How One Couple Built an 8-Figure Business—and Sold It to Alaska Airlines

What makes a business valuable enough to sell?

Ral West didn’t just build an 8-figure business—she built one that could thrive without her, leading to a successful sale to Alaska Airlines. 

In this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Kitchen, Ral shares her journey from “mom and pop” hustle to a systemized, scalable company—and why she now helps entrepreneurs escape the trap of being their business’s bottleneck.

Tune in to learn:

• Why your real value isn’t in doing everything yourself
• The six principles behind a freedom-focused business
• How systems, data, and culture made her company acquisition-ready
• What she learned from mentors like Robert Kiyosaki
• How you can begin to live the dream—without sacrificing your values or family

This episode is a must-listen if you’re building a business with long-term vision, time freedom, and legacy in mind.

🔗 Learn more about Ral West https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralwest/
📬 Subscribe to Ral’s newsletter on LinkedIn: Ral’s Success Principles
🎓 Check out her course & mastermind https://www.ralwest.com

🌟Resources mentioned:

🎯 Get your copy of The E-Myth Revisited 

Simple & strategic marketing solutions for the busy coach and consultant. Visit www.reinventingperspectives.com

Transcript

Ral West Create Value In Your Business

Ral West: [00:00:00] if you're just a mom and pop company. You're not marketable because they have to buy you as well as your business. It was because we had taken ourselves out of the business, out of the day to day, and that the business was running very smoothly and very profitably without us, that we had more value as a business. So we hired an investment banking firm and made a pitch to Alaska Airlines and eventually convinced them to buy us.

It's.

Priscilla Shumba: Welcome to the Lessons of Entrepreneurship, the Journey of Reinvention. Today, I've got a special guest for you. Ral West. Ral tell us a little bit about yourself and your mission. 

Ral West: I live in Alaska. That's one of the unique things about me, and I've been an entrepreneur for over 40 [00:01:00] years. began in Anchorage, Alaska, starting my own business. And we've had several businesses. probably the major business was one that we had for 25 years, and we grew it in Anchorage from nothing to eight digits and annual revenue.

Ral West: And then we were able to sell it to Alaska Airlines. That was quite a few years ago. And since then we've started other businesses and sold some and moved on. About two years ago, I started another business called Ral West Living the dream. It's my passion project. I teach entrepreneurs how to. Build their business in such a way that they can be the owner and not the operator, so that they can have a life and live the dream and still have a robust business.

Priscilla Shumba: I'm interested to know why that specific thing is your passion project, is it the thing you struggled with the most or is it the pivotal moment? . 

Ral West: we were struggling when we were starting out the first, oh, [00:02:00] dozen years or so operating our business. It was growing we were the mom and pop, and so we were doing everything and we were working all the time , it was hard to take time off our poor. Oldest daughter who now lives in New South Wales she had to come to the office after school to do her homework.

Ral West: 'cause we were still working, and sometimes we'd have, fast food dinner in the office because we were still working and this was not a good lifestyle. So we realized something had to change and we started to study and learn, how to operate a business so that you don't have to do it all yourself. And it took about five years. To learn everything that we needed to know to how to set up systems and create a culture, build our team, create all the tracking mechanisms so that we could watch how the company was doing, no matter where we were. And at the end of that time, we were able to hire a chief operating officer [00:03:00] and a chief.

Ral West: Financial officer and then we could step away and let them run the business. 'cause we'd established all of the systems and the culture, we'd laid the foundation for them so then they could grow it from there. And they did. And as I said, they grew it to over eight digits in annual revenue.

Ral West: And we were like, wow, this is amazing. And then, from there, we. Moved on to sell it to Alaska Airlines. And so it's a passion because I see too many entrepreneurs that don't have the freedom to live life the way they want. They're tied to their business, married to their jobs, instead of. Starting a business, they just, bought themselves a new job. And that's not the way it's supposed to be, I don't believe. So I'm just taking it upon myself, my personal mission to free entrepreneurs to live life the way they ought to be living it and still have an a successful business.

Ral West: It's possible to do both.

Priscilla Shumba: For the person who'd probably see themselves [00:04:00] in this when you were. In the business and operating day to day. What were you saying to yourself or what was the thing that was preventing you from stepping out of the business or trying to figure out how to step out of the business?

