In this episode, host Jon is joined by Anna Lundberg, founder of One Step Outside who helps professionals break free from a traditional 9-5 job to find a more meaningful definition of success. They discuss the challenges of transitioning from employee to business owner, the importance of building a personal brand, the need for work-life integration versus balance, and the potential for future-proofing the business. Anna also shares her five-pillar business framework and how it helps solo and small-firm architecture practice owners navigate their business journey. She further explores alternative business models, moving past one-to-one client services. They also touch upon travel experiences and their relevance in expanding horizons and sparking curiosity.

Today's Guest...

Anna Lundberg is all about crafting careers and businesses that don't just focus on traditional success measures, but take a more balanced approach. Founder of One Step Outside®, she is on a mission to help experienced professionals break free from the 9 to 5 and pursue a more meaningful definition of success. She is the host of the Reimagining Success® podcast and the author of several books. And she's juggling all this while raising two little kiddos down in sunny Dorset.

Episode Highlights...

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview

00:56 Guest Introduction: Anna Lundberg

01:42 Anna's Journey: Leaving Corporate World

02:02 Anna's South America Adventure

02:39 The Impact of Travel on Career Decisions

05:11 The Five Pillars Framework Overview

06:39 Pillar One: Defining Your Version of Success

10:05 Pillar Two: Cultivating Confidence and Resilience

14:27 Pillar Three: Developing the Right Business Model

18:32 Exploring Alternative Business Models

21:53 Exploring Creative Solutions in Business

22:22 Understanding Client Needs and Preferences

23:11 Exploring Different Business Models

24:10 Building Trust and Progression in Business

26:19 Pillar Four: The Importance of Personal Branding

30:38 Pillar Five: Work-Life Integration

34:06 Recommendations for Starting or Improving a Business

37:45 The Role of Travel and Location in Personal Fulfillment

40:58 Connecting with Anna Lundberg Online

41:57 Preview of the Next Episode and Closing Remarks

Key Takeaways...

👉 Importance of Self-Awareness - Understanding one's own strengths, preferences, personality, and life situation is crucial before starting or revamping a business.

👉 Redefining Success - Anna encourages not to limit the definition of success to monetary outcomes. Instead, she suggests it should include aspects such as freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment.

👉 Cultivating Resilience and Confidence - Building resilience and confidence is essential in managing the ups and downs that come with running a business.

👉 Diversifying Business Models - Not to be limited by traditional business models, and consider alternatives such as paid resources, teaching, mentoring, and upselling other services.

👉 The Value of Personal Branding - Creating a personal brand can help differentiate a business and establish a stronger connection with clients.

👉 Work-Life Integration, not Balance - Anna argues for the idea of work-life integration, suggesting that it's about finding a way for work and personal life to harmoniously co-exist.

👉 Importance of Progression - Offering entry-level services or products can help bring clients into your world and possibly upsell them to premium services later.

👉 Taking Small Steps towards Big Goals - Ambitious goals can be made more achievable by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable steps.

Links Mentioned In The Episode...

Anna’s Website >https://onestepoutside.com/

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https://architecturebusinessclub.com/blueprint

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In The Next Episode...

Next time Jon chats with James Talman about the National Federation Of Roofing Contractors and how they are supporting architectural practices.

When you become a sole practitioner or start your

own architecture practice, you can end up working in the same way that

you used to do when you worked as an employee at another practice.

So why does this happen and how could you break free from the nine to five?

That's exactly what we're going to talk about today.

At architecture business club, the weekly podcast for solo

and small firm architecture practice owners, just like you.

We want to build a profitable future proof architecture business

that fits around their life.

I'm the host, John Clayton.

If you want to get notified, when I release a new episode and get access

to free resources and exclusive offers.

Then go to Mr.

John clayton.co.uk forward slash ABC.

And sign up to my free weekly email newsletter.

Now let's talk about breaking free from the nine to five.

Anna Lundberg is all about crafting careers and businesses that don't just

focus on traditional success measures, but take a more balanced approach.

As the founder of One Step Outside, she is on a mission to help

experienced professionals break free from the 9 5 and pursue a more

meaningful definition of success.

She's the host of the reimagining success podcast and the author of several books

and she's juggling all this whilst Raising two little kiddos down in sunny

Dorset You can take Anna's five pillars business assessment scorecard at one

step outside com forward slash scorecard.

Anna, welcome to architecture business club.

Thanks so much, John.

Thank you for having me.

It's great to have you here Anna before we dig into the topic that

we're going to talk about today You, you decided to leave the corporate world, I

think it was around about 10 years ago during a sabbatical in South America.

Firstly, which countries did you visit while you were there In South America.

Oh, I did that thing you're not supposed to do.

I tried to do it all in one go.

So I did eight countries.

I flew to Quito and Ecuador and sailed the Galapagos islands.

And then I worked my way through Peru, Chile, Argentina.

