She Saw the Need and Built Her Business Around It: My Interview with ARCA Partner Jessica Somera

When I was doing my preliminary research for this blog series about female business leaders in Long Beach, I did what every basic millennial does and started Googling.

I came across an article that the Long Beach Business Journal wrote a couple years ago featuring local female business owners, and figured I’d start there. One of the people that I reached out to via LinkedIn messenger was Jessica Somera, founder of ARCA World Logistics, and she graciously agreed to meet up with me for an interview.

We had a great conversation about her journey to running the successful company she has today, what it’s like to be a woman in the male-dominated shipping industry that she’s in, and also advice for other women who have goals to own and operate their own business venture someday too.

A Little About Her Background

Jessica was born and raised right here in Long Beach and has lived here for most of her life. She spent a couple years down South in Virginia with her husband, and then the company she was working for at the time moved them to North Carolina and they lived there for five years. Eventually, when she decided to start her company, they decided to come back to Long Beach and establish themselves here.  

How ARCA Came to Be

I asked her what sparked the idea to start her own company when it seemed like she had a successful career in the industry already, having been in the shipping industry for 14 years. Her previous employer was an importer/exporter and also did some manufacturing, and buying and selling of trading goods, and she was their logistics manager.

Jessica started to notice that a lot of their suppliers and buyers would call her for advice. They would ask for suggestions on how they should do things, how they can improve, how to offer competitive rates, and advice coming from a customs standpoint. These conversations made it very clear that there was a need that wasn’t being met in the industry and an opportunity for her to meet that need by starting her own company.

It had been a long time coming. Through her years of working for many big freight forwarders, she just didn’t like the corporate, black and white, boxed in vibe. She felt that there was a huge need for startups and small businesses to get the attention they deserve. Just because a company is small and only importing 20 containers per year, for example, doesn’t mean they should just slip through the cracks. The big companies have a tendency to focus on the big box retailers, which is lucrative, but smaller ventures deserve exceptional service and support too. Which is where ARCA comes in. Jessica started the company with a focus on services startup companies.    

What Exactly is Freight Forwarding

Full transparency here, I’m not exactly “an expert” when it comes to the freight industry, so I asked Jessica to explain her business so people like me can understand it better. ARCA, founded in 2014, is a freight forwarder that helps customers move their products from point A to point B, and sometimes all the way to point Z, or “the last mile” as she put it. They specialize in e-commerce, work with larger companies like Amazon, and also smaller retailers. They have a service called “pick and ship” where containers of goods will be delivered to a warehouse they partner with, it gets de-consolidated and then sent off to the consumer via UPS or FedEx. So basically, if it weren’t for her company, people like me who love supporting non-corporate businesses and buying badass feminist t-shirts from online startups, wouldn’t get our stuff. And more importantly, the business selling those items wouldn’t get their product to the customer – which is the whole point of having a product based business. So, take a moment today to be grateful for freight forwarders. Our society sure loves its “stuff,” and they make sure we get it.

After learning more about the industry she chose as a career, I was curious about what she wanted to be when she “grew up.” Jessica wanted to be a teacher, and actually never considered herself an entrepreneur – and still doesn’t. She loves education and teaching people, which makes perfect sense since educating customers is what inspired her to start her own business.

“The worse thing that could happen is being a brand new company, and you’re excited, and you’re importing 5,000 t-shirts from China, and the carrier quotes you one price, and then it ends up to be three times what they quoted you and you lose your profit.”  

Passionate About Helping Others

In speaking with her it’s very obvious how passionate Jessica is about educating new companies, specifically importers, on their various requirements, including duties and taxes, and making sure that they are getting the best price and highest quality service. At the end of the day, Jessica simply loves what she does and is passionate about helping people.

(Which, if you ask me, should be step number one for anyone starting a business. How can you HELP OTHERS? Find an honest answer to this, and you’re off to a tremendous start.)

An Example of Offering High-Quality Service

One story she shared was about working with a large rug importer. When they first started they were only about 10 containers per month, and now are up to 150 containers per month. When they moved over to ARCA after working with a different, larger freighter, ARCA discovered that they were not at all getting the service they deserved. There was a free trade agreement that wasn’t being applied to their shipments which could have been saving them thousands of dollars per container. ARCA was able to reduce that cost, reduce their duties, and also give them the quality of service they deserved.