Ral West: Oh, I think we had the misconception. That We knew best how to do everything. So that means, we had to do it ourselves in order to get it done right. And We hadn't developed the guidelines to be able to teach other people to do what we did. I remember one really pivotal moment when I was leading our marketing department and they were wondering how it was that I knew that we needed at a particular point in time to increase the spending on our advertising. And It took me back. 'cause I was like oh I don't know how I know that. I just do, , it's like instinct. I know that now we need to increase our advertising. And so I had to analyze my thought pattern and it took me a while to figure that out. Maybe two or three [00:05:00] weeks, and then I gradually figured out, oh. I'm watching our sales trends. So by that time, we had figured out how to measure and track what all of our trends were. And so I determined, okay, let's watch this statistic. And if this particular statistic for sales calls and sales volume were to go down. three days in a row, that was a sign that we needed to increase our advertising so we would, up the budget and buy more advertising.

Ral West: And this was in the late 1990s, so most of our business came from radio and television and newspaper advertising. In Our market. So that was how we needed to get the word out that, hey, we've got better airfares and so forth. And every time we increased the advertising, get more calls, we'd get more business.

Ral West: It was like magic. So once I'd identified the metrics, then I could [00:06:00] say to my marketing team, okay, this is what you need to do. This is what you need to watch for. then I was free because they didn't need me to make that decision for them. They could carry on without me. So one little decision at a time or one little process at a time.

Ral West: We gradually worked our way out of that day to day ,job,

Ral West: , At the end of that five years, we bought our second home on Maui, which we still have 6 years ago. We still enjoy it. We bought a yacht and we started traveling around the world and just enjoying ourselves. And all the while we were able to keep track of how the business was doing because we had all of these metrics, all of these reports, so we were able to still, guide and monitor the business even though we didn't have to be there day in and day out. freedom. 

Priscilla Shumba: It sounds like it so many gems . I think a lot of entrepreneurs identifying with that feeling like you're the best person to do something, if I let someone else do, it's not gonna be done. I'm glad that [00:07:00] you bust through that myth as well.

Priscilla Shumba: You showed how sometimes you become the brain of the business and that's not what you want. . We're off to a good start. Ral. . , What would you say your superpower is you've been in all these businesses and the thing that you think made you different as an entrepreneur.

Priscilla Shumba: What would that thing be? 

Ral West: First of all, I say systems, but I didn't have that superpower to begin with. My real superpower was that. When I learned something, I actually applied it. I executed, it's that taking action instead of just like reading a book or taking a course and you say, oh, that's good. That's really good stuff.

Ral West: Good to know that. But unless you're really doing it and taking some action and putting it into application in your business. You can't realize the benefit of what you just learned. One of the things that I was learning in those days we had lots of mentors and one of our [00:08:00] major mentor in those days was Robert Kiyosaki, and this was before he wrote the book, rich Dad, poor Dad, and he. Was coming to Anchorage on a regular basis to give classes, and his classes were things like money and you and creating wealth. But there was so many business gems in those classes. 'Cause we , had been following him for several years and one time we were in Hawaii and he was there.

Ral West: So we had lunch with him at his hotel and he said, you've gotta go buy this book. The book is called The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. So that afternoon we went to the bookstore and bought the book and read it immediately. And when we got back to our office in Anchorage, we started applying what we'd learned in that book. And that was really the game changer for us because his book really spelled out how you set up a business with systems so that the business can run with or without. The owner or the [00:09:00] founder and just the formulas were all there. We just needed to apply them. 

Priscilla Shumba: You met Robert Kiki before rich Dad, poor dad, and he was teaching about cashflow yes.

Ral West: He created , the cash flow game, while we were studying with him. So we got to play the beta of the game and he was testing it with us and our daughters and, it was great. He's a brilliant man. Very brilliant. We learned so much from him.

Priscilla Shumba: Oh, how cool is that? That's very awesome. I also like that you say that you read and you apply. 'cause I've experienced that when you. Read and don't do anything. All you do is get overwhelmed. 

Ral West: Yeah, and I think the trick is, you don't have to do it all at once. That's the old eating the elephant, proverbial thing. So just take a piece of it and do that, then move to the next piece. And do that. About the same time I decided to go back to college, 'cause I had been a college dropout, so I was in my thirties and I [00:10:00] said, yeah, I want that degree. And I certainly didn't need it to advance my career. I already owned a business, but I just, I wanted that degree. And as it turned out the program that I enrolled in was called a degree completion program at a private university in Anchorage. And it was meant for mid-career professionals. And so they taught us really applicable stuff.

