get the corporate head office when they graduate so that everybody can share what they've learned through the experience.
stacey:That's so great. So I mean there must be a lot of corporates out there that are really looking for the rise of the sort of social enterprising and wanting to give back and it's almost an expectation isn't it, from the corporate social responsibility perspective. So yeah, I think the concept sounds incredible.
fran:A big part of my drive on this is that I see loads of companies wanting to do their corporate social investment, but it's all very hands off. It's just sending a cheque. And my view is if you want to actually make a difference, you need to get some value from that and sending a check doesn't give you any value. Whereas with this, your staff will come out more engaged and we're already looking. We've already been had dental for to work with some of the biggest universities in the UK that believe in what we're doing so much, but they're going to start creating some data around what we're doing in terms of staff engagement and those kind of things that we can actually prove the value that an exec is getting and a company is getting as well as the value that a young person is getting from coming through the program.
stacey:I mean, I love the concept. You know, I run a small business and we do an annual team day where we get the whole team together from around the country and we all go out and do something fun together and I just know that though we're only doing it once a year at the moment, I've been looking at whether I should be doing that more often because when we are discussing things like how we want to be giving back and how we want to make a social impact, that's what really gets them excited. You know, they're really engaged in that sort of aspect. They've got loads of ideas around it. They're very creative. They think of things that I had never even thought of. So I can absolutely see how even, you know, in a more corporate level, you know, the direction they must be able to take things in and just getting the people that are involved are excited about something that's outside of their normal corporate office job must be exciting for them.
fran:Yeah, t's making it more tangible. If you talk about the next generation of workforce coming through, they want more than a salary and if they don't get it, they're not going to stick around for you. Employee engagement is a huge, huge issue at the moment. And the best way that I've seen is to get them engaged and connected to a socially good cause because then they feel much more connected to their company because their company is empowering them to make an impact in the world. Which at the, at the end of the day is what most of us want these days is to make a genuine impact and the difference with this program is not only is it hands on because they go through the whole 10 week pro program with the young people, they are actually going to have that, not just the one day it's going to be an ongoing thing where it's flesh and blood. They get to meet the young people, getting the young people to come to their office and we're already talking to some of our first corporate clients who are actually talking about the opportunity to employ some young people when they finish the program. So actually we might get some of those homeless young people now even jobs at the end of it with the company that sponsored them.
stacey:That's really exciting. And I think one thing I want to dip into a little bit here that I've observed, because I'm obviously I'm inside of your facebook community as well, is that you are documenting that entire journey.
fran:Yeah. So it's a tie in to the sort of franbeglobal brand. The day I launched the forum was the day that I met and agreed to go 50/ 50 on this new company and that was part of the motivation to do it because I know what it takes to set up a new business. I've set up other businesses over the years. I've also been a non EXEC director on other company boards. I know all of that stuff and realising how much I know. I thought actually what's the best way to disseminate this to people that are starting up. And for me the best way was let's just record the whole journey, so every step of the way, everything that we do for the new start up, I record a little video and say dies, you know, this is what's happening. The good and the bad. So it's not a case study and everything is perfect. We had a thing recently where the brands and came back and we didn't. None of us liked it and then it was like, oh my goodness, we're trying to launch and we haven't got a logo, so I shared how we dealt with that, how we break it down, how we back-pedalled. So sharing that through the communities so that other people can start to see actually what is it when you start a new company, what's it going to be like? What actually goes on? I'm actually how much commitment is involved because we see dragon's den on TV and somebody getting, you know,$100,000 investment with all that was easy, but you don't see all the stuff that goes into it before then to make change and get somebody to that point, let alone what happens after that.
stacey:I think it's important for people to see the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, that's the reason that there aren't more people running businesses because they are nervous about those sorts of things or aren't willing to put in the work to actually complete and, and run a successful business. Or the flip side is just not knowing what to do in situation. So I think seeing that it's not all as glamorous as it sometimes seems on the surface of watching someone else's social media page, but actually the gritty stuff that's happening behind the scenes that you're documenting. I think it's just just amazing.
