Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Alfred Edmund Jr. on What It Takes to Be Successful in Business

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Alfred Edmund Jr. on What It Takes to Be Successful in Business · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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3, 2, 1, 0, ignition Left off.
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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Now here's the small Biz lady herself.
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Melinda Everson.
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Hi, everybody.
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I'm Melinda in the small biz lady, and we are back.
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And now I'm gonna turn things over to Alfred Edmond Junior.
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He is the senior vice president and editor at large for black enterprise.
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My favorite business publication, by the way.
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And I am so excited to have him here with us tonight.
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He is going to talk to us about what it takes to stay in business.
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Right?
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We know you gotta know your numbers, but what does it really, really take to stay in
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business?
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Alfred, I'm so excited to have you here with us tonight.
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And I just wanted to have an opportunity to let you sort of, like, tell people because we all
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know you feel like enterprise, but You're an entrepreneur in your own right.
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So tell us a little bit about all of your business ventures.
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Yeah.
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I'm a baby entrepreneur.
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As you know, I'm in my 31st year at Black Enterprise where I've been I'm a
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entrepreneurial geek.
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I like looking into under the hood of other people's businesses.
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Understanding why they work, why they don't work, what you could do to make them work
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better.
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So I just love entrepreneurship in general.
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I'm kind of a almost like a sports fan for entrepreneurship.
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But several years ago, actually, it'll be 5 years ago this year.
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My wife and I, Sarah Green, started growing zone of education to put it in a nutshell.
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We help people to recognize, quantify, and minimize the cost that their relationship
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decisions are costing them in their careers and their business and their finances.
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So you go to grozone.com to learn more, but I was just listening to Dawn and we are learning
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a lot of those tax lessons the hard way, but I mean, they're valuable lessons.
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But you know, I mean, to a bunch of stuff, my host of financial radio show, for America at
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Viridio Networks.
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Well, I have my own bow tie line, so you guys know I love bow ties.
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This is not for my line.
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It's for American Arbor Dillo, another company that I love.
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So I'm I'm just a geek about entrepreneurship and all these forms, and I'm just glad that,
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I'm here to be able to celebrate with you tonight because I love small business chat.
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Thank you so much.
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Listen, I wanna know, you know, you you say that you are a a geek of small business.
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So I wanna talk to you about, you know, the nature of business has really change over the
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last 5 years.
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And I wanted to know if you could just kinda give us your snapshot of, you know, how has the
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the nature of business changed over the last few years?
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I think the biggest change, there are really 2 changes.
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One has been underway for a while.
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And but I think we've now finally flipped from the career of choice being going to get a good
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job in building a career and then maybe starting a business as a second act.
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Now I think it's but the totally the other way.
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People are starting out with my goal is to start a business.
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I take a job here and there to get to where I gotta go.
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I'm willing to do it, but that's not my mission.
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And so now you have a a full generation of people who see entrepreneurship is the first
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option, not the second or the backup option.
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And of course, that's been driven apart by the gig economy because you can actually do both.
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You can have a regular job but still at 1 or 2 business and other multiple income sources on
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the side.
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The second thing is what I call the democratization of capital.
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Now because of crowd funding and other things that angel investing and a lot of other things
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that that, laws have changed as well policies of chains in terms of how you can raise money
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has made it a lot easier for the single person entrepreneur, the new startup, to kind of get
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something started without having to go through the banks or other institutional sources of,
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financing.
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So I think those are two big things that are making it easier for people to start
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businesses.
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Unfortunately, as you know, the fact that it's easier to start doesn't mean they're easier to
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run and easier to sustain
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Well, that actually goes beautifully into my next question because I was gonna say, you
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know, just because it look easy, that don't mean it is easy.
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Right?
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So and I know from 18 years of experience myself at being through the fire, the wind, and
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the rain.
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I know better.
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It it it's it's no small thing out here to put your shingle out and say you're open for
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business.
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Well, what do you think it takes to be successful in business today?
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Probably the the biggest thing.
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And and, you know, I mentor a lot of entrepreneurs, and and start up companies
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there's a certain raw raw attitude or raw raw aspect of entrepreneurship that I think in
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excess becomes unhealthy.
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And so you have these people.
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I'm gonna quit my job.
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I'm gonna be my own boss.