Ral West: And I would go to class at night and I'd go to the office the next morning and I'd say, Hey, team, guess what I learned last night? And this is what we're gonna do. And they would just go, oh no what is it now? They were calling me the change junkie , but it was all such good stuff and that just further enlightened me.

Ral West: I learned about Total quality management and, a lot about creating your company culture. There were several classes that I took on that and. Wrote papers on it and, and some of the papers that I wrote were about our own business and that was fantastic. And we learned [00:11:00] how to really mold and shape our culture to be the kind of business that would really excel. And looking back, I know that if we hadn't done that, we would not have been a target for a purchase by Alaska Airlines. , There wouldn't have been anything to buy for one thing if you're just a mom and pop company. You're not marketable because they have to buy you as well as your business. So it was because we had taken ourselves out of the business, out of the day to day, and that the business was running very smoothly and very profitably without us, that we had more value as a business. And the culture was so good and we had nurtured such loyalty from our own team and with our customers that when Alaska Airlines came, because our business was that we operated Air Service, charter Air Service between Alaska and Hawaii.

Ral West: And we were chartering wide body jets, like big seven, six sevens, the [00:12:00] big ones. And we were carrying over 35,000 passengers a year between Alaska and Hawaii. Alaska Airlines wanted to come into the market, but they knew. From their research that we were really doing a good job in that market and that our customers were extremely loyal to us, and they knew that it would not be easy to get us out. we recognized this and recognized that their pockets were probably deeper than ours, so would be a. Better deal for everyone if they just bought us rather than them trying to win the market. And we'd get into a fair war and nobody would make any money. 'cause we'd be cutting the prices down to where, it wasn't profitable. So we hired an investment banking firm and made a pitch to Alaska Airlines and eventually convinced them to buy us. And that way they basically bought the market and just stepped in and they had all of our customers. Now our customers were not happy about that

Ral West: Thought we [00:13:00] had abandoned them. But, it was what we needed to do. Because we would not have been able to survive if we were trying to compete against Alaska Airlines.

Ral West: We had competed against other major airlines and won. We competed against Hawaiian Airlines. We competed against Northwest Airlines and so forth, but Alaska was different. That would've been a tough one.

Priscilla Shumba: How did you get into that line of business? 'cause it's not the average thing in a conversation to hear that someone is in the airline business. , You mentioned we I'm guessing, so maybe tell us a little bit about that.

Ral West: I grew up in the travel business. My father started a travel business in Alaska in the 1940s. , I was born and raised in Seattle, but Alaska was part of my blood, being part of the family business. I started off working for the family company and then after a few years and, oh no, I wanna be out on my own. So I got a job offer in Ketchikan, Alaska, which is , the most southern city [00:14:00] in Alaska. I took the job as a director of marketing for this small tour company, and I loved the job and I loved the travel industry, but I just felt like , I didn't totally agree with the way the owners were running the business, and I thought, okay. I need to take myself out of this because they're not gonna do things my way because I'm just an employee, right? why don't I see what I can do on my own? And I decided to move to Anchorage, which was the big city in Alaska. I would use my background in travel and tourism and my marketing background, and I would help small tourism businesses with their marketing and help them grow. So I did that and. Shortly after I arrived in Anchorage, I met this young man who had a little tiny office across the hall from my little tiny office, and we to know each other. My first clients were companies in Hawaii who were selling travel products to [00:15:00] Alaskans. And I knew that Alaskans loved going to Hawaii.

Ral West: So that was my first pitch was I'm gonna represent these travel companies I was flying off to Hawaii on business trips. And this guy across the hall was going, are you going to Hawaii again? And how do I get in on this? I like Hawaii. I'd like to go on business trips, and get free trips to Hawaii. And so he started picking my brain and decided that, , his background was real estate, so he combined tourism and real estate and started representing Alaskans who owned vacation rental condos in Hawaii and. that's what he thought that his business plan was. And I was like no. In the travel industry you'd be better off like packaging it. Not just the condo, but the air and the rental car and the other things. And at some point I said, you can't just keep getting this free advice for me. This is what I do for a living.

Ral West: You're gonna have to pay me. And so he said, okay, I'll take you out to dinner And we've argued for, [00:16:00] 40 years, whether that was our first date or just a business dinner. And he actually recently admitted it really was the first date we were married less than a year later. I had my business and he had his, but obviously I was involved in his from the beginning. And it just, kept growing and at some point I said, okay, I need to. Especially when we started chartering big jets. 'cause that just happened. , We started off by just buying seats on the existing carriers, but then they pulled out of the market. So we have no way to get our clients from Alaska to Hawaii.