Tiny bit of Brazil.

I've left that for another time, which of course I haven't managed to complete the

last 10 years and then Paraguay, Uruguay, I feel like I'm missing something.

Bolivia, is that eight?

Yeah, it was the most incredible experience.

It was three months and yeah, one of the best decisions of my life that led

to another very good decision, which was to, to leave my corporate job.

Wow.

So, I mean, it sounds like an incredible trip.

I'm really interested to know what, what was it that happened during that

trip that made you leave your job?

I find it such an interesting question,

especially now a decade later.

It's only a few more days I can say that and then it'll be more than a decade.

So it's It's quite a moment of reflection for me.

I had always had this general sense of wanting to go to South America.

There's this film, Up, Disney's Pixar Up, where, um, this little scout

boy says, Adventure is out there!

And I ran around saying this, and for what it's worth, and I actually realized that,

um, sort of a very vague dream, I suppose.

I'm really pleased with that.

And I, I wanted to.

Learn Spanish and there were reasons for it.

And, but I guess the career reason was that I had studied one thing.

So I'd studied international relations and politics and economics, and then I'd ended

up as many people do in particular in the UK in an accidental career in marketing.

So as amazing as that was, and I don't regret it because it's

opened so many doors for me.

The network, the learning, the credibility, and so on, it wasn't

really where I wanted to be.

So there was always a bit of a disconnect.

So I would never have.

Being brave enough to just take the leap and leave my job from one day to the next.

But taking a bit of a sabbatical was already a really

courageous thing for me to do.

And then once I was out of my comfort zone, out of my bubble, away from

all the people who were kind of in the same lifestyle on the same career

path as me, I met so many people from, you know, different backgrounds.

Divorced, single, married, old, young, unemployed, quit their jobs on

a sabbatical, whatever, and it just opened my mind to so many possibilities

and it allowed me to immerse myself in personal development and to read

and to listen and, and then to take that quite scary step of quitting.

I knew that if I'd come back to Geneva, I was in Geneva, Switzerland

at the time, um, I would have just.

Very quickly got very comfortable back in my old job in my flat

with my friends and so on.

So yeah, it was little, little steps, I suppose, medium sized

steps towards that bigger ultimate leap of, um, of leaving my job.

Wow, travel certainly is a fantastic way to broaden your horizons.

I absolutely love travel and, and we, we might touch upon that again

later on in the chat, actually.

The main thing we're going to talk about though, is you have a framework that

you've developed to help people to build.

a life outside of the traditional nine to five.

And I'd really like to talk about that today.

Before we, we dig into that framework, there are five pillars to this framework.

Could you, could you give us a quick overview of those five pillars that

make up this framework that you have?

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's come quite organically from my own work of leaving my

corporate job and building my business over what is now 10 years.

And then also, of course, working with clients.

Initially I did one to one work and it felt like everything was very

bespoke and every person is different.

But.

You know, um, as it turns out, we all tend to go through quite similar things.

And broadly speaking, we kind of need the same things as well.

So I developed this framework.

So you mentioned my podcast is called re imagining success.

And the first pillar is getting clear on your version of success.

The second pillar is cultivating confidence and resilience

all around your mindset.

Pillar three is developing the right business model or choosing,

building the right business model.

And I know that will be an interesting topic, I think, for us today.

Pillar four is building an effective personal brand.

Again, a very interesting topic.

And pillar five, they're all interesting topics.

Designing flexible work life integrations and making this big, exciting vision all

work in a practical day to day sense.

In theory, seamless way with personal life.

Of course, that's never the truth, but uh, some effort at making it harmoniously

deliver on your, on your bigger vision.

So those are the five pillars that I've developed over,

I guess, the last 10 years.

Brilliant.

I, I love it.

I'm, I'm really looking forward to digging in, talking a little

bit more about each of them.

We're going to start with that first pillar, which is the,

the definition of success.

When I started my business, I didn't really define what my version of success

would be other than perhaps earning a sim, you know, a certain amount of money.

I think initially it was just, can I at least earn what I was earning?

In my salaried position, when I start out, that was probably the

only kind of definition I had.

What could I have done differently at the very beginning?

That's really interesting because in a way, the revenue, the income

is one of the most important goals, right?

In order to Strictly speaking, call this business a success,

it needs to replace your salary.

So I think that's a pretty good measure.

And some of us don't even have that measure.

So I think you did pretty well there.

The problem with only focusing on the money side is that we're probably leaving

our full time job for a number of reasons.

The number one is not usually in this case, earning more money

and it's certainly not getting a more regular consistent salary.

All of the general wisdom, I guess, suggests that it's more risky to

have your own business and we can question those assumptions, of course.

But generally, we're not leaving for financial reasons.

It's for me, it was things like freedom, flexibility and fulfillment, I call it.

So more freedom to travel, to be creative, to have autonomy, to

be your own boss, to work more flexible hours on your own terms.

