Hi there, my name’s Claire.

I recently joined Hanneke Antonelli’s online business accountability group Business Growth Achievers (BGA for short). It’s the best online business group I could ever hope to find, and I wanted to share a bit about my experience in the group.

There are two main reasons I wanted to do this:

1. In a matter of weeks, it’s changed how I run my business.

2. Selfishly, I want more exceptional business owners in my network, so I’m hoping that by sharing my experiences, you might be tempted to join and see what it’s all about.

For the record, Hanneke didn’t ask me to write this article. It’s unpaid, unincentivized, unprompted, unsolicited. I volunteered to write it, and Hanneke promises me she won’t edit it once it’s live on her website. ☺ 

I just think it’s really worth supporting entrepreneurs like Hanneke who are doing brilliant things, so here we are.

If you want to know who I am, there’s a bit about me at the end of the article.

But let’s start by talking about BGA:

In a matter of weeks, it’s changed how I run my business forever.

The format of BGA is really simple, and therein lies its beauty. It’s a stripped-back formula for monitoring your own accountability and business success. The first element is the Accountability Tracker. And this has been transformational for me.

Each week, you fill out the Accountability Tracker, to monitor revenue that comes into your business. In doing that, you also automatically get to review revenue for the quarter, and for the year, and for the same time the previous year.

At the end of every Quarter, you also get to attend a virtual check-in with Hanneke, where she leads you through a Quarterly Review.

Before I joined BGA, I’d been trying to implement my own tracking and reporting systems in an attempt to hold myself accountable and track the growth of my business. I’d been trying to hold space for it on Fridays, and failing miserably. I didn’t have the right trackers in place, I wasn’t sure what I should be monitoring to really gauge progress and ensure I’m on the right track – I wasn’t even sure how often I should be filling out a tracker. Once a month? Every week felt like too much.

But the second I saw the BGA tracker, and saw the qualitative questions that accompany the revenue questions, I felt a flash of excitement, and couldn’t wait to fill it out (yep, I’ve been a nerd all my life, not gonna change now).

I then also realized that I had to start taking myself more seriously, and making this process more non-negotiable than I had done previously.

The weekly tracker and quarterly checkin meetings are the foundational elements of the BGA group, and within a matter of weeks, they’ve turned me into a strategic planning demon. For the first time running my own business, I feel confident that every task I complete for my business is in alignment with my larger strategic goals.

The more you put into this process, the more you get out. And I don’t mean in terms of time, but in terms of the level of commitment. I get all of this benefit for approximately 30 minutes’ work each week.

Selfishly, I want more exceptional business owners in my network, so I’m hoping that by sharing my experiences, you might be tempted to join and see what it’s all about.

The second part is the Accountability Group, which is where the members of BGA connect.

To say I’m impressed with the members of the group is an understatement.

You have agency owners, artists, service providers, healthcare practitioners, solopreneurs, and freelancers in the group. Several of them are award-winning. So quite a diverse bunch! But some things everyone in the group has in common: 

They are focused, dynamic, adaptable, ambitious, smart, kind, and generous with their time, both contributing to and responding to posts within the group.

I can’t wait to meet them in person at the members’ events coming up this year in Boston. I’ve booked my tickets already.

The caliber of the people in this group is amazing. I have to be honest: over the years, I’ve been to a lot of business events where I’ve found that people who attend aren’t really on the same wavelength as me, or aren’t as ambitious or driven as me.

I’ve been looking for a high caliber group of entrepreneurs ever since I arrived in Boston five years ago. I’d worked with Hanneke before, so I knew that if she started a group, it would be amazing.

And I was right. ☺

What I’m looking for in a business community are smart, ambitious, kind people. The kind of people I want to do business with, go to dinner with, have considered and intelligent conversations about business success, growth or business challenges, whose opinions I can trust with difficult or sensitive business questions. 

And let me be clear, I am not here to network or find new leads for my business. This is a genuine accountability group. I’m not here looking for new clients, and I am certainly not in this group to be sold to. This is a group about creating meaningful relationships with credible and inspirational business owners.

It's early days yet for the group, so I don’t know everyone really well. But I know enough to know that I’m so excited to get to know them better, and to learn more about their businesses. 

Why should you join BGA?

The more committed you are, the more you will get out of something like the Business Growth Achievers’ group.

The result I’ve achieved from being in this group is a greater sense of joy and freedom with my work than I’ve ever felt before.

Knowing that I’m being smart about my business goals every single week is such a relief. I know I’m heading in the right direction; I’m not just guessing. I feel like a weight is lifted, which leaves me free to just get on and do the work, rather than worrying all the time about whether I’m spending my time strategically. 

Anyway, if you’re a high caliber entrepreneur looking for real accountability and genuine connections, please come and find me and the other members of this group and join BGA: we’ll all be richer for it. Plus, Hanneke is the most incredible coach you could hope to find, and this is the most affordable way you’ll ever get access to her genius systems, and network of talented and inspirational business owners.

I’m proud to be part of this group, it’s making a real difference for my business.

- Claire Ransom

About Claire Ransom

Claire’s an award-winning British entrepreneur based just outside Boston, USA. Claire was a regional winner of British Entrepreneur of the Year (Startups) in 2021. She’s built multiple businesses from scratch, raised VC capital, sold a business, prepared marketing campaigns that were directly responsible for generating millions of dollars in revenue, and shipped products to tens of thousands of happy customers.

Claire is now an SEO and content strategy expert at Aloha Life Digital, which is the culmination of twenty years’ worth of working in digital publishing both for her own businesses as well as the likes Penguin Random House, Oxford University Press, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, and Google. 

~

Hi there, Hanneke here!

If you're interested in learning more about my BGA accountability group, you can join us here Business Growth Achievers

And here are a few more ways you can make the most of your time:

• Accelerate your growth with this free handy download

• Read my bestselling book, The Up Level Project

• Book a 1:1 consultation with me here.