BigAmbition chatted with Charlie Osmond, co-founder of FreshMinds, to discover exactly what it takes to be an entrepreneur in today’s fast paced society...

In setting up FreshMinds, Caroline Plumb and Charlie Osmond pioneered a flexible working model and introduced the concept of “Minds”.

Since 2000, FreshMinds has grown at a terrific rate and built a team of over 16,000 Minds: a network of the sharpest analysts, consultants and researchers in Europe, who work with FreshMinds’ two business units.

Their unique focus is to challenge assumptions and provide access to bright, motivated individuals who can work with FreshMinds Research to fulfill briefs for clients and make up the candidate pool FreshMinds Talent supplying outstanding executives, graduates and interim consultants to industry’s multinational blue chip clients to public sector organisations. Another branch of the business worth checking out is FreshNetworks. Freshnetworks provides social media software that helps a business to connect and engage with their customers, employees and suppliers. Imagine your very own online community or enterprise social network that provides a platform for your customers to share their experiences, promote & give feedback on your brand.

In 2006 Freshminds were crowned as the industry’s “Most Innovative Employer” at the Research Excellence and Effectiveness Awards.

One of the most important things to remember when embarking on a new enterprise is to remain positive and optimistic – attitude is the key to achieving your goal.

Key to success:

• Take a chance / form a team / the ideas will follow...
• Maintain a positive outlook – lots of enthusiasm is necessary since you are inevitably going to receive knock backs.
• Explore the online communities that are already out there and find out who is interested in your idea or who may be a competitor.
• It is essential to allocate time to brainstorm / research / question your ideas etc.
• Fix your goal but keep the path to achieve this flexible. In other words, it is important to define your personal targets but remember that the journey may change seeing as the target market is continually moving.
• Find people who can support you – either with advise or financially. If you are fortunate to be working in a team, then try to find a mentor that you can respect and relate to when discussing your options.
• Remember that people tend to hire on attitude rather than skills so make sure your approach is both positive and capable. The skills will follow!
• You need to be both open and honest with yourself and your colleagues.
• Source information from all avenues – remember that when one door closes another will open so the more options you have the better.
• Initially you will lack inevitably lack contacts – the key to building a foundation of contacts is to keep persevering and remember to always promote your business where you can and to whom you can. Don’t be afraid to cold call – sometimes this is the only way to get the necessary foot in the door.