We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anna Ritchie a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Anna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with 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 truly believe my life would not have been the same had I chosen a more “traditional” route for work. The last time I thought about this occurred to me on NYE, waiting for a client’s response back so I could get something initiated- meanwhile, it’s 7 pm, and I’m fully dressed up, standing by my computer, sparkly boots and all. I knew everyone else had fully closed their laptops for the day or not even worked at all. But the next week, I’m sending emails from Colorado because I had the flexibility to travel and work at the same time. A regular job wouldn’t have granted me the opportunity to go where I want or work when I need to, and I’m so thankful that I get the choice to do so. Life becomes way less predictable but in a unique way!

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 Anna Ritchie, and I’m a Co-Founder of jo + leigh marketing. My best friend Madison Marten and I have known each other for over 20 years and had the dream of starting a business together. We both studied business at the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. A few months after graduating, a family friend reached out asking if I knew anything about website design. Having studied and practiced graphic design myself for over 6 years at that point, I figured I could figure it out easily enough. I brought it up to Madison, and by the beginning of the year, we had our LLC, were pitching to businesses, and landing clients. We help service-based small business owners quit wasting resources on underperforming digital marketing efforts by filling in the gaps in their online presence with result-driven web design, SEO, branding, & advertising so they can get back to running their business! We saw some gaps in the marketing landscape, especially for small business owners. Big box marketing companies generating less-than-desirable results just aren’t cutting it anymore, and that’s why we’re here! We’ve had the privilege of working with tons of small business owners and proving our worth enough for them to refer us out to their fellow trusted small business owners. From brand strategies to SEO case studies to web design and development projects, we can’t wait to see how we can create yet another online success story for the next business owner.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We keep in touch with our clients through email or our handy Client Management System HoneyBook! We pride ourselves on holding an open line of communication for our clients. Something we do that fosters brand loyalty is consistently proving that we’re in our client’s corner. If they have a marketing question, they know they have a knowledgeable source to reach out to that can give them the space to brainstorm, ideate, and provide advice. While some tasks they ask may not 100% be in our general line of work or scope, we answer every email quickly and to the best of our ability and offer help where we can assist. You’re not just chatting to some Bot, you’re conversing with the founder of the company!

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

One of our favorite funny stories was right when we started the business. While something such as an ACH collection or payment seems simple now, we were new to dealing with it all and were faking it until we made it. Our bank was relatively old school, and I was learning my way around managing a business bank account and client payments. At the time, starting out, we were so small we had a small cushion of funds. It was my birthday weekend on a Friday, and I was so excited to withdraw our first few client monthly payments! As a business owner, getting new clients and their payments never gets old, so you can imagine my excitement for my very first ones. In my attempt to collect a payment, however, I managed to do the very opposite and pay a collection! I go to check our account, and not only have I paid all of our clients, but instead of getting paid, I over-drafted our account. And Friday afternoon is not an ideal time to try and solve a banking issue.
Luckily, we called the bank on Monday (after some birthday celebrations, of course), and they kindly fixed our dashboard so I would be collecting ACHs and not paying, and we got everything squared away. It was taken care of so fast that none of our clients even noticed! And while it was stressful back then, it’s now a funny moment to reminisce about.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joleighmarketing.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joleighmarketing/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joleighmarketing/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joleighmarketing
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jo-leigh-marketing-bedford
• Other: https://g.page/r/CdTb_FR6tOm4EAE