When and where you want to around family and dogs and so on, and then

also fulfillment to do fulfilling work.

By definition, having your own business is, for whatever reason,

so much more meaningful, I think, than working for someone else.

So those reasons drive us.

And we're not, if we're not clear on those reasons, we can

end up just recreating our job.

If the only metric you're thinking about is money, first of all, you might

then see yourself as a failure just because you're not earning as much

as you want, even though actually.

You're having the most amazing time, you're present with your children, you

know, you've created this incredible business that actually is very fulfilling

and you're certainly on the right track, or you're focusing only on the money,

and yes, you're earning the money, but you know, you're unhappy, you're

stressed, and you've just recreated what you had before, if not made it

worse, because now you have to work even harder to maintain that salary.

So, you know, it's so important to know what you want and why you want it.

Before you even start worrying about the how, um, and if you don't know where

you're wanting to get to, how on earth are you going to have a chance to, to

work out the right way to get there?

Got it.

So if we can be, well, become a bit more self aware and have that clarity

on, what is your definition of success and where is it that you're hoping

to, to get to with your business, then that can help you, uh, make better

decisions from the off, I guess.

Yeah, and self awareness is a great thing that you picked up on.

I think it all starts with self awareness.

Who am I?

What's important to me?

What am I good at?

What do I enjoy?

Those are things that we might not have asked ourselves since school.

When I was thinking about what career to follow, I did all these quizzes

and things, and after a while you just stop asking those questions,

and I think it's so valuable.

Even, not just at this moment of quitting and starting your own business, but

you know, every year at the start of the new year is a great opportunity

to question, okay, is it still meaningful what I'm working towards?

Do I want to shift my goals?

Has something else become more important?

And to reassess what that success looks like now.

Yeah, great.

I think that's probably a good point to move on to pillar number two, which

is about confidence and resilience.

Running a business, I mean, it can be hard, it can be tough running

your own business, especially if you're a sole practitioner.

So what can we do to cope better with the day to day challenges that,

that we all face as business owners?

I think it's a really important question that again,

we don't really ask ourselves.

You said an interesting thing that you're a sole practitioner, but

being a sole practitioner doesn't mean you have to do it alone.

It doesn't mean that you have to hire a whole team of people and build a

big, big, You know, organization, but it also doesn't mean you

have to do everything yourself.

Uh, I mentioned a moment ago, you know, the stories are hinted at the stories.

We tell ourselves about a business is riskier and I can't possibly

charge that much or this won't work.

And so on.

And parts of the confidence I think is looking at some of those assumptions

and stories that we have and asking ourselves, are they really true?

Because we can.

easily limit ourselves.

I'm not good enough.

Who am I to think that this is possible?

And that's not very helpful.

The mindset that's required to run your own business is very different,

certainly to the mindset I needed to be an employee in this big organization.

And then, as you said, inevitably, unfortunately, there are going to

be ups and downs, which is normal.

But I think when we have our own practice, it's that much more.

Palpable and visceral somehow we feel it more because we care more because we're

so uniquely tied up in this business.

We are our business to a large extent.

And so that's when we need to develop that resilience.

So taking care of ourselves, making sure we have a support

structure, whether it's friends.

or peers or mentors who can guide us and really thinking about that and and

not just yeah hustling and working hard and focusing again the money as we were

talking about but really thinking about okay how can I take care of myself so that

I can take care of the business and my family and so that it can be a sustainable

success and not just this sort of initial hurrah I've I've hit that income but

then actually you'll crash and burn afterwards because you've worked so hard.

That's a really good point.

And something that I wanted to just pick up there was the you mentioned

there about the value of being part of a community and having other people

around you just because you you.

Maybe your vision for the business might be that you are, you might mainly

envisage that you're kind of working on your own, perhaps, and maybe you don't

want to hire a massive in house team in your practice where you're working, but

you still don't have to do it alone.

And there are other ways that you can.

Build a support network around you, whether that's being part of other

communities, whether it's your professional organization, whether it's an

online community, whether it's people that are on the same journey that you're on.

And I guess with the support staff side of it, that there are non

traditional ways to build your team.

Outsourcing, for example it's something that you don't have to go down the

traditional hiring route if you need some extra support within your team.

Yeah and outsourcing you know it can also include

your personal life, right?

We just had the cleaner come this morning and I can't tell

you how amazing that is, right?

If you can pay someone else to do something faster, better,

cheaper, then, you know, it's, it's definitely worth looking at.

And, and I always think of myself as a solo practitioner, but

actually I've got a podcast editor.

I've got an assistant, um, I have an accountant, I have a graphic designer,

none of these people work for me as such, but they're all part of my group, and

coming back to your initial point, the community is so important, you can feel

so alone and isolated, and My goodness, it's so, so important to go out there

and both have other people who can empathize and go, Oh, poor you, Anna.

I know it's so hard when things don't go as you want them to, but also inspire you.