Ral West: So it was like, what are we gonna do? Do we just fold up shop and close the doors and walk away? I was like, no. People in Alaska really need to be able to have this easy and inexpensive way to get to Hawaii. And so my husband found a way to charter up a plane we did it for just a summer season and everybody thought we were nuts. And I looked at the numbers, I studied the spreadsheets and figured out that, we had done that [00:17:00] volume in previous summers so we can do it. So it was a very calculated risk and we risked his mother's retirement account 'cause that's what we needed. To get a letter of credit to secure this charter. My husband particularly was very motivated to make sure that was a success. He didn't wanna lose his mother's retirement money. So that was the beginning and then we just kept, getting bigger and bigger planes and more and more flights and the company grew and those were the years that, we really got overwhelmed because the company had grown from, just a handful of employees to, 20, 25. Soon it was 50, and it's ah, this is a lot. So that was when we really dug in and started to learn how to do a better job of running a business and not just, you know, taking care of everything ourselves. So that's how it came about.

Priscilla Shumba: That's so interesting. Thanks for sharing that with us. Ral. I know that you talk a lot about. Branding and finding your voice. I was interested to know that [00:18:00] for entrepreneurs in the online space, wanting to stand out, what would you say you see people doing right, and what do you say?

Priscilla Shumba: Maybe people are doing it wrong. 

Ral West: I'm still new at that. I've only been at it for two years. But it's been a very steep learning curve. you think that it's easy to get into social media and set yourself up as this personal brand, and it's just not as easy as it sounds or as it looks because the marketplace is so noisy, so crowded, whatever social media platform you're on, whether it's Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever you're just competing with thousands of other people, many of whom are doing the same thing that you are. So you have to do something to set yourself apart. You have to for one thing to be very consistent and very prolific with your content and with your posting, and that takes a lot of effort. So [00:19:00] in order to do that well and do it so that you're not working 24 hours a day, you have to use the leverage that I talk about in the course that I've created, one of my principles that I teach is leverage. So you have to use leverage, get a VA or hire a firm to do. Some help with your social media use software that helps you do your posts, use software and AI to help you create your content. There's so many ways that you can use leverage to make your voice go further than just your efforts can make it.

Ral West: Get that help and get mentors. Hire people that know more about it than you do, and don't just assume that oh gee, I know this particular field or my particular area so well that I've got it made. Not quite, it's a little more complicated than that. And they're are so many experts out there that will tell you, I know how to get you all the leads that you want on [00:20:00] LinkedIn. Or Facebook or Instagram, just take my course or hire me and some of them do know what they're doing and do a good job and others, you'll just spend a lot of money and get nowhere. So you have to be really careful and do some homework, get some references, and see the track record before you just jump in and spend that money.

Priscilla Shumba: And tell me more about your course. You mentioned that you have a course.

Ral West: Yes. So I created a course. 'Cause my idea with starting this business is that I want to, teach entrepreneurs, but I don't wanna do it one-on-one because we've created this life, this livin' in the dream and we're traveling a lot and, enjoying ourselves. So I don't wanna be working that hard anymore, and I don't need to. I created a course so that I could teach many people and have it be a low price point. So the course is called overcome overwhelm, create a Smooth Running Business with Less Stress. It took me, gosh, almost a year [00:21:00] to finish creating that course, and it's all. Done and recorded so that people can take the course at their own pace and do it whenever they want. but then I realized that some of the people who were taking the course were not as disciplined about getting through all of the modules. It was eight modules to the course, and each module has four or five video lessons and they get part of the way in and then go. Ah, now I'm overwhelmed again. Now I'm creating a mastermind program and I'm targeting owners of businesses that are doing seven and eight digits in revenue. So businesses that have been around for a little while and have a bit of structure to them so that I can teach them how to use the six principles that are the basis of my course and. Show them how to use those principles in their business, give them some guidance a little bit of taking them by the hand. And then have a peer group too the other people in the Mastermind they can all work together and learn from each other. The [00:22:00] mastermind it's actually being launched now it'll start in the middle of the summer. And it'll only be like 20 to 25 people. I want it to be an intimate, personal relationship with the people in the Mastermind. And that's what this next big thing for this little business is. Then there are other plans for the future. But right now, I think the main thing is you can take the course and that's a lot less expensive than the Mastermind, but if you want some help. With executing and actually applying the principles, take the Mastermind and then I can help you with it.