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I'm gonna I'm gonna build this business and and they bought into just the fun part of launching
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the business.
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Like, everybody talks about the growth and the number of businesses.
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Nobody wants to talk about the failure rates.
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Right.
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No one wants to talk about how you can be in business for years and never make a penny
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because it's possible to sustain an unprofitable business practically indefinitely
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if you're determined to do it.
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And so I think the biggest thing is to give people a reality check, not designed to burst
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the bubble of enthusiasm But to understand that you're never gonna work harder for anyone else,
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then you're gonna have to work for yourself to get your business to be what you want it to
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Right.
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Right.
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No.
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I actually completely agree with you.
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I, you know, I almost feel like passion is an overused word in entrepreneurship because It's
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like, I'm passionate about this.
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I'm gonna start this business.
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And I'm like, woah.
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Woah.
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Wait a minute.
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Does your passion have a profit center?
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Right?
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Cause if it doesn't, you're walking around with a glorified hobby, and nobody's gonna tell you
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that.
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But I'm gonna tell you that because I don't want you to ruin your credit chasing a half
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baked business idea.
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Like, that just does not make sense, but I see that so often.
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I mean, poor business execution is out here.
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Like, cold and flu.
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Right?
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It's everywhere.
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People almost feel like you're just trying to discourage them when you point some of these
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things out.
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You know, I tell people if your business doesn't have a profit model, It's like a race
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car without an engine.
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It could only go downhill.
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There's a there's nothing driving it.
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Passion's role in in entrepreneurship is fuel.
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No more, no less.
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It's not the steering wheel.
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It's not the engine.
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It's not the wheels.
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It's not gonna get you where you wanna go without an infrastructure, a process.
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And most importantly, customers that actually want what you're selling.
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Right.
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Right.
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It's the great idea, and I'm like, but nobody is asking for this.
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Nobody's paying for this.
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And you're trying to spend tons of marketing dollars and time and energy trying to convince
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the marketplace that it wants something because you're excited about it.
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So passion has its place, but the most the best thing you can have are passionate customers.
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That's more important than you.
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True that.
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True that.
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I'm gonna amen all that all day.
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So listen, what do you think of the biggest challenges facing small businesses right now?
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What I find is businesses that wanna go from 0 to 700.
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You know?
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Unreal.
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They wanna grow fast.
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They wanna, you know, and I'm like, if you can figure out how to serve one customer,
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profitably and effectively that they walk away happy, that they're happy.
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They spent the money with you.
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They wanna spend it again.
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Focus on that because then your goal is just to duplicate that over and over and over again.
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And I see so many people, you know, I judge business plan competitions and they showed me
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their 5 year projections.
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And it's like, well, this year, we made $1000.
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And next year, we're gonna make $250,000.
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And I'm like, where is that coming from?
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And get back to what are what products and service are you provided and who's your
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customer and and then just focus on serving one customer at a time perfect the model, perfect
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the process, and then scale it up.
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And it'll go a lot faster like a hockey stick.
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Then if you try to go to the penthouse on the 1st day of building your building.
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Right.
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Right.
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Now what do you think it really takes for business owners to get repeat business?
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Because I'm like, anybody will buy something once.
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But in order to sustain a business, you gotta have repeat customers.
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So how do you think what do you think the best thing is for small business owner do to get
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that repeat sale.
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See, my thing about focusing on your d customer, a customer, a successful sale is when
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no matter how much they spent, they feel like you almost did them a favor because you brought
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them so much value that they don't miss the money.
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You know, and when you and you know you're not doing that as entrepreneur, by the way, when
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your first answer is to cut your prices.
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Like, your first your first marketing scheme is I'm gonna go I'm gonna cut my price to the that
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means you don't believe in the value that you're offering.
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If you aren't offering real value, then either you got it at the wrong price or you're selling
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to a wrong customer.
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So my thing is is the way to get a repeat customer is to over deliver on value.
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Make let them feel like they got away with murder because of what you provided.
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And then they, 1, they will tell everybody else, and 2, they will come back.
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But if you if you get the first customer and and they could pay your price and they'll
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discount.
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But if they walk away feeling like, I kinda got talked into this, I kinda got, you know, I got
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little, you know, Egyptians.
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There may not say anything bad about you, but they're not coming back.
