We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Claire Ransom. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Claire below.

Hi Claire, thanks for joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I never thought it was possible to be as happy as I am now as a business owner.

Making the move from employee to business owner is probably the hardest, but best decision I’ve ever made.

I know exactly what it’s like to have a ‘regular job’ because I did that for over a decade, and no matter what job I did, I always just felt disempowered to be able to create real and lasting change in whatever role I was in.

Being a business owner has meant I’ve faced harder challenges than I would ever have faced in a ‘regular’ job, but it’s also meant I’ve had more of an outlet for creativity, and opportunity to improve skills and talents that I would never otherwise have had. The sense of fulfillment I’ve gained as a result is really unrivaled by anything else I’ve done in life.

In fact, being unhappy in a ‘regular’ job is exactly what nudged me into entrepreneurship. I was terrified of starting my own business, but for years I had dreamt of doing so. Fear held me back for a long time. I eventually fell into a state of depression, and it was only the fear of having to continue, year after year, in an unfilfilling role, that pushed me towards starting my own business. Eventually, I became more afraid of not fulfilling my potential, and living a mediocre life, than taking the leap into entrepreneurship, even though I was completely unprepared and had no clue where to start.

I remember the exact moment when I made the decision to start my own business. I was at work, and had just come out of another average meeting, to my grey cubicle desk. There was nothing particularly bad about the situation – but there was nothing inspiring, or exciting, or fulfilling about it either. I sat down at my desk and realized in that second that there had to be more to life than this.

The whole thought process probably took about 10 seconds, and it was the culmination of 18 months of sadness and hopelessness. All of a sudden I knew what I had to do. I handed in my notice the next day, and I’ve never regretted that decision. My happiness took a sharp turn in the right direction.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Claire Ransom and I’m the Founder of Aloha Life Digital, a boutique SEO Agency. I’m originally from the UK but am now based in Boston, USA.

I started my career as a Writer and Editor for some of the world’s leading publishing houses, including Penguin Random House and Oxford University Press.

I first learned what SEO was when I was working at Oxford Dictionaries, where I worked on one of the UK’s largest websites, and learned the overarching principles of SEO directly from Google’s in-house SEO team, as well as former Googlers.

A few years after that, started an ecommerce company. Using my writing skills and my knowledge of SEO, I ended up – almost accidentally – building a website that attracted over 45k visitors/month.

Starting that ecommerce company was the best and hardest thing I’ve ever done. I loved every second working on it: I loved the team I built, the amazing customers who bought our products, and the creative process of developing products, marketing a business, and scaling at breakneck speed. During this time, I was awarded the prestigious Great British Entrepreneur of the Year Award for startups in my area (Midlands).

I didn’t love raising investment, although I did manage to raise nearly $1m in funding (only 2% of VC funding in the UK goes to female-led projects, so that was a pretty significant achievement, although I didn’t realize it at the time).

But unfortunately, my lead investor pulled out when the business was 6 years old, and I had no choice but to sell the business at short notice.

As I picked myself up from the loss of my beautiful business and started to rebuild my life, I started focusing on the vast number of skills and experiences I’d gained during the previous 6 years. I started a small freelance consulting business helping people with marketing and writing work. More and more people kept asking for my help with SEO, and it quickly became obvious that I had a valuable, and much needed, SEO expertise, as well as communication skills and empathy that are often lacking in SEO agencies. I picked up a couple of clients who started to experience life-changing results (their words, not mine) thanks to my SEO efforts, and I got a huge kick out of that. So it became a very natural transition to a full-service SEO agency.

We offer full-service SEO packages for ambitious businesses and startups, as well as ad hoc packages, consultancy, and SEO training. We have a specialism in working with nanny agencies and female-led businesses.

Aloha Life Digital is growing more than 100% year on year, and we have even more ambitious plans for the coming 3-5 years. My goal is not for us to become the biggest SEO agency, but to become the most reputable and reliable SEO agency you could hope to find.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The number one lesson I had to unlearn in order to be successful as an entrepreneur was perfectionism.

I had to learn to embrace ‘done is better than perfect’ and really live and breathe that.

When you come from a background in editorial and writing, where precision and attention to detail are critical success factors to the role, it’s especially hard to unlearn. I had to learn to notice mistakes, decide on their importance, and when people pointed them out to me, to intentionally not fix them because it didn’t make good business sense. This often resulted in feelings of embarrassment or guilt, and I worried what people thought of me.

It gets easier over time, and I care less what people think of me these days – especially ones who haven’t started something of their own.

Nowadays, I’ve learned I have to bring people with me on the journey, and I try whenever possible to share this philosophy.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

There have been two main sources where high value clients have found Aloha Life Digital:

1) Google Search. We have a strong SEO presence in our hyperlocal area, so quite a few people who are already looking for SEO services find us there.

2) Speaking at industry-specific events. There have been two great examples: I love working with nanny agency owners, so I contacted some organizations that put on events for nanny agency owners. I was accepted to be a speaker at APNA, which is the Association of Premier Nanny Agencies, the main organization for Nanny Agency Owners in the USA. As a result of that connection, I met several agency owners who have become extremely valued clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alohalifedigital.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/alohalifedigital/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-ransom/

Image Credits

Thanks to http://kimconant.com for these beautiful images.