Create a Scalable Business That Supports Your Lifestyle with Christo Hall

Let me ask you this: why did you first start your business?

Was it to support a lifestyle you desired? To earn more while working less?

Did you achieve that? Or, do you feel like you’re trapped in the day-to-day, working for your business rather than having your business work for you?

If you are, it’s ok because you’re not alone and you can achieve that goal just like today’s special guest. 

Christo Hall is the founder of Basic Bananas, marketing education and coaching company to small business owners. He has been growing the company for the past decade in between surfing and travelling the world on a motorbike, while the business continues to operate. 

He has a business by his (and his wife’s) design, and he’s here today to share some knowledge bombs on how you can clone yourself and have a business that supports the lifestyle you desire.

Mentioned in Today's Episode

• Basic Bananas
• Clever Bunch Podcast
• Fusemate white label team

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Transcript

Anthony: Hey, Christo, thank you so much for making a pit stop from all your intrepid travels to join us today.

Christo: No worries it's awesome to be on here, thanks mate. Thank you for having me.

Anthony: So those of you who don't know Christo is actually part fish, he loves the ocean, he surfs pretty much almost like every day. If I'm not mistaken, you also just got back from some intrepid travels in South America or Europe, wasn't it?

Christo: Well yeah, Europe, actually went all the way from Europe to Asia motorbike adventure, did the Silk Road, so I went from 37 countries, started in Switzerland and ended in Kazakhstan. So I went through a lot of Stans all the Stans like. I think I was in Pakistan to Tajikistan ended in Kazakhstan, was a lot of Stans, but Kyrgyzstan, it was really good.

Anthony: And you go back safely in one piece, that's awesome.

Christo: Yeah, yes, that was really good and yeah, the surfing thing, I had to surf this morning so I'm happy I'm present here for you now.

Anthony: Now, well thanks very much for joining us. I find that it's Interesting that you have is this real, something I've really enjoyed seeing, you know, from afar, or wherever either of us are in the world, you know, on Facebook and seeing this boundless mix of work and play this lifestyle that you and your wife Francisca really enjoy.

Is this like something that you've always envisioned from the start and that's something that you've been intentional with building up for yourself?

Christo: Yeah, totally. So I had other previous businesses before like in the surfing industry and way back in the good old days, I used to compete surfing as a career for quite a few years and once I started these other businesses they were quite like tied to an area like I had a manufacturing business, which made learner surfboards and so it was kind of like factories stuck there and not that you can't have a great lifestyle with that style of business but once I sold out of that, it was like, you know what? I used to get to surf for a living and travel around the world.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: And this is terrible, I'm like tied to a business and so and then the same with Francisca but her background's Swiss, we didn't want it that like, you know, she has a job and can maybe go, you know, four weeks holidays a year where she's not gonna be able to see a family you know, living in Australia. 

So was basically very much with Basic Bananas was very much kind of built that way with the lifestyle first, because I think most people do the opposite, it's like, they see an opportunity for money, or their, what they're trained in, their skill or a passion or something that's like, turn it into a business, business, business, but then suddenly, you know, like, they realize they're working harder than they ever did before and…

Anthony: Right and they could potentially lose the love that they once had for something that they were passionate about, which is a shame.

Christo: Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Anthony: Yeah, how, like, so for those who don't know like at the, so as of like today you work you obviously you're the founder with Francisca of Basic Bananas so like, on any given day, what are you doing? And how are you helping small business owners?

Christo: Yep, well, I always do my own thing first I go for a surf in the morning if it was any typical day and…

Anthony: I miss the beach.

Christo: Yeah you do, yeah. Now I always like to and otherwise I don't feel like I'd function properly and it sort of wakes up my brain and gets the body alive, otherwise I feel like I'm half asleep all day. So I have a surf every morning and or at least yoga if it's really stormy and then or do both and then basically depending on the day, so at Basic Bananas we do a lot of marketing kind of education, hand holding of small business owners. So I'll come into the office this, I'm here in the office the headquarters in Narrabeen, it's an island.

Anthony: Yep, right.

Christo: But we run workshops in seven cities around Australia in Auckland, New Zealand, there's sessions in Canada by the team of our sessions in the States in California and in Texas and Switzerland, now we've launched so we have teams kind of all over the place.