fran:Yeah, I hope people also see that we have a lot of fun. It's one of those things that we don't probably record as much because there's a lot of laughter, but I think people get from me the excitement that we are having fun and again, realising that with this stuff, even when things go wrong, you can still smile through it and as long as you're mitigating risks enough and you won't do something stupid, you can still actually have a lot of fun even when things go wrong. But the reality is it's hard work and that's what I want to share with people. But the hard work that it's going to take to do this and the reality about me even know it may that I'm on the forum in a years time going, do you know what? None of it worked. We lost, we lost everything. I'm going to have to start again and if that's the case, great. Because again, welcome to the real world. That's what happens. We will do everything we can for that not to happen of course, because it's a very important social cause that we're working towards, but that may be the way it goes. And when I decided to record it, I thought whatever happens, I'm sharing this because people need to see what happens in real life.
stacey:I think it's really good. Well, I want to take you back to the early stages because I can imagine that there might be a lot of people reading this saying"oh, this all sounds fantastic and it's so exciting and there's so many things happening, but this part of the journey is, it's easy for you to say that if it all falls apart, that who really, you know, I'll just start again because you've got that support and the financial support, I guess from your, your very first business, which is helping to kind of feed you through the rest of this journey". So let's think a little bit about those people that are starting out right at the beginning...What's the first piece of advice maybe that you would give somebody that's looking at transitioning from doing their business on the side and still working full time and looking to transition into making their business full time. What's a piece of advice that you would offer them, um, to sort of progress that, make that journey happen a little bit quicker?
fran:This is going to sound like really bizarre advice, but actually to not focus on the money which might sound like really bad business advice and if you take it too literally probably is a bit, but one of the biggest challenges that I see small business owners have is they focus on where's the next buck coming from which if you are reliant on the business, of course that is going to be a priority, but what happens when you do that? You get so focused on it that you often miss all the opportunities and you extract the joy out of your business because you're focusing on it just for money. So even if it means you've got to go and work a day job and build your business in the evenings and that takes the pressure off, then go do that. Rather than becoming obsessed with where the next deal is coming from because that isn't it. I always think humans have a sixth sense, right? You may have heard of a guy called Matthew Sied, he's a big sports commentator offering advice for the Sunday Times. He wrote a book called bounce. I've had the pleasure of spending some time with him a few years ago. He was talking, he's a Olympic table tennis player. I think he got silver medal or something that is pretty good. Right. And his reaction times have been tested at universities and that some of the best in the world. And one day he gets sent to interview a tennis player. So they're at the tennis courts and this guy's apparently got like one of the fastest serves. So Matthew says"serve a ball at me and I should be able to return it".
Speaker 3:I've got some of the fastest Reaction Times. I've got much more time than I've got with a ping pong bat. So he should be able to observe it and he cannot do it. And the reason you can't do it is because when that tennis player serves that tennis ball, it's not about reaction time, it's about how many return. Because when you look at that tennis player, you may not realise it, but if you're a tennis player, you see thousands of movements that you don't even know your brain sees, but your brain does see them. So you see all these movements and that's how a pro tennis player can return a ball to another tennis player. And I think it's the same when it comes to building a business. The customers out there, they can see stuff that they don't even realize they can see. And one thing they can see without a shadow of a doubt is any sense of desperation or need for money.
fran:And even if you're trying to hide it, it's like they can see it like that tennis player, see those tiny, tiny movements or whatever it is. And as soon as they sent that, of course their brains so alert, they're trying to sell me something. Oh, okay. Shutters up. End of. So, when you're in that position that you're desperate for the money, what happens is your, without even realizing it, you're telling people that and that really, really hinders you. So if you could find a way to do your business so that you are just loving it for the business, forget about the money. You just love what you do. So much. All of a sudden you'll find that you become more successful. And even me personally, I went through this not long ago. I had some expenses. I was moving house, all sorts of things, and I suddenly went okay I need to up my earnings and know what. For the first time in ages, I just couldn't bring money in because I was suddenly started focusing on the money again. It wasn't about doing what I was passionate about doing. It was about focusing on the money. So if you can try to stop focusing on the money; The caveat on this is what you're doing has to be commercial. There are so many small business owners with amazing, passionate ideas about things, but if we're completely honest and never going to be commercial, they're never actually going to turn a profit because the manufacturing costs are too high or there's just not the customer base. So again, if you don't know if your product's commercial, go and sit down, find a mentor, find somebody you don't even have to pay, go find somebody that you know that, that will be able to look at it. That's got a commercial mind and say to them if this commercial, because otherwise, again, it is a little bit like drawing blood from a stone, it's never quite take off.
stacey:Yeah, great advice. I think that is really, really good. So tell me just to wrap things up here, Fran, what's next on the agenda for what's in the pipeline? Have you got any full goal 17, which is the new business partnership business that you've just launched. Any marketing tactics up your sleeve that you're planning to implement?