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Absolutely not.
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They're not coming back.
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Well, what do you say to the business owner?
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And I know they come to me just like they come to you that they're stuck.
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Right?
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They're stressed out.
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They're skipping paychecks.
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They're ducking the landlord.
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You know, they don't have to rent.
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What do you say to those business owners that are just like they they're stuck.
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They don't know what to do next.
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Well, you didn't pay me to do this, but first, get this book fix your business.
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She I swear she didn't pay me to do this, but I love your book.
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You know, become your boss in 12 months is still the best startup small business book I
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ever read.
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So I got my commercial out.
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But the reason the fixture business is important is because the first thing I tell
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entrepreneurs who are really, really suffering is to stop digging.
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Because what they do is if I could just dig this hole a little harder and faster, it'll
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turn know you're digging yourself deeper
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Right.
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You need to stop and to the point of your book.
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Go step by step through your process.
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Either something that's broken something's changed or something never was.
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And if
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you don't slow it down enough to figure that out, then you're just gonna keep digging until
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you run out of money energy, sanity, you won't be able to keep going at some point.
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So if it's not working, uh-uh, other thing is don't punish yourself.
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Right.
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Something that worked for 5 years may not work the 60 year, and it may be time to get out of
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that business.
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It may not nothing may be wrong you know, if you're trying to sell CDs today
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Right.
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That that worked for a very, very long time.
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But if you don't slow down long enough to figure out, okay, where is is not working, then
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you can't fix it.
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And then you get more stressed.
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You begin to beat yourself up.
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You get beat beat other people up because I see bosses beat up their employees all the time.
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When there's nothing.
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There's something wrong with the process in the system.
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And and to your earlier point, if you're not willing to look at that, It's no shame in
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shutting your business down and getting a job.
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Well, one of the things I tell people too is, you know, 50% of all business problems are not
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so well hidden personal problems.
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So if your business is in trouble, you might be the problem.
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You know?
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They they explained to me about their employees.
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I'm like, well, what does it like to work for you?
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Like, kind of bonds are you?
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One of the things that you are not having common.
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To us.
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Are you me, boss?
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Are you there?
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Everybody can figure out what kind of day you're having by how you treat people, boss?
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Like, who are you to work with and and, you know, or or your employees and customers
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running from you?
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You know, are you the problem?
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And and that's the thing.
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You know, I I feel like people don't wanna be honest.
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And, you know, people's ego really gets invested in their business.
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And, you know, particularly, you know, you men.
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Y'all y'all get real caught up by, you know, your worth being connected to what's in your
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pocket.
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We're gonna talk to Garrett about that.
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A little bit later, but, listen, I mean, I, you know, I I really worry about business owners,
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you know, because We're we're a special breed of of of person.
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Right?
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You know, we really can't work for other people because we're not built for that.
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Yeah.
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So so So so some of them, we gotta chip on our shoulder to be king with, some of us, you know,
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and I and I'm raising my two hands.
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I'm not talking about you.
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I'm talking about Melinda.
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Right?
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That's what I'm saying that, you know, so so we do have to be honest that we bring some of our
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crap to work with us every day.
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And, you know, sometimes we smear it around on everybody.
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So I think it is important, but you what you said is right.
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You gotta teach people to stop digging.
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If it's not working, it's okay.
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Reinvent.
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And and I'm really excited that we're gonna be talking about reinvention here in a couple of
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minutes, Listen, tell me how important is it to invest in professional development as a
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business owner?
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Cause I feel like sometimes people will go out here and They might take a business plan
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course.
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They might take a course on, you know, negotiation or something, but they're not
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develop they're not investing in, like, leadership development courses and things like
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that.
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And I think leadership is is really key.
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Entrepreneurship and continuous professional and personal development are synonymous.
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You know, I would say if you're not committed to development, if you're not committed
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continuous education, continuous growth, continuous learning.
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Again, stop what you're doing.
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Do a good job.
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Because, 1, things are changing too quickly.
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Even if you master a particular area of expertise, things are changing so rapidly that
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opposite obsolescence happens a lot faster.
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Right.
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So I don't trust entrepreneurs to say, I don't wanna take a course.
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I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't have a coach.
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I don't need a coach.
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I don't wanna go to a conference.