Anthony: You're all over the place.

Christo: We're all over the place and running said what would typically look like a good day, like yesterday might be a good one. I'll come in, there'll be team running workshops holding people's hands basically to implement new marketing strategies so small business owners like, not like online business but anything like it'll be a you know, they'll be a chiropractor, an accountant, a karate school or styling school, I mean, manufacturing.

Anthony: Or e-commerce, right.

Christo: Yeah, totally, broad range and so and typically like smaller businesses like 10 or less staff. There's always the odd exception that are much bigger but you know, even one teams of one and so on and then so we hold their hand to help them implement marketing that helps their kind of you know, on the ground business grow and yeah.

So like yesterday, I come to the office, there's teams offering sessions, but I was online for an online session with our members just reviewing what they're actually doing like said, okay, get training and workshops on, work on this at the moment, it could be like working on a press release, for example, then they can send it through to get it reviewed.

Yesterday I spent a big portion like reviewing what people are doing and it's a basic team here, typically about 12 of us in the office at any, on any given day here in Narrabeen as well.

Anthony: That's cool, so it's very hands on and it sounds like you know, more high level with a lot more of the strategy about helping them with the hand holding with the implementation too.

Christo: Exactly. So it's kind of like holding their hand and so that they can do it themselves and then or if they're outsourcing it, then they know what they're paying for and you know, have an understanding of what to look for to know whether it's being done right or not.

And then we have, you know, our office here we're on the northern base, so we're nowhere near the city 'cause we're close to the beach. We go and have like last Friday, we go and have a team meeting on the beach. We all got for a swim and it's a good setup, sometimes people say, “Why aren't you in the city?” You know, you get so much more business in Sydney city and with the other, I'm like, "No," I wanna be like, my favorite surf break is just like a 10 minute walk from the office.

Anthony: Right, well, I mean, it kind of makes sense. I mean, you're obviously you've created a business that helps facilitate your lifestyle, right, and I guess that's partly why a lot of us, you know, create our business in the first place. Like, we're not looking to get out of that typical traditional cubicle nation, you know, and create something more on our own terms for ourselves, and our families as well, you know, and you're doing the same I mean, you're kind of like eating your own dog food in that way.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: So something I was wondering is like, at what stage should people, what do you say should typically find business owners coming to you at? Do they, are they in the place where they've lost that vision that you're really clear on personally? Or you know, or they are much further along? Like where do you, where are they sort of people coming to you when they're like, "Christo, help me?"

Christo: Yeah, it's, there are always exceptions so it can be at any number of points but however, there are a few like, common places people come to us, it could be that they've been in business for a long time, like they've been in business, and it's just feels like it's plateaued.

But I think what happens in every business is we, were overly optimistic. Like when people start a business, they're overly optimistic, it's like, they got all the ideas in the world, and it's gonna be exciting and then once you actually start implementing stuff to try and make it work or scratching your head going, "What do I do now to make this thing work?" That can only last so long, so kind of gonna get to this point of like, "Okay, now I've run out of ideas, "and maybe I've run out for four years," like that might not be a really quick cycle but you know, that might be around year four and five, we have, tend to have a lot of people come to us and also, much longer.

People have been in business for 30 years maybe 25 years, and they're just, it's just been ticking along, year after year, or it's even started to go backwards because the landscape's changed. Every business has seasons, whether we like it or not, you know, a season for an industry might last five or 10 years.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: But everyone will have this winter, it comes at some point for every business like we get, we're fortunate to work with hundreds of businesses every year and I can say like, no industry, no business ever just ticks by you know, like year after year, you have to keep your finger on the pulse and be adjusting and so it does adjust many times that people tend to come to us. So it's like, “We're going backwards. The industry's changed”. What we used to do, you know, an ad in the white pages doesn't work anymore, the phone doesn't ring with new inquiries, and their old customer base might be dwindling. Sometimes too people whether who are brand new and very gung ho, you know, will come and work with us as well.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: Might be like in their first year where they're just like, "You know what, I wanna do it right "from the start." And then they can kind of accelerate their curve of growth with their business by working with us on that level as well, yeah.