Um, things like when I wanted to write a book, I could sit at home going,

Oh, I really want to write a book.

What if I could write a book?

It's such an amazing thing.

Or as I did, I can go and do writing courses.

or join writing Facebook groups or listen to writing podcasts.

Suddenly I'm surrounded by people who are out there doing the thing.

They're writing, they are authors.

It's not a question of, Oh, if only I could write it's, Hey, yes, I can.

How am I going to do it?

When am I going to do it?

And it becomes a much more real conversation.

So surrounding yourself with people who are already in the trenches, doing the

thing you want to do is so powerful.

Great point.

The next pillar that I'd like to dig into pillar number three,

it's about the business model.

This is, I think it's a really interesting point that we need to discuss.

When most people, I think many people start their architecture based

business, they start their own practice.

It, it can often end up being a version of.

The role that they had in their previous practice or, or the role that

they did for their previous employer.

They essentially end up creating themselves a new job.

I think that is hindsight.

That's kind of what I did.

When I started my own business and I just wonder what other types of business

models that we could consider if there are people out there that are thinking

about leaving their employer, um, maybe starting up a new business for themselves.

Maybe the business that they're in at the moment, let's assume that it's the

working in an architecture practice and it's one to one client services.

What other things could they consider in terms of business model for

their new business in the industry?

It's such an important.

Thing to consider it.

And I think when we don't do it, just like the bigger version of success,

our definition of success, we either end up copying someone else, either,

as you said, your existing model, which you know you are, again, you're

leaving for a reason, so it might not be that you want to replicate

that exact thing and or you end up.

With an accidental business model.

So you don't really think it through.

And before you know it, you know, either you're charging too little,

you have too many clients, the wrong kind of clients, you're working the

wrong kind of hours, whatever it is.

So it starts again with that self awareness of asking yourself, who am I?

What am I, what's my life situation?

I talk about the push pull reasons of leaving your job.

So what were the things that pushed you out of this organization?

It might not be the employer or something.

It might be that you simply just wanted to change and you wanted

your independence and so on.

But if there are negative things about the way you were

working before, what are they?

And then what are the pull reasons?

So what are the positive things?

You saw a different, better way of doing things, perhaps.

So how could you And without prescribing, I never want to

prescribe a business model.

I find one thing that's really powerful is to look to other industries.

Because it may be that if you're just doing, you know, I get clients who say,

but all the other shiatsu practitioners or museum consultants or life coaches

or whatever are charging this much.

That's what I have to do.

Well, everyone else in my industry is doing reels on Instagram and

they're running these group programs and they're doing these calls

and they're charging this much.

And you just feel like that must be the right things.

I have to copy that.

And ultimately, again, I think it's either going to fail because it's not meaningful.

It doesn't fit with my personality.

I'm trying to be someone I'm not, it doesn't fit with my

lifestyle or it will succeed.

But it won't be how I want to live my life.

I'll have created a monster that isn't going to be particularly

fulfilling or rewarding for me.

So I think it's more about asking yourself the questions again, the things

you didn't like about where you've come from and the things that you'd like to

add more of, have less of, and then look to other industries for inspiration,

you know, there, there are, you know, even think of like a, a neurosurgeon,

a brain surgeon, how do they run their practice or, um, you know, in psychiatry,

some kind of medical field, there are different ways and just thinking of.

Parallels thinking of things that they do that you could bring into your practice.

But above all, it also comes down to your preferences, your practical parameters

of the hours you want to work, the money you need to be earning, what

kind of commute do you want to have?

And you know, we were on a podcast here.

There are so many ways in which you can get your name out there.

Are you the kind of person who likes to go out and network and chat with people?

Do you want to be on a stage and talk about, you know,

futuristic design principles?

Do you want to speak?

Behind, you know, a microphone rather than being on camera.

Are you a writer?

Presumably if you're in this business, you could be quite designy and visual.

So is there a channel, is there a medium that would suit that?

So it's all about the preferences you have, the ideas you have, and how can you

craft something that's uniquely you and then delivering on the big vision that

you hopefully identified in pillar one.

Could you give maybe even just one or two examples of a different

type of business model as opposed to being a one to one service provider

where you're exchanging time for money?

You're working one to one with your clients.

What is Just an example, I'm just talking really broad overview because there

might be listeners out there, people, you know subscribers to the podcast

that just may not have any concept of what the other alternatives might be.

Remember, don't forget to subscribe to my free weekly email newsletter.

You can do that at mrjonclayton.co.uk/abc.

And if you are enjoying this episode then please visit podchaser.com,

search for Architecture Business Club and leave a five star review.

Now, back to the show.

Absolutely.

So I mean, the idea that comes to mind, which is not so far from your

world as a graphic designer, let's say, the obvious thing is a graphic

designer would work obviously in an organization and they would design

graphics for something or other.