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You know, the black eye enterprise entrepreneur summit is coming up in Charlotte in June, and
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I'll be tweeting a a special, discount code for listeners of the small business chat.
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So follow me on Twitter, Alfred Edmond Junior, but I don't trust entrepreneurs who say I have
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nothing else to learn.
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No one can teach me anything.
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I got this.
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Yeah.
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We'll be out of business very quickly.
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I know of no entrepreneur that's ranging from your one person startup to your, you know,
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future Facebook owner who is not committed to continuous development education training
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because that's what it takes to stay on trend to stay ahead of trend and to innovate.
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Now let's talk about, alright, so the professional development.
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What about mentorship?
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Like, how important is mentorship to business success?
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Again, you can't do without it.
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But first of all, it's important to understand I'm speaking to someone who mentors a lot of
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people.
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And people come up and say, will you be my mentor?
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Mentors choosing for the j's.
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It doesn't work the other way around.
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Right.
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So the question you're really asking as entrepreneurs, how do I get chose the way you
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the way you get chosen in my book is perform.
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Like, I tend to mentor those that are already doing it.
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They're doing it very well.
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They will probably succeed without me.
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It's just that if I help them, they'll do it faster to do it smarter, do do it more
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efficiently, and I'll get a certain amount of scientific reward from that as well as maybe a
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potential, you know, who knows what that relationship lead to even for my own business?
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But I'm not mentors aren't here to rescue you.
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If your business if you're digging that hole to China because your business doesn't work, it's
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not a ventures job to come in and review your business plan can make money.
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So mentorship is critical, but the way to attract mentors is to be doing not talking
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about doing not what had happened was not what I'm about to do.
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If you're doing, you tend to attract other people who are doing who wanna partner with you
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to do things.
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And that's what a great mentor mentee relationship is all about.
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I am so glad that you said that because people really, you know, will you mentor me?
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Like, will you rescue me?
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He's almost a fresh air I
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do the fresh air fund or something.
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I know.
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No.
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I'm not doing that.
16:45
Yeah.
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You gotta rescue yourself.
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I mean, the number one thing that makes me crazy is people come up to me and ask me a
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question that I have already answered in one of the four books I have written.
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Oh, like, open your mouth so I can feed you the worm, baby, birth?
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No.
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I'm not doing that.
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Look.
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You gotta put in the work.
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Unfortunately, some of the people, and you and I both, we talked about this.
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They're not really trying to be protege.
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They're kinda trying to be groupies.
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Right.
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You know, like, they wanna be up in your space.
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They want, you know, I I call them mentorship booty calls.
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Like, in the morning, only for a favor.
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If you never hear about them, you know, so so the the way to attract a mentor is to bring
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value to them enter.
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It doesn't
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it's it's not a transaction.
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It's just saying, listen, I could be a benefit to your network if you could help me be, you
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know, succeed and do do well.
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And I just see so many people.
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They just are kinda coming in with, I don't know.
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Listen.
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We gotta wrap this up, but I want you to tell me what is the best advice you can give
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business owners right now.
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Take a good, hard look at your lifestyle.
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Are you feeding yourself?
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Are you healthy?
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Are your relationships stable?
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How are things going with you and your children?
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How are things going with you and your spouse?
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Because the the less stable your personal life is the more your professional and business life
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is gonna be at risk.
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And we've we've been trained especially as baby boomers to compartmentalize, like, you know,
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our our personalized can go and be going to hell in a handbasket, but as long as we got our
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fly suit and we look good with our briefcase, everything is cool.
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Entrepreneurship doesn't play that.
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Whatever your lifestyle is, whether it's stable or unstable, whether it's healthy or unhealthy,
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sooner the day is gonna show up in the function of your business.
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And by the way, you won't be happy.
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Even if your business is successful, you'll be miserable, but you can't fix your business
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addresses very effectively.
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So take a good hard look at your life make sure this is the life you wanna live.
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Entrepreneurship is no fun if you don't really wanna do it.
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How about that?
18:51
How about that?
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I'm gonna let that be the last word.
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Thank you so much.
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Offering.
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But here's the last thing I want you to know.
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You never lose in business.
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Either you win or you learn.
19:01
I'm Linda Emerson.
19:02
A small biz
19:09
speak to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
19:14
For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.