Anthony: Right, do you feel like it's like a lot of mindset or some baggage that you have to sometimes break through in order to be able to help them get them back and sort of reset with you?

Christo: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If we, 'cause we provide a lot of different things. So we do like half day workshops, where people can come and then get a bunch of ideas and go away and implement. And then we give a lot of resources away on our Basic Bananas website, like it's through, that you're probably well aware of our own podcast, we have video tips, we have articles, we give away a lot of value.

Anthony: You do, right, you eat your own dog food in that way and that's for sure.

Christo: Thank you, but if people when they work with us in more depth, so like we have a year-long hand holding where we're very much working through like part of their marketing, well basically help you roll out their marketing plan and we're kind of almost like part of their team, on that one, now I actually one, of our like pre we kind of do like an interview with them and we assess whether it was certain that they can be worked, you know that they'll work well, like, so we look at different areas and question them on like basically looking at their business there were certain we can help them grow. 

But on the other side, we do ask personal questions like, you know, like, how coachable are you? How open are you to changing things? Like 'cause you understand if we keep doing what you've done, you're gonna get what you've always got, we're going, you're going to have like these kind of, oh crap moments, where we go, here's what we're gonna do and in your head, you're gonna go, "Oh, crap, like, really?" And yes, the answer is really, we're gonna hold your hand.

So and we've, you know, we've been through this a lot of times and of course, we'll reduce risk in every way possible and there'll be most of the time, that we know the risk will be a bit of your time because we know what we're doing we know how to look over it and make it happen quickly, that you might have to, you know, it's like putting yourself out there in different ways when it comes to marketing and it's always uncomfortable doing things you haven't done like I think that's just human nature, we're all kind of strange creatures aren't we?

It's exciting when it's successful but like, you know, marketing is amazing when it's working people love it, it's like addictive, it's this, you know, growth drug but then when it's not working, it's like a torture that you're implementing. You're looking at your to do list in the morning and there's an item, you don't know how to do it and you don't.

Anthony: Yep.

Christo: You gotta try and work it out and it's like, you tick off everything that's quick, familiar and easy to do but then you get to this unfamiliar thing, You know, you’re like argh!

Anthony: All this resistance just comes up, that's it.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: For all the quick ones are done, yeah.

Christo: Yeah, it's a little voice in our head. I, like I have a little voice in my head that.

Anthony: You get 'em too, right, well none of us are immune to it

Christo: Exactly, gets in the way of opportunity and tells us to go make a cup of tea instead of implementing that thing, stops us from exercising my mind tries to like stop me from exercising, and it's just like, "Oh, you know what?" My ends a morning off or whatever. You know, I'm like, quick get out there.

Anthony: This is how we're gonna do it, self-hacks like okay, so if I get this done and get this done then I get my coffee, then I get my tea, then yeah, so coffee is mine my drug of choice actually, that's what I really enjoy.

So do you find that there's over time like you've been doing this for so obviously many years but with Bananas you've worked with like thousands of business owners do you find at this point now that you start to see some similarities between the people that you work with those that you turn away 'cause you don't take anyone on? Like you're not like these online fads where it's like, you know, build a seven figure business in 10 days in your undies type of thing, I think you guys are really authentic and genuine. And you'll turn people away that you feel like they're a good fit like, so the people that are not going all the way through your program and actually, you know, like, that you work with and change their business, like what are some of the commonalities that those businesses have that the others don't who either fail or you don't work with them at all?

Christo: Yeah, we'll definitely what you've just said, even ourselves, like you said that we ourselves aren't like the, you know, in 10 times your business in three months kind of thing. We also don't like that as a customer. Like, if someone's sort of calling something that's not realistic. Obviously, it could be realistic, if it depending on the, on, you know, maybe for one or two clients, you know, out of 100, or whatever, you know, they could, there's always exceptions, but just calling that stuff like going, look, I recently had someone and that was the part of the probably, one of the teams was doing the interview conversations about our program and then he showed me and I was I better have a phone call with this guy, you know, just like, "Hey, this is," you know, we don't wanna market and also it's not I think people are smarter than that nowadays, you know what I mean? Like it's almost can deter you a bit by its by stating these over the top claims, so basically I had a conversation with him I was like, you know what this isn't like we don't wanna push that and that's the kind of thing people are gonna look at and get really skeptical about, like you're probably actually shooting yourself in the foot a little bit, you know, you'll get some people that want like a lotto win, like but my advice to them would be go and buy a lotto ticket, you'll probably have a better chance of success than, this thing, you know what I mean? Like…

