Traditionally, my Marketing Tip of the Week is about providing a nugget of education to small businesses regarding marketing, sales, negotiation, or something that relates to small businesses on a budget. Today, although with the same spirit of small business resource and education, I want to approach this a bit differently. I would like to share some information about the small business community, the black-owned business community, and with it, my personal commitment.
I live in the United States. Not everyone who is reading this does. But, no matter where you are in the world, we’re all dealing with the same global pandemic of COVID-19. One that has decimated the small business community. Simultaneously, in the US and all over the world, we are seeing protests and awareness having to do with the rights of the Black community. This conversation was sparked by one of many occurrences of racial injustice that happened to be recorded for the world to see – the murder of George Floyd.
Most of the ways I have chosen to make a difference in my life have been one-to-one or one-to-small group discussion, empowerment, or advocacy. I don’t value anger for the sake of anger. I value productivity and encouragement. So, I have been trying to think about how that applies to this situation and what is a meaningful thing that I can do with the tools and limited platform that I have.
In the US, over 99% of businesses are small businesses. The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a “small business” as a business of under 500 employees. That’s pretty large, still. So, let’s dial this down further. In the US, 90% of businesses are microbusinesses. The SBA defines a microbusiness as one that has less than 10 employees. A business of one person – a sole proprietorship or single owner LLC – also falls into this category. The SBA also shows that 9.5% of US businesses are black-owned businesses (about 2.6 million businesses).
During this pandemic, as we have watched businesses be shut down and advocates for small businesses talk and plan for how to reopen safely, they are met with a wave of voices of those who condemn them for their “greed” and wanting to “line their pockets.” Did you know that 40% of small businesses make under $100k in revenue? Or that 80% are nonemployer businesses? This is not about lining pockets. It’s not just about the business surviving. The business surviving is inherently tied to personal survival. In fact, black-owned businesses – despite making up 9.5% of US businesses – are making up 1.3% of total American sales. That’s bleak, isn’t it?
On top of this, the Black community has to deal with the minefields of daily survival and personal safety.
And now with the backdrop of protests to talk about that daily survival and personal safety, we have seen opportunistic looters and vandals jump in and destroy business property. Including minority-owned business property. And I see all these people saying, “You can replace a business.” Try it yourself. I look forward to hearing your feedback about how easy it was to build and then “replace” a business. During a pandemic.
What’s my point? Most of us business owners are not building businesses to become mega-rich, nor will that be in the cards for most. Building a business is hard work, filled with lessons learned the hard way about rules and regulations that you never even knew to ask if they might exist. Many of us do it out of necessity. For many of us, every sale made or contract signed drastically improves our quality of life. It’s a long, tricky path to walk for any business owner, with many trap doors along the way. And, as we’re all seeing, black business owners have even more complications to add to the mix.
Supporting black-owned businesses is one of the many things we can do to build up this community. Whatever that support looks like, be it through buying from them, investing in them, referring friends to them, engaging with them on social media, signing up for their mailing lists, interviewing them, featuring them, or partnering with them, the impact goes beyond the business and often goes directly to the human behind it.
Last month, I hosted Webinar Week to interview speakers about small business recovery during a pandemic. Before launch, I had one week to secure and schedule speakers, and I was hustling to put together the most relevant, informative week of small business information sharing I could. In the end, I had 15 speakers. To get to 15, I put out 56 invitations to speakers, some of whom I knew personally, many of whom I was reaching out to for the first time because I valued adding their voice or industry to the conversation and I specifically wanted a diverse cross-section of perspectives. About 1/3 of those I reached out to were people of color, and absolutely no one of that list that didn’t already know me responded to me. Yet, many of the white speakers who accepted didn’t know me before I emailed them about this. It made me think. Intentions and invitations didn’t matter. More is needed to build those relationships.
If you look on social media, there are a lot of voices right now shouting about exactly what it is you should be doing to be a good human. I have to be me, and a lot of what they’re suggesting doesn’t resonate for me at all. Sometimes it just looks like anger for anger’s sake or self-congratulatory gestures. So, what can I do from a standpoint of one-to-one support?
I want to make two commitments here.
- I am offering ten 1-hour slots of complimentary marketing coaching to black-owned business owners this year. That’s ten different people for 1 hour each. If you’re reading this in 2020, and you want to see if a session is available, email me here. If you contact me to ask about a coaching session, and they are already fulfilled, I will offer you access to any one of my online marketing courses that you choose, free of charge (see those here). 2020 has been an impossibly-difficult year for small businesses, and I want to help black-owned businesses pivot, strategize, and find ways to message so that they can recover and rebuild. Please feel free to share this with those you know who may benefit, because, to be honest, I am not sure if this offer will get where it needs to go without help from my community.
- I am extending a special invitation to black-owned businesses to submit an original guest blog for my site. Yes, this opportunity is open to all. But I am specifically asking you to share your voice. I want to know your business tips or business journey, and so does the MFEM community. Read here to learn what guest blogging entails and how to submit an entry.
And how can you support? Buying from them, investing in them, referring friends to them, engaging with them on social media, signing up for their mailing lists, interviewing them, featuring them, or partnering with them. That’s a start.
Lastly, because it just kills me how much businesses are struggling right now, I want to remind EVERYONE that there are organizations throughout the world that exist just to help small businesses. Many of these organizations offer free or low-cost coaching and educational services. Although this is not a perfectly comprehensive list, please read here if you are looking for ideas.
#BlackOwned #BlackOwnedBusiness
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