Priscilla Shumba: , You mentioned the six principles. If you could tell us the first principle.

Ral West: You bet.

Ral West: The 

Ral West: First 

Ral West: Principle is to establish systems. You've gotta have systems, even just. Very simple, basic systems like organizing your tasks having an automated calendar having your bookkeeping set up on an automated basis. Make sure that your bills are paid automatically online and so forth.

Ral West: Things , that [00:23:00] save you time or hire people to do it for you. So creating these systems to free up your time so that you can grow the business. The second principle is to set up your measurements so that you can track your performance and see what you're doing, how you're doing your revenue, as well as what is your marketing actually producing?

Ral West: What's working well, what isn't working, and it's the old, if it's not working, stop. If it is working, keep doing more of it. And that's a really key element to being able to grow a business is you've gotta know how you're doing.

Ral West: So that you can Grow it. Then there's leverage, which I talked about earlier, you have to use leverage.

Ral West: There's many 

Ral West: Different ways to get leverage, but you have to be purposeful about it. Some people probably by accident use leverage, but if they're really, focused on like, how can I leverage my time? How can I get more done with less time, then I think you really make some much [00:24:00] bigger progress.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for sharing those with us. Ral, it's interesting you talk about the first one being setting up even basic systems. 'cause things get out of hand really quickly. . 

Ral West: And even with this little business that I started two years ago, I had to establish systems and it takes a while. You don't start the business and immediately know. All the systems that you're going to need you have to figure it out as you go along, and then those systems are going to evolve. As your business grows, things get a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more complicated, then your systems have to grow too. So it gets better and better.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for that. What would you say is the best business advice and then the best life advice after that, that you've gotten?

Ral West: Gosh, the best business advice, that's a tough one to narrow it to one, I have over 40 years of experience with lots of advice, so, I think probably the best business advice is to take action just do something. Don't just sit around and think about. What You're going to do, if [00:25:00] you have an idea for a business or something, actually take some action, and go for itHave Have confidence. Have faith in yourself and do some research. Make sure that you're just not going out and blindly starting a business without knowing whether or not anybody wants what you're trying to sell. And then, go for it. Trust yourself,

Ral West: And then life advice. Don't be afraid of mistakes. Mistakes Are the best leverage, education is one of the best forms of leverage. And you get an education every time you make a mistake, or at least you ought to if you're making mistakes and you're not looking at them. To figure out what the lesson was in that mistake, then you're missing an opportunity. So embrace your mistakes, make as many as you can, and learn from them as much as you can, and then you can keep moving forward and, don't make the same mistakes over and over again. Make new [00:26:00] ones bigger, ones better ones that you can learn even more from.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for that, Ral. To the audience, please, if you could go to Ral West.com Rao, where can people follow you, where you're the most active online?

Ral West: LinkedIn is where I do most of my posting, and I'd love for people to subscribe to my weekly LinkedIn newsletter. It's called Ral's Success Principles, and of course, find out about my mastermind. You can go to my website and on LinkedIn . And I even, I have a YouTube channel, Ral West. You can watch of podcasts like this one. And many videos on there. I think I have over 60 videos on my YouTube channel

Priscilla Shumba: Oh, wonderful. Ral, you said your newsletter's called Success principles. Maybe you can give us your most recent success principle that you shared in your newsletter.

Ral West: Every week is a different topic. We talk about things like creating policies for your business what [00:27:00]kind of policies will really help your employees feel more empowered, and things like how to use AI and things like how to set up your tracking. Just lots of very actionable strategies and tips in the newsletters. Yeah.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you so much, rah. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I make sure ask this question. Is there something that you wanted me to ask that I did not ask?

Ral West: Another piece of life advice is World traveling. That's a fun thing to do. I highly recommend it. As we talked a bit earlier, we go to Australia quite often 'cause our daughter and family are there. And we love traveling around the world. We learn so much from visiting different cultures and different places in the world. Be open to exploring the world around you and just embrace life. And so I guess just don't let anybody stop you.

Ral West: Just keep going for it. Doesn't matter how old you are or anything, just go for it and do whatever you want and you can.[00:28:00]

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for that. It was encouraging and wise words. Thank you, Ral. It's been a pleasure.

Ral West: Thank you Priscilla.