The, the natural inclination when you leave that to, to start your own business

is to start creating graphics for people.

So it's sort of a done for you service, you might call it.

Create logos and brands packages and things, and you could buy those

obviously, well, not obviously, but unfortunately, I'm probably going

to undercharge for those services.

So I'm not going to have a lot of money and I'm going to need a lot of clients

and I'm very much charging by the hour and basically tie tying my time to,

to those projects and those clients.

So I need to do more and more logos in order to make that worthwhile.

Plus, actually, it's pretty much a commodity, right?

These days.

I'm sure AI could give you a logo, um, not to in any way

undermine what designers can do.

And I certainly worked with an incredible human designer for my logo.

But you know, you can download templates and all sorts, right?

So you have that service, which is the basic assumption.

You could go down to a cheaper, more.

Passive income, which of course is always attractive, where you would design a

whole set of templates that people can then sort of DIY it, they can download

your template and they can just kind of tweak it with their brand coloring

and so on, that would probably be a cheaper thing that you're selling, but

once you've put in the initial effort, boom, done, they can just download it.

You could have a, uh, what else could you, you could have a full

on, um, Flagship program where you don't just design the logo, but you

do their whole brand architecture.

Apologies for using that word in a different context, but you use

the whole strategy and vision.

And of course you could then add copywriting.

You'd have a team of people doing copy and not just the graphic design.

You can have web design, web developments.

You could go almost into full service agency to do the big shebang.

You could teach people.

To do their own graphic design, you could then teach graphic

designers how to run their business.

You could coach graphic designers how to do what you've done, which

then is always a great model.

I find that I'm both being the thing and I'm teaching how to do the thing.

Um, so that's just, you know, you can.

Sell the obvious service.

You can package it up in a different way as a product that people can

download rather than a service.

You can upscale, upsell and deliver a full package solution.

You can teach it.

Um, there's almost no end to what you can do.

And I feel like even those examples are quite limited compared to

what you could do if you only got a bit creative, you know?

So it's really thinking the other really interesting parallel is if you bring

two things together that perhaps don't.

Seem like they make sense, but that is all the more interesting

because you're bringing a unique blend of your particular experience.

With the industry and it just becomes a really new and

different ways of doing things.

So I think, yeah, don't, don't limit yourself too soon.

Really think about, wow, what would be an interesting way.

And in fact, just to, to bring it down to more practical questions,

again, to ask yourself, you want to ask the client you're working

with, how do they want something?

And then the other side of the question is how do you want to deliver the solution?

Right?

So there's always those two sides of the coin.

There's no point in me saying, Oh, I'm going to, um, yeah, do a course.

And then none of my clients want a course.

They actually want me to do the thing with them and vice versa say

that the client wants me to do it.

I don't want to do it.

I don't want to be designing logos the rest of my life.

It doesn't matter.

There's no point in me doing that because I'm not going to

have a fulfilling business.

So I want you to really think about the two sides of the coin, both what

the client Once and what's the best way to deliver that solution, but

also your preferences and how do you want to be running your business

the next many, many years to come?

Hopefully.

That's brilliant.

Thanks, Anna.

Yeah, so there's just a recap on that.

Asides from just delivering the one to one services that you may have

been doing already for your other employer, you could look to create

templates, resources, reusable bits and pieces that you maybe already have.

From your work already that you could then resell, you could look at creating

a flagship program, you could upsell other services, you could teach other

people, you could mentor other people, all sorts of different options there.

And the other thing you mentioned was about.

Actually talking to your clients, uh, speaking to your audience

there and finding out what it is that they need help with and how

they'd prefer that to be delivered.

So I guess it's finding that sweet spot, isn't it?

Of a pain point that the customer is struggling with, something

that aligns with your area of expertise and then figuring out

the process of how it's delivered.

So it's, it's delivered in a format that, you know, they're willing to exchange

money for, they're willing to invest in.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think one final consideration, although of course there are many,

would be thinking of a progression and how people can get to know you.

What's interesting in your industry, I think is that, you know, we worked

and we can talk about this with an architectural firm recently,

and it's kind of all or nothing.

We never heard of them.

We get to, okay, yes, and they've designed our house and

we've built it, which is huge.

It's a lot of money.

It's a lot of trust to put on someone.

And I recently worked with an interior designer and we looked at it.

It could be the same thing, right?

But ideally she'd want to design a whole new house.

Let's say perhaps it's a two bigger risk, especially for a new.

service provider, um, to expect someone who doesn't know her to

invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in designing a whole new house.

However, she could obviously have a package that's designing a room.

Below that she could offer sort of a ask me anything consultation

where it's an hour's call where people can just, you know, I want

to kind of design my own room.

But I feel like I'd like an expert to consult and just check some things.

She could do a mood board for me, right?

Where I just put in my briefing.

These are the kinds of things I like, and she could create a mood board.

So it's also thinking of how can I give people a way to experience

who I am and build the trust.

