Meet the Entrepreneur: Sally Franz

Meet the Entrepreneur: Sally Franz

Published on Tuesday, 23 August 2011 16:29

 

Sally Franz is an international speaker having appeared on The Today Show, Maury Povitch Show, and CNBC.

Her clients include: Intel, SONY, and Texaco-Chevron. She contributed to The New York Times Best Selling Series, Chicken Soup for the Soul.  Her books include Amazon Best Seller, Scrambled Leggs and Monster Lies. In an exclusive interview with RachaelO, she provides answers to a variety of entrepreneur-based questions:

What is the biggest goal that you have set yourself recently and achieved?
I have recently moved across country and have had to re-establish myself in a completely new market. Having made some serious progress, I can confirm that networking has been the answer.

What was the most entrepreneurial thing that you have ever done, or that you were most proud of?
I researched and patented a device that offers comfort for migraines. It is affordable, 100% reusable and non-invasive.

What is the most powerful or influential book that you have ever read?
"The Aladdin Factor", Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield (yup the Chicken Soup guys before they hit it big)

If you could recommend people to look at any one website for inspiration of for its value, what would it be and why?
I tell everyone to study the work of Marshall Rosenberg at www.cnvc.org. Marshall has made conflict resolution easy to understand and use.

As an entrepreneur, have you found any habits that are hard to break?
The hardest one of all is to learn to go home.

What is the most powerful lesson in business that you have learned?
That would be the advice I got from an old advertising buddy: Good, Cheap, Fast: pick 2. Once I learned how to explain that to a client I was never taken advantage of again.

From your recent contribution to the book Lessons Learned From The Recession, what was your advice to aspiring business leaders?
To use slow or down time to re-tool.

Have any of your business ventures ever failed? What went wrong?
I have lost bids for work, but many of them were for clients who were less than honourable...meaning they didn't really want a solution to their problem they just wanted the problem to go away or someone else to blame...namely me. It's easy to tell what they are up to through questioning either them or their employees.

What is your biggest and most audacious prediction for the next 12 – 18 months?
People will learn more and more how to bargain, swap and develop cooperative living to survive.

What key qualities to do you think that an entrepreneur needs to have, in order to realise their potential?
An understanding of basic economics, a willingness to ride the dream-wave no matter how long it takes, and an ability to tighten the belt without feeling sorry for oneself.

What was the first job that you did that developed or instigated your entrepreneurial spirit?
After jobs during high school at the drugstore and retail shop I knew I would end up working for myself.

If you could invite any 3 people to dinner, who would they be and why?
Jesus, Einstein and CS Lewis. Why? I want to learn more about how a daily perspective of eternity can enhance my effectiveness now.

Do you have any favourite motivational quotes that you can share?
"A coach is someone who makes you do what you never wanted to do, so you can become what you always wanted to be." Red Auerbach, US football coach.

What was your favourite purchase in the last 12 months?
 I'm not a techno-wiz, so I can't brag about a pocket-sized communications gizmo. But I LOVE my new Canon Powershot SD1200 camera. I am an avid photographer and use my own work in power point, etc.

Sally Franz is a member of The Business Leaders Book Club and a contributing writer in Lessons learned in the Recession.