Anthony: Yeah

Christo: So we do look at that we look at people being ethical with their business we have no interest in, with, we're fortunate to be in a place where we can be selective and it's not just about you know, money for survival, which is why no, we're blessed in that sense, we're at that position where it's it doesn't, you know, that if someone's doing something unethical, but straight up it would be a no, we don't want anything to do with it because also our team we wanna look at the nitty gritty, like the details and really wanna help everyone.

We celebrate our members and our customers wins every week on Friday team meeting, we all share them from that week, and we get excited by it for the next week, you know, like it's a, we wanna be going, "Oh my goodness these guys," and it's helped their family and it's helped this, so it's ,cause it's real businesses. So another common thing within the businesses we see, they tend to do the best, either have a good product or service.

Anthony: Yeah.

Christo: They actually you know, they provide good value to people there's never anything that's a trick in them or just selling and selling a you know, a second rate product or service because no matter how good your marketing is, if you're driving sales to something that's not amazing, it's gonna peak and then the bottom is gonna drop out of it.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: Like it's not sustainable. Sustainable means you know, you get someone in the door with a marketing campaign and the lifetime value from that because they come back and they buy again, they buy again, and they buy again, and they buy again, not only because of you've got like a great nurture sequence in terms of your marketing to look after them and stay front set on our mind.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: But also, they love your product or service, you know, also they're like, "You know what? I remember you because you staying in touch "with your frequent marketing, but I'm also stoked on "how the product or service was." So now...

Anthony: And now talk about you, yeah.

Christo: Yeah, exactly, and tell their friends about it, yeah. So that's, so that you get a lifetime or so whenever you get a new customer in it's then like maximizing the return you get from that thing forever, basically, and that comes with a good product or service and motivated people. There's always that within the individuals, like, you know, people have to be open to doing new things and you know, just motivated people in general it does, it gets a little bit, it like, like I think once you get momentum it gets easier...

Anthony: Do you think there's the momentum like is that more of a, do you think that's more of an extrinsic motivation rather than internal one? Do you see one is better to start with than the other? Like, really understanding your why? I think it was, was that Simon Sinek that was that…?

Christo: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, having a big understanding of your why and that kind of internal motivation that people have is awesome, so they're clear on their why. It does happen the other way though to like, where sometimes people will join and they're like, "Oh, like I wanna bet on bits," unsure of things and then they sit in a room and someone across the table from them says, "I just got the biggest customer "I've ever got in 10 years. "I just implemented that thing that we spoke about "in the last session, you know, with you guys advice," and it was at, happened and now I've got another inquiry and then that person that's sitting there kind of resisting or they had some personal block or resistance as to heating.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: They suddenly go, "Ah, you know, why didn't I do that?" And then we're like, "Come here, like, do it." And then they kind of get that lift from seeing a result, you know, and then they're kind of like, and then the next thing is it is, it does sort of snowball a little bit as well. So I think it goes two fold, I think anyone, you know, no matter how gung ho you are internally, if over time, you don't see things grow, you just bounce to the next thing you know, like it, you get pulled off or.

Anthony: You get demotivated, yeah.

Christo: Yeah, exactly.

Anthony: Do you find people like, those people that are probably feeling a little bit like scattered now, you know, and they're heading into like, 2000, 2020, they're feeling a little scared, they had their business is kind of working, but it's not really growing like, is there something like that you would recommend for them to sort of, or some way to sort of get to send it in order to be able to get focused, you know, do you sort of encourage people to sort of review everything and pair things back before moving forward again? You know, do you have such sort of approach?