And perhaps people who don't necessarily right away have, uh, the money for

the big thing, or at least they don't want to invest that right away.

into then something bigger.

In fact, the same thing I did with a, um, uh, she was a music, uh, consultant,

I think we called it, sort of a music agency, but it was her for weddings.

And it was the same thing, you know, some people want the full symphony package

for the venue and the um, church and all the bells and whistles, but then she also

then started offering calls where you could, you know, I kind of want this.

I know I maybe want a string quartet and then she can go, no, actually

these are some options and so on.

Right.

And that's just a call really easy for her to offer.

And also a great way for other people to experience her.

And of course, the natural next step for them all to be, wow, I

loved how Rosie talked me through.

She clearly knows what she's doing.

I'd much rather she just sorted all myself.

So that's another consideration in terms of the progression and kind of

entrance into your world before you do the full, uh, beautiful palace

that you're going to design for them.

that's great.

Yeah.

So having a sort of entry level offer to bring people into your world as a paid

customer could then help to progress them onto maybe your higher ticket,

higher priced services and products that you might also have since it feels

like a good point to move on to pillar four, which is about personal brands.

In my experience, it's not, it's not that common to see the face of the business

behind the architecture practice.

It's not really that common in our industry.

So, I mean, what would be the benefit of building your personal brand in an

industry where not many others bother?

Oh, well, all the better.

I think that's, that's a great question.

So, you know, some of us find it a bit uncomfortable.

I know.

People and probably myself in the past as well find that I'm a brand.

It feels horrible.

It's one thing to market, look, check out this beautiful bottle of

perfume over here that we've designed.

It's amazing.

It's another thing to say, Hey, check me out.

I'm amazing.

You should pay me lots of money.

The truth is that people buy from people, and I think, especially

with, with solopreneurs starting out, we want to look bigger.

And so we hide behind a big brand name and say, we, this, and the company,

and we lose the personal touch.

Some companies, well, it's not companies, it's people, on Instagram,

for example, when I'm trying to message them, I can't even find their name.

Hello, um, not sure what your name is, but, you know, I see that you do.

And that's a really odd thing, that they've, they've gone so far to try

to be big and professional, that they've lost the personal touch.

We buy from people ultimately, whether it's a big company

or it's a small individual.

And it allows you to go beyond being just a commodity, right?

If there's lots of coaches, lots of people who do this, lots of whatever it

is, if you have a unique personal story or personality or style or whatever

it is, that can really elevate you.

And by definition, you're going to be then differentiated versus your competitors.

What I found interesting when you said this to me when we talked a little bit

of ahead of the interview was I obviously checked out our architects and, and

I don't want to name them, although I kind of do because they've done an

amazing job and we love the house.

But when I went on, there's a generic picture.

Black and white of kind of the local area and I went on to the about page.

There's no photos there's no story and I chatted to my partner again and just

before this call and and he Reconfirmed that the reason why we chose to work

with them and the reason why I would recommend it to someone else is that was

A young couple and their kids actually go to the same school as us you know,

they They were a small startup boutique, uh, really cared about their customers

and they have great designs and so on.

But all these reasons, they're just nowhere to be seen.

Of course, they can't, don't need to write on their website that their kids

go to the school, that's not what I mean.

But that personal touch, completely missing from the site.

And as lucky as you all are, With the fact that you have such a visual

industry, anyone who does design and anything tangible, you can show them.

I find it much harder of course to show, I can't sort of show pictures of the

thing I do because it's so intangible.

So of course the design of the buildings and the blueprints

and the plans and whatever else.

That's all important, but who is it behind it?

I think that's really missing.

And if, as you say, and seems to be validated here, a lot

of people aren't doing that.

I think that could really give you the edge and help you to stand out even more

so by building a personal brand that attracts people to you because they know,

like, and trust you, as we say, as well as then, of course, liking your designs.

But it starts with the person, I think, and the design is almost secondary.

So, had it not been for that, the personal connection that

actually wasn't via their website, that you perhaps might never have

connected with them or chosen to work with that particular practice.

There might be other customers out there that are looking for an architectural

practice to work with and maybe that's what they're finding on a lot of

the sites that there is that lack of personality behind the brand and it is

often You know, the company logo and, uh, flashy pictures of finished projects

and not much about the people behind the practice, actually, um, I'm just going

to name check, actually Bob gentle.

I had a chat with Bob.

We did a episode.

Number six, I think it was where he talked specifically about personal branding.

So if you're listening to this episode, you want to learn a little

bit more about personal branding, go back and find episode number

six and take a listen to that.

So the last pillar of this framework It's about work life integration and

that's Interesting, this is different, you're not using the term work life

balance, which is often a terminology that's used when people think about,

uh, integrating work and life.

As a small practice owner and someone that works from home myself, my work

life and personal life haven't always fitted together in perfect harmony.