Let’s Talk Marketing

One of my favorite topics of discussion, when I’m interviewing business owners and entrepreneurs, is how they have used marketing to grow their business, and how their tactics have evolved over the years. When she first started out, Jessica recruited customers with a good ol’ cold calling strategy – which worked. They would also go through lead generation, data, lists, and attend conferences. But really, it was the hours she put into cold calling that really helped her get her business up and running. When they first started off Jessica would spend at least 20 hours per week making cold calls… because being a business owner is not just glitz and glam ALL the time. (If you can’t tell I’m completely kidding here, you haven’t started your own business.)

Later they implemented an SEO strategy to improve their rankings but didn’t see a big ROI. This is a great example of how marketing, specifically digital marketing strategies can be very different depending on the industry. In ARCA’s case, people just don’t search for “nearby freight forwarding service” online, so SEO couldn’t have made that big of an impact. This year they are leaning in more on social media running ads on Facebook and LinkedIn. But, their biggest source of lead generations is referrals. Nothing beats word of mouth – and that “tactic” is true of practically any industry.  

Looking forward, Jessica has big ideas and plans for ARCA. She would like to see them open up two or three more offices in the United States and eventually expand overseas as well.

Navigating Through a Male-Dominated Industry

Speaking of industries again, Jessica is definitely the minority gender in hers. It’s heavily male-dominated, and as she puts it, “it’s the only industry where you go to a conference and there’s a line for the men’s bathrooms and not the women’s.”

Beyond that, and despite her years of experience and running a successful company for the past four years, Jessica is still pushing back against the patriarchy – both in her own industry and with potential clients. When she presents her company to a new company, they’ll ask her “who’s the president of your company?” “I’m right here,” she’ll say. She’ll get questions like “who’s the owner?” or “who’s the boss?” I give her so much credit for knowing how to navigate those situations with professionalism and grace. I don’t know if I would be able to hide my frustration.

Advice for Fellow Female Business Owners

When asked about giving advice to other female business owners, particularly in an industry dominated by men, her advice is to keep fighting through it and don’t give up.

“There are opportunities out there. It doesn’t matter if 98% of the people are 40-year-old men. It doesn’t matter. If you have what it takes and are passionate about it, that will come through very clearly. If you love what you do and you’re passionate about the service or product you have, that’s going to come through no matter what.”

A Unique Way to Find Mentors

Another obstacle that Jessica overcame was finding guidance and mentorship on her own, rather than depending on someone who has been in the freight industry for a long time. Again, they are mostly older dudes, typically 20 – 30 years her senior who don’t take her seriously and think they are just wasting time by giving her advice. Boy, bye.

Instead of being sad or frustrated about not getting the kind of advice she wanted and deserved, Jessica turned to books to find her mentors. Kristen Hadeed is one of her favorite entrepreneurs, and she was especially influenced by her book Permission to Screw Up where she talks about overcoming challenges and the mistakes she made during the beginning phases of her business. Tony Hsieh from Zappos is another person she has learned a lot from following, and also Dave Ramsey on how to make something from nothing.

I had never met Jessica before this interview, and honestly didn’t even really fully understand what her business did before I walked into her office, but I’m so glad I did that quick Google search, messaged her on LinkedIn to ask for an interview, and she obliged. I love that she isn’t apologizing for her age or her gender, and is just pushing forward to expand her business the right way – with the customer experience as the top priority. I also love that at the end of this interview we totally bonded over our love of Rachel Hollis and that she highly recommended her book Girl Wash Your Face, which I also finished on audiobook in about two days.

If you or anyone you know has a need for freight forwarding, I can’t recommend Jessica and her company ARCA enough. Check out their site here, or give them a call: 562.343.7600. You will get the service you deserve, all at a reasonable price.

I also mentioned industry-specific marketing in this article, which happens to be something I can help you out with. SEO blogs can be very effective in many cases, as well as user-friendly website content and stellar social media posts. Contact me so I can take a look at your stuff and give my recommendations.