Christo: Yeah, we do, 'cause, usually, if it's the total overwhelm, there's some level of like, well, there's just not a level of clarity like not a clear understanding of the destination, they want ahead and could be then if they even if they do know that it like, like knowing I wanna hit like, let's say, it wasn't money go like you say, you know, I wanna hit $500,000 a month or so and that was like someone's goal to hit that thing, that would need to typically still tie to some of like the why things like you were saying so their own personal reasons why they'd wanna hit that figure.

So we, because we work with humans, we will set a lot of business goals and measures and it could be as practical as like, you know, 10,000 followers on Instagram, a monthly revenue, you know, hit 250,000 over three months consistently.

So we set these kind of database to 10,000 like we set these real kind of clear and then we sort of work backwards and try to make plans and all that. But then we also go, why do we wanna hit that? What are you gonna do for yourself when you hit that? And we break it into separate goals like personal, in terms of like, what are you gonna do for yourself in terms of health? What are you gonna do in terms of a gift, a toy for yourself? You know, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna learn? Like we set these so it kind of is mind blowing, and we haven't said, how are we gonna celebrate. Like, so how are you gonna celebrate that goal when you hit it? So that they're kind of visualizing, will it be a family holiday? And then suddenly, because that then creates that clarity around, well, okay, why am I getting up in the morning? Or I need to do this annoying thing off the to-do list, or I need to call this person to potentially grow the business. You know, I really want that holiday, so let's do it.

Anthony: Right, yeah, it's I like that because it's also starting to create a like a mindset of a why so these things like doing it for not just money, like I mean, you see a lot of that online, so it's all revenue, revenue, revenue but I like that if touching on like personal goals or benefit or rewards and family, like I'm doing this for my family, but that in itself can be a really strong way, as well, just by setting these goals as a byproduct.

I mean, I love that I'm a big proponent of that myself and of setting goals, you know, like the coffee.

Christo: Yeah. Have a coffee and set the goals a good, like a straightforward framework, usually what we'd say, so it's like, look at a three months period, so look at the next 90 days and just define three outcomes you'd like to hit. So like three outcomes could be things like you know, 100 grand a month or Instagram followers to 10,000 or will be featured in the local newspaper three times or something that is, got an outcome based goals and then look at each one of those and go kind of what are three actions.

So if I wanna hit that within the next 90 day period, the next three months, what are three actions I can do for each one of these to get to each one of these goals? And then we kind of break that down into further actionable steps. So we might go, okay for to get to, yeah, 10 milestones.

Anthony: Yeah, there's milestones, yeah.

Christo: Yeah, exactly. Then we work backwards and go, what do we need to do to break that down? So it's a good, that's a good way to go too, if people are feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Anthony: Yeah, breaks it down makes it feel more manageable.

Christo: Yeah, 'cause a year too often you set year, it's good to set yearly targets but you set a yearly target it's so far away that it's hard to get your head around and it's so far away that you can easily just ignore it and go, "I got time," but then the time ticks away.

Anthony: Doesn't it? oh, yeah. So I yeah, so I'm even sort of looking at like, even like a one month and three, and then probably no later than six like at this point, just because as you said, it just it's too far and things change a lot and priorities can change or a new strategy changes or different opportunities can come up and you want to not necessarily be closed off to those but you still have room for those, yeah, definitely.

In your business, like today, like anything from tools or working with people, the people that you actually work with, like what's probably, what's one thing you're doing to clone yourself in your business that helps sort of grow your business or it's adding revenue or setting time or in some way?

Christo: Yeah, well, always looking at over the concept idea is, if you're gonna do something more than once, how do you basically process it, like systemize it, automate it and move it off your plate, so you don't have to do it again.

Anthony: Nice.

Christo: So there are different ways to go breaking that down like that. If you're doing a task and it's like, okay, this is gonna be need to be done more than once, it could be anything, it could be putting a blog on a website and you go, "Okay, cool," clicking it and putting it up and whatever else, I'd, that's work I shouldn't be doing every time, I can do the click video or whatever for the blog, and then it gets saved into say, like a Drive folder, which then gets shared with the team. So we go, "Okay, how do I record the process?" First place I always go to clone is, is there a software that could do this? As the first choice because then it can be done perfectly and usually in a scalable kind of lower cost way?

Anthony: Yep.