Do you have any thoughts on how to improve that work life integration?

That

Absolutely, and it's a whole episode in itself for a whole world

and I'm so passionate about this and it might seem like semantics, but for me,

work Life balance just doesn't make sense.

Balance actually is, I would say one of my core values, but work is a part of life.

It makes no sense to me to separate them.

You can't just put work here and life here.

And also if you imagine the sort of scales that you usually picture

when you say that balance, it's.

Implies that if you have more work, by definition, you have less life, which

is the usual direction or in corporate context, when we're talking about having

more work life balance, the implication is, oh, you're going to work less so that

you can have more time for your family.

And I don't see it as that sort of zero sum game, I suppose I

see it as very much mutually reinforcing and a positive synergy.

So, you know, I joke that we can't quite make it seamless, but certainly if we're

striving for it to work harmoniously.

In everything from the practicalities of having a calendar to manage, you

know, we had um, school things we had to go and do or your calls and

everything just to make sure that works as well, and but also from how you're

showing up and who you are as a person.

For me it's so important, and I know it's an overused word, but to be myself, to

be authentic, and I'm sure Bob talked about that in the personal brand as well.

It makes it far easier for us all.

Let's face it.

It means that I can have a call with you, have these amazing, I'm lucky to

be working in an area where I could talk about these things for days.

It's things that I care about and it's sort of things I'm thinking

about all the time anyway.

And then I can, when we finished.

I'm actually going to keep working, but let's say it was the end of the

day, turn off the computer, close the door to my study, off I go.

So, work life integration is not about not having any boundaries, it's not

about working on your holiday and doing your laundry during, you know,

your working hours, necessarily.

But it is about finding a way to make it work for you.

And that requires, first of all, that you know what your priorities

are, what's important to you.

And then secondly, it does require some less sexy kind of

planning and structure and so on.

But to me, structure is what gives you the freedom.

Ironically, it can be hard for creators to kind of have that structure.

But I think, you know, if you want to make progress on certain goals,

if you want to actually then.

Have time freed up for family or holidays or hobbies or courses or whatever else.

And you do need to have a certain element of prioritization planning and structure

to make sure you hit those goals.

You get the things done that you want to get done so that now I can take

a breath, be present with my kids.

You know, go for a run, whatever it is I want to do and not worry about the

things I've kind of left on my to do list.

So as a concept I find work life integration to be much more

makes much more sense, uh, now that you've explained that, that

there is, yeah, the work life balance terminology isn't quite right, is it?

What would be your top recommendations there?

Just to kind of summarize everything.

What would be your top recommendations for anyone that's thinking of starting

a business or who maybe feels like their current business just isn't working

right now and maybe they're feeling like they need to make some changes.

Do you have any recommendations for, for those groups of people?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, so you mentioned a while back, self awareness, and I think

curiosity is a great place to start and understanding yourself.

And again, a little bit sort of those push pull reasons, whether it's a job

that you want to leave, or in fact that, as you said, you've recreated your job or

you've created something that's not quite fitting with how you wanted it to be.

It doesn't mean that you have to start from scratch by any means.

But just giving yourself the time to explore what's working, what's not

working so well, understanding yourself, your strengths, your preferences, your

personality, what do you like doing?

You know, what does that look like?

And that's, you know, it can take longer than you want perhaps, but it's the

absolute foundation for everything else.

If you then work out what you want, then you can work out the plan to get there.

You can get help from the right kind of person or.

course or whatever to fill those gaps.

And, and once you succeed, that success will be really personally

meaningful and rewarding to you.

So I'd say, you know, take this time and it's a good time of year to kind

of reflect on what's important to you.

And I think we should do that, uh, at least once a year, if not more

often, um, check in where are the gaps between where you are today,

and then to make it really tangible.

Just take little steps.

Just decide to make one shift.

You don't have to quit your job today.

You don't have to change your business model tomorrow.

But just thinking about how can you realign a little bit and you'd be

surprised even just shifting the way you're thinking about things,

asking different questions, showing up with a different energy can

actually Make a huge difference.

So dream big, have a big ambitious vision of something exciting and different

perhaps, but then start small with with little steps to get you there.

Great advice.

Thanks, Anna.

Is there anything else that you'd like to share that we, we haven't already covered

today in the course of the conversation?

Now I think we've covered plenty and I don't want

people to get too overwhelmed.

So again, you know, I hope it's been useful.

to think about both the overall, uh, perspective of, of defining what

success looks like for you, because I think a lot of us don't think in

those terms, and I certainly didn't.

I was very much on that conveyor belt of just kind of doing, doing, doing,

and looking up from time to time and thinking about, hang on a second, to, to

throw in another metaphor, is your ladder leaning against the wrong wall, right?

If you're climbing, climbing, climbing and you get to the top,

you're like, hang on, where am I?

This is not where I wanted to be.

I think that's a good sign that you want to change something.

And then just remembering why you started in the first place, right?

