“I help you tell your story, your way, to your audience.”
After ending last year with a 603,978 word count (at the very least), it’s clear that Rananda Rich of The Ink Rat is not only an experienced writer but enjoys it immensely too. Following 25 years in the corporate world, Rananda decided to pursue this long-held passion. She fully transitioned to running her business in 2019.
Now at The Ink Rat, Rananda offers her expertise in ghostwriting, editing, and content creation to entrepreneurs and authors. By taking time to understand her clients’ voice and unique experiences, she makes it a point to capture their story, their way.
As a longtime HerBusiness Network member, this community has become a safe place for Rananda to develop her dream 6 to 7-figure business. And by finding a supportive network of friends filled with accountability, new opportunities, and focus, Rananda came to realise that being in business doesn’t have to be difficult. Instead of incremental steps forward, she’s now ready to soar.
But when she isn’t writing for her clients, Rananda can be found writing for herself – this time in the form of creative fiction. She also enjoys bush-walking with her dog, photography, and spending time with her family and friends.
Who’s your favourite entrepreneur and why?
At the moment, I’m learning a lot from James Wedmore. He is incredibly generous with the value and insights he offers. He encourages us to do the same with our businesses, knowing it will lead to success. I see that same generosity in HerBusiness, too, with the value and support provided by Suzi and the members of this group.
Why did you start your business and what gave you the idea?
I started The Ink Rat in 2015. We’d just moved back to Australia after living and working in Thailand for a few years. During that time, I’d rediscovered the writing bug so while on maternity leave with my second child, I took a copywriting course to see if I could use this passion to create a second career path for myself. As a side-hustle, it blossomed into ghostwriting and editing as well, and I went full-time towards the end of 2019. I really love helping people tell their stories, whether it’s creating them from scratch, listening as they speak, or finessing what they have already done.
What do you enjoy most about running your own business?
I love the flexibility, autonomy, and independence of running my own business. After more than 25 years in the corporate world, I am so glad I get to decide who to focus on and how I help them. And even though I work harder than ever before, work is a natural part of my life that I can fit around family, friends and the occasional sneaky daytime bush-walk with my dog.
What three pieces of advice do you wish you’d been given when you started?
- Take action – all the great ideas mean nothing unless you take that first step. I spent ages creating a business plan when I first started but it meant nothing until I took that initial step to connect and help my first customer.
- Be consistent – decide on one action that helps your business and repeat it. Add another only when the first is well embedded. Don’t start too many new things all at once. Build them up over time.
- You don’t have to figure this all out on your own. I’d been full-time in my business for just over a year before I joined HerBusiness. Joining supercharged my business because I suddenly had access to a community, framework and resources that saved a heap of heartache and dodged a great deal of trial and error.
What advice would YOU give someone thinking about starting a business?
I love how side-hustles have evolved as a concept over the last few years. They enable us to test out ideas before going all in. Once you know you’ve got a viable, repeatable, useful offering, then you can take the next step to growing a business around it.
What skills and knowledge areas would you recommend those starting out in business get acquainted with quickly?
For me, it always comes back to knowing your future customers and meeting them where they are (rather than where you are). You might call this marketing or market research or sales strategy or product/service development, but fundamentally it is about putting yourself in your customer’s situation so you understand why and how you can help them. And if you don’t know? Ask them.
Once you know your customer, you’ll know where to find them, how to talk to them, what draws them to you, what to offer them and how to offer it to them.
Most other aspects of your business you may be able to delegate or outsource in time, but knowing your customers, even before your offering is fully formed, will set the direction and momentum in your business.
What does your IDEAL business look like? Even if you’re not there yet, what would it look like if your business was ideal?
My ideal business is a 6 to 7 figure business where I help many business owners at once with inexpensive, high value-add offerings which save time, money and angst. If some of this can form an ongoing automated income stream, it will give me more time to develop more products and services that take the frustration out of work and put the joy back in!
A lot of this is about creating simpler ways to capture and tell our stories, taking the pain out of delivering content, and measuring what’s working.
What problem does being a Member of the HerBusiness Network solve for you and your business? And, how?
HerBusiness has fundamentally changed how I think about being in business. Before joining, I expected growing my business would be a grind, and that with hustle and persistence I could make incremental steps. HerBusiness changed that for me by resetting my mindset, helping me understand and banish my upper-limit barriers, and getting some fundamentals in my business fixed fast.
The result is I made more income in my first 3 months as a HB member than I did in the 9 months prior to that! And my business has continued to grow ever since. More importantly, I have made phenomenal friends here. I am now part of a strong support network where we encourage, support and help each other to excel.
