REPOR TER
You have won some impressive awards recently, how have they helped your business? Awards are a ‘reward’ for entrepreneurs. Because we don’t have a boss telling us ‘what a great job we are doing’ awards replace that motivation people receive from their bosses. The latest one was the ‘The Best Pitch in SE Europe’ in December 2014 in Instabul and this one landed me a job as a visitor lecturer at Regents University. I teach entrepreneurship and business planning to their post grad students. Awards give you credibility and credibility opens doors and opportunities.
Which one are you most proud of and why?
The Best Pitch in SE Europe is probably the one. I beat ten other found- ers from ten different countries. I also reached the finals for the ‘Small Business Leader of the Year 2014’ by the Guardian. I’m proud of this one because I was nominated by my employees. It’s a wonderful feeling that people are happy working with me. It means I am doing something right.
Where do you see This Foreigner Can developing over the next five years? We will build hubs for migrants (Mi-Hub) to work from and develop their businesses. We will have at least ten Mi-Hubs in the UK and I want to open some in Paris and Berlin too.
If you could give five top tips to anyone looking to take the plunge and start an adventure abroad, what would it be? 1. Learn the language (you will be competing with locals, so language is essential.
2. Research how people do business (they develop relationships, they do hardcore sales pitches, they like networking events, etc). 3. Find out some networking groups and events that you can attend. 4. Get in touch with the local Chamber of Commerce. They will open their doors to help a new business in town.
5. Find a bank that would easily help you open a bank account in the new country. HSBC and Barclays have good options, depending on where you are moving to.
Which entrepreneur do you most admire and why? Richard Branson sounds like the most obvious answer, what I admire most is that he creates businesses but not everything is a success - but that does not stop him. Virgin Cola, Virgin Brides and Virgin Cosmetics were a disaster but at least he tried. Virgin Atlantic changed the way people see customer service and aviation.
We will never be successful in everything we do but we have to keep pushing and trying.
How has social media developed your business? My main channel is YouTube. Some people don’t think it is social media but I use videos to push content in other networks and platforms. My channel
YouTube.com/thisforeignercan gives free information to mi- grants who want to start their own business. Videos are more fun, more personal and people get a real sense of who you are.
My tips are never longer than 2 minutes and I combine them with my blog posts.
What is the best platform for social interaction and why? If you want to push content and people to watch whoever they feel like I think it has to be YouTube. If you want real conversations you should use Twitter. You can send direct messages, you talk to real people and you can learn all about them. Facebook ‘likes’ are vanity numbers. They mean nothing. Only Facebook makes money with your likes (because as a business you need to pay to promote your page). I don’t like Facebook and I don’t spend money on it.
If you could change one thing in the world what would it be? Poverty. It’s the main thing that I would most like to change about the worId. I really admire Bill Gates and James Cann for their work. I want to be able to make a difference to the world by reducing poverty. I believe that by enabling people to create their own businesses, we are able to help and indirectly reduce poverty and maybe make the world a better place.
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