Just come back to those original reasons and find a way, you know, again, I've

been doing this for 10 years now.

I've had twists and turns and evolutions, but I'm always looking.

Or from time to time at least looking for ways to, to rethink where I'm

going, make sure it still works.

And my life, my goodness, has changed a lot.

You know, you mentioned when I left my job I was carefree and single, and then

I met someone and now I've got my little kids and you know, life changes, so.

So your evolution of success.

Is going to continue to, to change, but, but I think that's what

makes life exciting, isn't it?

It makes it interesting.

Otherwise, we'd be bored.

It's a journey, not a destination, as they say.

So, yeah, keep, keep, stay curious, keep your eyes open, and

keep taking those little steps.

Absolutely.

And it doesn't always go in a straight line, does it, that journey?

We can kind of zigzag around a little bit along the way.

I said earlier that we touched upon travel at the very beginning of our conversation.

I said, we might swing back around to that.

So before we wrap things up, um, I, I love travel and discovering new places.

So could you tell me about.

One of your favorite places and what you love about it.

This could be near or far.

Are there any Places that spring to mind that you'd just like to share

with with me and the listeners.

Oh gosh, where, where to start?

I mean, I love so many places.

I have to, I have to fly a little flag for Poole, where I am now.

I didn't even know this.

place existed because my, my parents are Swedish.

So my whole life we would travel often to Sweden over the summer.

And so, which of course I loved in Christmas and I still do that now.

So we didn't do the typical English seaside holidays and I probably

shouldn't tell too many people about it because I just love it and it

does get busy during the summer, but I can see the Isle of Wight from

my window here at my standing desk.

Um, you know, every day the sea looks.

different.

It can be calm and still and then you have the paddle boarders out and you're

sort of contemplative and it's quiet and restful and very zen and then other

days, the other day I've never seen it so stormy and wild and then you've

got the kite surfers out and so on and you've always got the runners and the dog

owners out whatever the weather, right?

So it's always, but it gives such an energy to, you know, compared to,

I certainly miss the museums and, um, Culture and theatre and bars and

things of London, but my goodness, what a, what a quality of life to

live here by the sea, and it was always a lifelong dream of mine.

I was thinking more like Hawaii or something when I was younger when

I was dreaming of the beach, but, but, but I'm not gonna complain.

Pool is pretty beautiful, so there you go.

Of all the places in the world, I've given you Dorset in the UK.

I have I've never been to Dorset and I've always I've wanted

to go I'm actually I'm reading a book at the moment, um, and actually

part of the story in the book, it's a real life story actually,

part of it takes place in Dorset.

So yes, it's on my list of places to visit at some point.

So, uh,

I

should say, you know, we're very close to the New Forest as well.

We're a couple of hours from London.

It's not just the beach.

I just happen to have a soft spot for, for the beach, but yeah, it's um,

yeah, it's, it's very well located.

We went to Devon last summer, um, because actually, obviously we're sort

of closer towards Devon and Cornwall now, so it's a great place to explore.

So definitely come look me up when you're down here.

We'll go for a

Absolutely.

I will let you know when I'm in the area for sure.

That's been absolutely fantastic.

And I thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your knowledge and

telling us all about your framework.

Could you please just remind everyone again where they can grab

the, well, where they can take the five pillars business assessment.

Yeah, absolutely.

So if it's useful, you know, and I hope you found my perspective, um, inspiring

and, and it's kind of prompted some different thoughts because of course,

again, we can get so deep into our own expertise and I love John that you're

building a building, bringing people from different industries and so on

to bring those different perspectives.

I think that's so powerful.

And so the scorecard that we talked about with the five pillars, there's

10 questions to answer on each one, just to give you an idea of perhaps

where you could do with some more work.

Maybe you want to work on your confidence, or maybe as we've discussed today, your

personal brand could be an interesting area that's like onestepoutside.

com forward slash scorecard.

Great.

And if people would like to connect with you online, where would be the

best place for people to do that?

Find your chosen platform and I'll probably be there.

So, um, feel free to get in touch, find me on LinkedIn.

You should be able to find me.

Alas, there is a famous actress with my name, so my personal branding is

quite challenging, but hopefully if you put in Anna Lundberg coach, um,

or, you know, you'll, you'll find me on, on LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever.

So I'd love to chat and hear your insights as well.

And, and of course, you know, you'd mentioned business model and so on.

Think that, hang on a second, um, that wouldn't work for me or I've got this

idea or so, and I'd be really interested.

I always like to be, um, you know, challenged with different questions.

So do get in touch if you have a different example or something

that you're a bit stuck on.

I'd love to hear about it and see if we can figure it out.

Oh, that's awesome.

Very kind.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

You, John.

Such a pleasure.

Take care.

Next time, I'll be chatting with James Talman about the national

Federation of roofing contractors and how they can help architecture practices.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Architecture Business Club.

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