fran:We have, if we pull it off, it will be amazing. We have a launch happening all being well in the next couple of weeks that we've been trying to work our contacts and beg, borrow and steal anybody else's good contacts to do a little launch events where we're going to hopefully drag in some professional footballers. We've got a big online TV channel that wants to film it if we can get a few people involved in it. It's. So we're going to do a little bit of a video PR stunt, but if it works it'll be great. So it's a new territory for me. We had a meeting the other day and apparently we're all wearing track suits, which I'm not thrilled about, but thats what happens when you work with footballers all of the time.
stacey:Well that sounds so exciting to you. I'm so looking forward to hearing a little bit more about that. Y
fran:Yeah, and I was going to tell them that it's just business as usual. Keep putting stuff on the forum, keep sharing the message and just again, advice for any business owner. Just see where the wind takes you. I don't know what's coming up next, but I'm just getting myself out there speaking slots of people, building lots of relationships, working with lots of people and let's see what happens.
stacey:So Fran, how can we reach out to you? How can we get in touch? Where do we find you? Tell us a little bit about where we can locate you online.
fran:So on facebook it is to be global, so@Franbglobal and I think global all one word. So that's both my personal profile and you'll find the facebook group again, please do join us. Come and join the craziness that goes on in the group and join the conversation on twitter. Again, it's all franbglobal, so you can just follow that and if you want to watch this typically be feeds from goal 17, that's goal17global. That is, is more of a corporate product. If anybody here is corporate, we'll be doing a lot more on linkedin because it is aimed at companies with sort of at least 100,000 turnover plus. So if anybody's interested about that come follow the journey, but if you're a small business owner and you just want to see, learn the lessons and see how it takes and just be part of the fun, then facebook and twitter and still connect on Linkedin as well. But that is the global bits is where you'll find interesting content.
stacey:Thank you so much fun. I've really enjoyed listening to your journey and the amount of things you have going on right now is just really exciting. So I think we're looking forward to following your journey and, and seeing what's next for you. Really. So thank you so much for joining us on the show. I really appreciate your time
fran:Thank you Stacey, it's been wonderful talking to you. I'm really excited seeing stuff that you're creating as well. Thanks so much. See you soon.
stacey:I loved this interview with fran, she has so much energy. I love it. Here are my top three attention grabbers from this episode. Attention grabber number one. Utilize facebook live to be able to show off who you are as a personality gives you so much authority. How it made her more authentic. It just meant that she wasn't recording different versions of videos over and over again and try to edit them. She just really just put herself out there and wasn't so focused on making the message perfect. She was just focused on making honest and I think for anybody that is living their true core values as a person and through their business, that is something that you shouldn't be afraid to do. So I think utilizing facebook live's and you know, one of the top tips that at times she doesn't worry about all the editing, she just gets out there and does it and it's done and it goes and does the work for her. So utilizing facebook live, even getting on instagram live, utilizing those free platforms, great advice. Attention grabber number two, proof of concept. One thing Fran talked about there was going out and testing the market before you actually develop a product or a service, so within her facebook community or a forum as she as she calls it, going and testing, you know, asking people questions, people responding to her advice about things and then them asking her to create a product I think is just fantastic piece of advice so she hasn't gone in and spend a bunch of time and money creating a new coaching program that she wants to deliver before she knew that people actually wanted to purchase it. So I think thinking about proving your concept is actually worth something before you go and invest either time or money and creating it. It's just a great piece of advice. Attention grabber number three, document your journey. That is so awesome. I, I love it and I think friend has such a good job of it too. For anybody that hasn't seen her online, please do go and check her out franbglobal. She just makes it a really, really great impact in terms of nobody's perfect, you know, she shows off the really good sides to her business, the winds or the fantastic success that they're having, but she also shows the challenges too and again, that just helps to build so much trust and I think she's doing that for one part of our business, but then her coaching business is also benefiting from that because people are seeing, you know, how she reacts to things that are challenging, how she gets on with things when there's a problem. Being able to show off that what really happens behind the scenes in business helps to build that trust and actually leads to more business for her. So documenting your journey. I think it's great. That's it for this episode. Don't forget to connect with Fran via her social media channels and I look forward to joining me. Next time we'll be meeting another business owner who will unlock the vault of marketing knowledge and provide us access to their secrets to success within their business.