Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tanja Aelbrecht. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tanja, appreciate you joining us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

I started our business three years ago and I wish we had done it sooner!

At the time of starting our website business (Chunky Squirrel), me and my partner were working together at our wedding photography business. While wedding photography initially started out being fun, we forgot one crucial aspect: to build the business around the life that we want and not the other way around.

We’re both introverted people and we love to be location independent. Wedding photography requires you to be extraverted all day and you’re bound to places and dates years in advance.

Now we can work from anywhere and only occasionally meet clients in video calls.

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?

Because of my previous business (wedding photography), I was familiar with WordPress websites. And I learned about SEO, which is how the vast majority of our clients found us. So moving forward, becoming a full-time SEO was a no brainer.

SEO is often a discipline “shrouded in mystery”, where people pay a lot of money without knowing what’s going on. I pride myself in sharing the process with my clients and explaining how things work. With this knowledge comes empowerment! Unfortunately SEO gets a bad reputation thanks to the hundreds of scammers out there who will just take money and do nothing in return.

It’s also great to team up with my husband, who develops WordPress websites. We don’t deliver template websites, but team up with a graphic designer and everyone receives a fully custom WordPress design.

And last but not least we also offer a number of “quick fixes” such as email troubleshooting and technical website fixes.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

For my previous business (B2C) it was hands down investing in SEO: I created a lot of optimized content and had a lot of website visitors.

Ironically for my current SEO and website business (B2B), I find most clients via referrals and networking. Meeting other business owners in person or in online networking groups has worked best.

I’ve also learned that there is no “one size fits all” marketing solution for businesses. It comes down to finding something that you know you can maintain (either outsourced or DIY) and that works out.
For example, some people thrive on Instagram and find it effortless, others hate it and are doing way better in their email marketing. I think it’s a myth that we have to do it all. Outsourcing is always an option when the funds are there, but if not: do what you can sustain without hating it.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’ve gone through 3 huge pivots career wise: I went from physiotherapist to wedding photographer to SEO.

When I graduated from university as a physiotherapist in 2008, I was convinced it’d be my career for life. But moving from Belgium to Canada in 2011 changed all that. In Canada you have to jump through a lot of hoops (including a scary exam) to have your degree acknowledged. When I learned about that, I figured it was the perfect time for a career change.

It was not a decision I went of lightly, because I had invested a lot into my career, but ultimately I thought wedding photography would provide me with a creative outlet and a completely different kind of schedule compared to working in a practice.

Growing a business in a new country without a network was hard, but eventually we got to a point where the business was doing well. But the pandemic put a stop to that and we lost all income and prospect. The idea to start a new career didn’t come up right away, but the pandemic allowed us to stop and think about what we valued in life. So in 2022 we started Chunky Squirrel Services and in August 2023 we photographed our last wedding.

I don’t predict another change any time soon, but I’ve learned I can never know what challenges life will bring my way. There’s nothing wrong with starting over and you always bring knowledge from previous careers with you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chunkysquirrel.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chunkysquirrelservices/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chunkysquirrel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanjaaelbrecht/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@chunkysquirrelservices