We recently connected with Shé Langley and have shared our conversation below.

Shé, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I believe in the transformative power of mission-driven businesses to positively affect communities, build generational wealth, enlighten stagnant minds, disrupt the status quo, and more. However, throughout my career I have found that many of these businesses do not have the resources or knowledge to effectively use digital marketing to build awareness about their brands and services. I built Rank Lift to change that.

At Rank Lift, we help businesses get found online and expand their reach. We build search engine optimized websites designed to appear when potential clients or customers are actively looking for services or products online.

Shé, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The summer before my senior year of high school, I arrived at my internship to meet my supervisor who was very surprised to see me. There had been a mixup in communication and the organization did not know they would have me as an intern. “Well…do you think you could research how we should build an intranet?” Like most kids my age, I had toyed around with HTML on my MySpace page. I figured that was a good foundation for an intranet project. And so began my career in web development.

Over the next years I worked in a print shop which taught me design, an online publication conglomerate which taught me front-end and back-end web development, an advertising agency which taught me digital marketing project management, and an IT company which taught me processes and team building.

As serendipity would have it, I was out on maternity leave and an opening became available on the SEO team with the IT company. My team lead and I both thought the position may be a good fit for me. I was looking to get out of development and thought I was headed toward a project management position. The SEO position would require more interaction with clients, someone who could quickly learn and adapt to new trends, analytical thinking, the ability to synthesize information and draw conclusions, and a number of other qualities that were a perfect fit for me. The rest is history.

I knew that the knowledge I gathered over the years could be used to help other businesses grow and I felt the best way I could do that was through my own businesses. When I worked as an employee at the other companies, I felt small to medium sized businesses and non-profits were often overlooked or taken advantage of. Those were the organizations I wanted to serve.

Have you ever had to pivot?

A sandwich caregiver is one who is providing care for young children, while also providing care for an aging loved one. My husband and I have two young children and right before the Covid pandemic, my mother was diagnosed with dementia. Instead of executing the plan I had to scale my business that year, I had to take a step back and re-evaluate my next steps.

At first I was so frustrated. I wanted badly to grow my business, but I also needed time to advocate for my mother’s care. I needed to care for my family and stay in-tune with my own needs while dealing with the grief of dementia and the anxiety of Covid.

Eventually I was able to see how being a business owner during that time was a gift. I was able to adapt my schedule as needed and had a stellar roster of understanding clients. Also, having to take a pause allowed me the time to really consider what my next steps would be when it was time to get back to scaling the business.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Word of mouth has been the most effective strategy for growing my clientele. I realize how odd that may sound from a business owner who teaches others how to market their business online to grow! However, there is NOTHING like a testimonial (in any format) to help build a foundation of trust with a potential client.

Contact Info:

• Website: rankliftdigial.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rankliftdigital
• Facebook: facebook.com/rankliftdigital/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rankliftdigital/

Image Credits
Angie McPherson Caleb McClendon Glen Guyton