Christo: If it's a task that a human has to do, then we'll look at it and go, "Okay, is it a virtual assistant?" You know, so we have a few remote team members that could do this, or is a contractor that would need to do like I can outsource to someone you know, I could saw someone on Upwork or whatever or move remove someone or isn't an in house team member here. So kinda almost pretty much working out that process.

Anthony: Yeah.

Christo: So it's kind of like the lowest expense to the business to the more expensive, you know, and see how we roll, so...

Anthony: I love that. I love that. And that also helps keep from my experience helps keep team members working on the more, you know, high growth, high leverage…

Christo: Yeah, exactly.

Anthony: High touch stuff, especially for when you're working with people.

Christo: Yeah, exactly and that should be the process for the team as well. So because we have in house team and remote team, the purpose with any business that we'll work with, we'll look at, okay, if they have someone looking after marketing with them, like say, the business owner and then might have a team member that's also doing marketing, we'll say that team member that's doing marketing should ideally start to build a marketing team for you, so that you're like a force in your industry.

So we'd say the same thing with that team member, they should be documenting what they're doing and then once you get to a point where they're overloaded with too many tasks we'll then get a remote assistant to start to work for that team member and that remote assistance reports to that team member, because that team member is the perfect person for them to report 'cause they know how to do the tasks.

So it's like suddenly that and the team member that's in house, or whatever that person can be finding the new things and working on new ideas and make sure you're always current and then that remote team member that's working say under them is doing all the tasks to fulfill the things that they already know how to do and then you do that. Ideally, the way we do that is kind of like to build like, pods of three, so you'd have an in house team member, and then eventually three team members, they report to that one and that would be like a real force, like, you know, you have a local accounting practice or a lawyer or a building company that has a team like that.

That's a low cost, low risk way to build the marketing team and be able to get a lot done that no, like a very small percentage of people in their industry would have that capacity to you know, just dominate and that kind of thing.

Anthony: Right. I love that, that's probably the most process like step by step systematic way of looking, of approaching that I've probably heard so far, like that was great. Like anyone can come away now from hearing that from you and start to actually implementing and get that in place and your aim for that exponential growth.

What you just said there about being able to outgun like other people in your space that don't have that type of resource like, that can be a whole different like new point of differentiation for like your business.

Christo: Absolutely.

Anthony: You know, separate you from the competition simply because you can just outplay them, you can out market them, you can out Facebook them.

Christo: Exactly.

Anthony: You can out email them just 'cause you have that capacity there and you've been able to create that capacity just by having as few processes. Man that was awesome, that's excellent.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: That's totally cool.

Christo: It's good I and you can step 'cause then the business owner themselves is not dependent on them, they can remove themselves in the marketing still powering. Or if you wanna sell the business you got to look here is, it's not only depended on me as the business owner, here's how the team does it you know, there is the team if they...

Anthony: That's your IP, yeah, that's what's really valuable because it's repeatable and then you can go surfing, all day.

Christo: Exactly. Exactly.

Anthony: Awesome. So when it comes to, so with technology and obviously business technology and everything is like moving it just feels like it's just moving so quickly these days like you there's like a new tool, a new technique on your Facebook feed, like every day like 10 times a day, like it's crazy.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: Like, so I wonder like, I'd like to get your opinion like, what's probably one thing that business owners are doing today in marketing or within running the day to day of their business that you think will probably change or completely, will be completely different in 10 years time?

Christo: Yeah, well, obviously a lot of the things with social media and so on. I think a lot of social media is almost like a land grab initially where you know when platforms like Facebook popped up, it was just like get as many likes quick, quick, quick get more than your competitors get everyone and then suddenly everyone's sick of looking at business posts online and you know on a platform like Facebook goes sorry now we're not even gonna show your posts to your, liked your page unless you pay us and saying that you know with Instagram itself, but I think more so what you'd rather than kind of like that mass volume but very targeted and very specific with who you're talking to, is always gonna be the way to go.

So the actual like what of what we're doing will change a lot. The concept of kinda like why we're doing it and kind of, let's say the how will change but it's like the kind of what ifs talking specifically to our customers and why we're doing that and being very targeted with who we're talking to, needs to stay the same and always be setting measures like this, we like to have reporting every continent, every week, how our numbers are going in the areas of marketing so it's, that stuff will stay the same but how we do it, it changes and it changes pretty quick.

