The 5 Ingredients To Designerpreneur Success (The FRESH Five)

What is the main reason people strive to run a one-person design business?

Freedom

The freedom to design your life in the way you want.

A one-person business is the best way I know to enable this. Why?

• Low outgoings

• Remote friendly

• High margins on earnings

• No employees to manage or pay

• Pivot and adapt to new opportunities

• Leverage the scaleability of the internet

• Ability to live in low cost of living locations

• No boss dictating your whereabouts and work schedule

So how is this achieved?

The key is getting all the ingredients right rather than focusing on one solution. For example:

You could have the worlds best portfolio, but not have the self discipline to follow up with interested clients.

You could be the most skilled designer in the world, but not know how to market yourself.

You could have amazing self discipline, but havent focused on a niche and thus have a diluted and unclear offering.

Like baking a cake. The key is to get every ingredient right. When you do, magic happens.

So here are the 5 ingredients to succesfully running a one-person business that enables a life of freedom:

I call it the FRESH Five:

1. Focused (On a niche, self motivated, efficient)

2. Remote (Can work from anywhere)

3. Explorative (Open minded, adaptable, big picture)

4. Skilled (Multi disciplinary, solving hard problems)

5. Healthy (Mental health, mindfulness, physical health)

Let's break each of these down:

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1. Focused

Think of your effort like a beam of light.

If it's too scattered and diffuse, it will have little impact.

But focus that light into a lazer and you can cut through stone.

This analogy works not only for the energy you put into various parts of your business.

It also applies to choosing a niche that you specialise in.

Choosing an industry to focus on will make your life as a solopreneur so much easier.

Being focused also highlights that you need be able to motivate yourself.

You don't have a boss looking over your shoulder.

Focusing on why you're doing what you're doing makes this so easy.

e.g. If you work hard on building your business, it will enable you to live your best life.

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2. Remote

Simply put, having the ability to earn money from anywhere is unbelievably freeing.

It enables you to:

- Live in beautiful places

- Live in places with low cost of living

- Enrich yourself with different cultures

- Spend more time with the ones you love

- Be there to raise your children

- Choose your ideal working environment

Let's linger on your environment because it's importance can easily be overlooked.

My experience of living in many places around the world for the last 5 years has taught me the importance of environment.

Fundamentally you should be working to produce the ultimate environment that inspires you, allows you to do focused work, allows you to be healthy and be grateful for your life.

For me, I have discovered that I'm at my best when living somewhere sunny, natural, tropical and near the water.

My mind opens up when can see nature, sunsets and the ocean. This deepens my thinking and allows me to make better decisions.

The effects compound over time, enabling further iterative improvements to my life.

Crafting your environment becomes possible when you set up a business that is fully remote.

So ask yourself what environment you would thrive in, and build your business to help construct it.

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3. Explorative

It's essential that you are open minded to new ideas, aware of what is and isn't working, and are able to pivot based on this understanding.

The world is changing at a rapid pace, technologies are shifting and creating new opportunities all the time.

You need to be able to change with the times and stay on the forefront. This will make everything you do easier.

Being able to see the big picture and not get lost in the small details will help guide your decisions.

The big picture can act as a north star that keeps you on track towards achieving something meaningful to you.

Be willing to try something and fail. Dust yourself off, learn from what didn't work and push forward.

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4. Skilled

This one is the most obvious, but the hardest.

In order to succeed you must become a highly skilled designer and business-person.

How do you become highly skilled?

• Take courses

• Consume free online content

• Get coaching

• Become obsessed

• Read books

• Practice

• Build

• Test

• Fail

• and try again!

You goal should be to become one of the greats. Don't settle for less.

Choosing a difficult to accomplish goal and setting out to achieve it lays the foundation for a meaningful and enriching life.

So if you havent done so before, take a pen and paper, and write down your 'Why', and how you envisage your ideal future.

And break up the steps to get there.

Then enjoy the journey.

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5. Healthy

Your mental and physical health are the bedrock of your businesses success.

You need the mental fortitude to push forwards during harder times.

Your mind will work at it's best when you treat your body well.

So get the fundamentals of physical health right:

• Good sleep for 8 hours

• Healthy varied diet

• Regular exercise

• Lower alcohol consumption

• Get sunlight early

This will help you maintain a healthy mind.

Then build upon your mental health with:

• Meditation

• Long walks

• Journaling

• Good relationships

• An ideal environment

• Limiting device usage

Get these foundations right and everything else in your business will be easier.

You will:

• Be more energised

• Be more motivated

• Think more clearly

• Make better decisions

These positive effects compound over time leading to an increasingly positive life trajectory.

If you're this far then I hope you found this post helpful.

Ask yourself which of these ingredients you're lacking and work to build on it.

And if you're looking for some outside help with achieving each of these you might be interested in my 1-on-1 coaching program 'The Designerpreneur Accelerator'.

In this 3 month program we will work together to level up each of your FRESH Five ingredients so that you can succesfully run a one-person design business that enables your ideal life.

If you're interested drop me an email at hello@osbornebranding.com saying COACH

From there we'll set up a call to discuss how I can help you.

Have a superb day

– Charlie Osborne

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Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

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1. If you want to position yourself as an expert, offering workshops is the most effective path. I'd recommend starting with an affordable course:

→ The Brand Strategy Mini-Course: Learn how to start charging your clients for remote brand strategy workshops in this 1 hour mini-course.

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2. If you're ready to take your workshop skills to another level:

→ The Remote Brand Strategy Workshop Masterclass: This comprehensive course will teach you my two-day workshop method that has allowed me to charge clients £30,000+ per project.

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3. Work with me 1:1 to grow your one-person design business that enables your ideal life

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