Franziska: Hi there and welcome back!

I quickly wanted to share something with you a practice that we do at the beginning of every year. That is the practice of picking a theme or a topic for the year, for the businesses. I also do this in my personal life. Every year, I pick something, a topic that inspires me that helps me become an even better person, a better leader, a better business woman.

So for me personally, the theme that I have chosen is to surrender. For the businesses, however, the topic that we have chosen for Basic Bananas, The Business Hood, Ocean Lovers is “collaboration”. The reason why is because the future of entrepreneurship really lies in collaboration. I‘m a huge believer in collaborating versus competing. You know, so many business books talk about how you need to compete against your competitors and it‘s not really how the world works nowadays. Nowadays, to get ahead and to really grow and evolve a business is to focus on collaboration and also in co-creation. So that can work across different people. So for example, with your team, you can co-create with your team which means that you involve everyone in your team to create an even better culture. Or you can co-create with your customers, which again means you collaborate and co-create with your customers to make your products and services even more amazing. So you involve them with feedback and you make them feel special to be involved, also, of course, with “competitors”

Now, here at Basic Bananas, we actually get quite a lot of marketing agencies and marketing consultancies that join our programs here, our marketing programs. People often say, why would you accept them into your programs? We actually like them. We like them because they are making a difference in other businesses lives. The more that they grow, the more that they evolve with us and with our content here, the better they can serve businesses and that‘s really what we‘re all about.

So you can co-create in different levels, you can co-create even with ambassadors for your brands. Brand ambassadors which might either be your customers or it might just be strangers that want to be ambassadors for your brand. So, I believe that collaboration is going to be even bigger in 2018 and more important. Also, you can even collaborate and co-create with people in your industry, peers, or you can collaborate with other businesses that shares a similar market with you so you can all help each other grow and evolve your companies.

Now, if you would like to pick a theme or a topic for business, now is a good time to do that. This can be anything. It could be that your topic for this year is to grow. So it could be “growth”. It could be to dominate a specific skill or a specific area. It‘s really helpful to pick something that inspires you and if you do, please share below. I would love to read what you are picking, what your topic is for this year because it‘s always interesting to hear what other people are doing.

As always, if you know someone who needs to hear this message, please feel free to share it with them, also. Because for us, our whole vision here is to create ripple effects everywhere we go. Of course, you, as our co-creator, as our collaborator, you are all part of this. I‘m really excited to see what else this year is going to bring for all of us. Thanks again for watching and I‘ll see you next time.