Anthony: Yeah, it does.

Christo: So yeah, like, yeah, well, you think like Facebook ads is all now and it's spotted, but it was only was it four years, five years ago? Like it didn't even exist, you know, it wasn't that long ago, we were doing Facebook ads and people were like saying, you know, "F-off, get out of our newsfeed, "get out of, what are you doing?" Because people weren't used to ads on Facebook, it was just like, why is there an ad in my newsfeed suddenly, you know.

Anthony: Right.

Christo: That wasn't there very long ago and now it's like Facebook ads, like well, they've run out of ads, but you know, like everyone's competing for this same audience it's overlapping and it's not all that.

Anthony: And it's a now that now it's kind of like that trend's happening again, the LinkedIn at the moment, like with the organic, you know, and then it's kind of like Facebook in the early days, you know, where the organic reach is a bit higher but you wouldn't.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: You would think that well, history repeating themselves, same things kind of happen.

Christo: And it happened there, yeah, exactly.

Anthony: And there'll be something else and a whole new whatever social platform might.

Christo: Yeah and it's happening with Instagram like I believe at the moment where it's because they've well Instagram's owned by Facebook obviously so we know they're, what they've done in the past but they've also you know been segmenting us to, are you a business profile? Are you a personality? Are you a personal pro--?

You know like it's been kind of sign into, whereas a profile on Instagram up till they've started segmenting, previously, like prior to that was everyone was everyone like it was just didn't matter if you're a business or an individual, you've lost it everyone you know, you follow us and so they kind of segmenting and adds are now on there as well, so it's yeah, so I think in the online space, things will shift a bit, but I think the real ones that will survive are the ones that pay attention to kind of like what they're doing and why they're doing it and stick to plan and keep measuring and just understand that the tools and the strategies are gonna evolve along the way.

Anthony: Yeah.

Christo: But it's always gonna be the thing of the, you know, providing the best, like with content marketing, you just can't market average for the sake of marketing. Like if you're doing content marketing and things on, like, Facebook, it doesn't matter how many posts you put up, if they're all boring, you get just as much engagement like if you do that one was boring, you know.

Anthony: That's right, yeah, so it's not so much like the platform it's really about your message and it's, you know, really trying to get people's attention and like, interrupt them, while still mean adhering to your values, you know, and obviously doing marketing, obviously, in a very, you know, in a way that is obviously very pleasing and sort of engages, you know, and compels your audience, you know, regardless of the platform, you know, and regardless of the tools, and what you're saying is, is like, if you stick with that overarching philosophy, that's not gonna change whatever tools we use in the future.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: Makes sense.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: Christo, you're a busy man. So thank you so much for sharing all with us today a few knowledge bombs in there for sure the whole process and how to map that out for your team and then grow from there with insight it was just fantastic.

That is just awesome people can go away today and hopefully they will implement that or start to ready for to the 2020 so we can all basically just, you know, market and get our business out there and growing. So, yeah, where can people find out more about what you're doing and discover you online and get more of your awesome sauce and what you're doing and helping people with?

Christo: Thanks, mate. The best thing to do is just check out basicbananas.com. We have a podcast as well, if you're on a podcast app right now, you could check out the Peak Of The Bunch by Basic Bananas, you could just type Basic Bananas in, it'll come up on pretty much every podcast app.

Then also yeah, basicbananas.com we ran a lot of workshops, if you're in a city where there's the Blast Off Marketing Workshop, it's a really high value, super low cost.

Anthony: They are fantastic, it's three and a half hours of just knowledge bombs. They're awesome.

Christo: Yeah.

Anthony: And going to electristors or like website for those who are listening, like even just check out the website and the blog and their social and what they're doing and they really do, you know, basically, you know, action, everything that they do teach, you know, and you're definitely in good company if you join and hang out with them and their community and the rest of those, like minded, you know, business owners. Thank you, Christo.

Christo: Thank you, thanks for having me. I appreciate it and all the best.

Anthony: Bye.