Posted by The NEW Patreon page for those who want to advertise and get their business interviewed:
https://www.patreon.com/Affluent
Welcome to our Patreon page. I want this to be a vibrant, active business community and even an elite club of success driven brothas and sistas. As you know, our median incomes and net worth lags far behind other groups, and we need to have a tangible roadmap for reducing that gap. Part of it is sharing our experiences with each other so that we can learn from each other. For those of you starting and running your own businesses, it’s good to learn better ways to promote your business. Given that most small businesses fail within the first couple of years, it is important to find out why and how to avoid the red flags. One of those risk areas is in planning and promoting the business idea. Just simply introducing your product or service is not enough as that’s not very interesting to people who have heard it all before. You have to find unique ways to spread the message in a way that entertains and informs the public. Telling your unique behind the scenes story is one of the best ways, if done right.
That’s where candid business and career interviews come into play.
For our business patrons, I will interview you using my “Entertain and Inform” (E&I) format. Why is this important? Because most small businesses simply suck at advertising and promoting themselves, lol excuse my French. Not trying to be mean. I’m saying this based on years of experience with businesses trying to advertise across our various social media platforms and websites.
Check out this exciting, informative video to get the entire scoop on what’s to come!
I can tell that most of you probably never read a book on marketing principles or gotten formally educated in marketing and advertising. If you get a chance, read the original marketing strategy book by Edward Bernays from way back in the 1920s. He gave you the game in the book, but essentially, he’s breaking marketing down to a science of hustling the mind of the public. What you want your target audience to do for you can’t be obvious in your marketing campaigns. In other words, people have to feel like they’re getting something of value. They don’t care that you offer products or services. They do care that your products and services positively impact their lives.
What is it about your product or service that will impact the lives of your target audience in a positive, rewarding way? Your answer to that question is the basis of your marketing campaign, and even your overall business plan.
But answering that question is only half the battle. The way you package your answer to them promote it to the public has to “entertain and inform” them in a unique way. That’s how you establish your niche in your industry.
For instance, one of the reasons big companies love promoting entertainment industry events like the Oscar’s is because one of the most engaging forms of content online is celebrity news and gossip, and all things related. As we all saw with the Oscar’s Awards of 2022, the slap heard round the world delivered onto host and comedian Chris Rock from Oscar winning actor Will Smith brought worldwide attention to Jada Pinkett Smiths alopecia hair loss condition. This drama became the top trending topic worldwide across all social media platforms. Those who never heard of alopecia before now know what it is. But a little known fact is that the pharmaceutical company Pfizer not only was a major sponsor of the Oscar’s, they also have an alopecia drug coming soon. Coincidence? You be the judge of that, but product placement is a great strategy for promoting your business because it is subtle, but more importantly, it entertains and informs. That’s how you have to think.
So I know that a lot of you are in the hair business, either as stylists, extension installers, or barbers. Pop quiz: what’s the most effective way to promote your business:
- A. Tell the public you offer a hair service with links to your website
- B. Tell the public about a client of yours who suffered some kind of hair loss that led to low self esteem and even depression. But after you had compassion for them, you gave the client a discount and installed a wig, extensions or hair plug that made them feel good about themselves and had them confident enough to achieve greater success than ever before
You see my point? Obviously the publicly will be more engaged with option B because you’re entertaining and informing them with a very compelling, heart wrenching and motivating story. Those with hair problems will then be motivated to seek out your service because you made your business offering stand out.
These are the kinds of business strategies I want all of you to achieve, especially since we have the lowest median net worth and incomes in society. Part of that is we need to do better at marketing, and my business interview series will help you do just that. So when I do interview you, whether online via video chat or in person, I don’t want you to bore my audience by simply shouting out your product or service.
Nobody cares! Just look at all the boring Facebook business groups where small business owners keep listing their products and services but hardly get any likes. I know. I’ve seen them over the years, and I reject most of those from my business strategy group and websites because that kind of content is just not engaging at all.
Instead, I want you to tell YOUR story, why you started your own business, where you come from, what tragedy did you overcome in your life that motivated you to want to achieve higher levels of success, what obstacles did you overcome, and so on. Trust me. By following my lead, you will be surprised at the outcome. Plus, you’ll be able to use the interview video in your marketing campaign, posting the link to your own website and social media platforms so that it will drive more customers to you because it will be unique and make you stand out from your competition. It’s always good branding strategy to have an influential source like Affluent Blacks or 50PlanoTV hosting an interview of you and your business story.
Networking as a Business Growth Strategy
As some of you may know, I’m usually out and about around town, socializing and networking regularly. Been doing that for many years now. As a cloud computing consultant and IT advisor to C level executives of Fortune 500 companies and smaller, I’ve seen many different kinds of networking styles. I won’t go into a lot of detail on tactics, but I’ve seen traits of successful networkers and not so successful ones. The most important attribute to have is to be yourself and don’t force a message. Every dialog, whether for personal or business reasons, is a balance between talking and listening. The people who fail at networking are those who try to force a message, overtalking everyone, and as a result, end up doing a monologue diatribe.
The rule here is that a monologue will get you catalogued in the trash can of your audience’s mind. No matter how eager you are to sell your product or service, or to get a business connection to help you sell it on another level, you have to keep in mind that your target is also a human with a life story and journey. Truly get to know the person first, and then when the moment presents itself, carefully ease in whatever your business purpose is. And sometimes, it’s not always about landing a connection right away.
For instance, I frequent happy hours at high end establishments in upscale areas. It helps that I live in such an affluent area. I am walking distance from Legacy West, Shops at Legacy in Plano. And The Star in Frisco and Grandscape in The Colony are within 2 miles of me. I nicknamed this area billionaire’s circle because within a 3 mile radius of the intersection of Dallas Tollway and Sam Rayburn Tollway is one of the most affluent communities in the world. Built by billionaires over 20 years. When I go to Del Frisco’s Steakhouse, Kai the Japanese fusion spot, Sushi Marquee, Mexican Sugar and many others, I’m having natural conversations with some highly successful executives, doctors, high powered attorneys, investors and business people. Some of these people are millionaires from California and New York who just moved here.
Long story short, I don’t talk business to them right off the bat because I know I will see them again as they are regulars. So why force a message on the first meeting? Just hang out a few times, and eventually, things will come around to what each of us does for a living. Sometimes, in my case, they will have a project that needs my services as a cloud computing expert. But sometimes, they won’t have a need for my services. And that’s ok because I just like meeting people and learning about their life journey anyway. And that’s how successful business networkers operate. I strongly advise you to do the same.
Tip for those in network marketing
Most network marketers actually have the same problems as most small businesses that fail. You guys don’t really do a good job of telling a compelling story that entertains and informs. On top of that, unless you do what Madame CJ Walker did over 100 years ago, you just come across as another pyramid scheme. Not trying to be mean, and please don’t flood my DMs with messages trying to convince me why I’m wrong.
Ms Walker, along with Ann Turnbo, was one of the pioneers of network marketing. Even Mary Kay cosmetics would adopt pretty much the same network marketing strategy of these two brilliant sistas. But long story short, they didn’t just recruit members for the sake of recruiting money. They gave sistas hope that they can overcome their condition in a racist and
sexist country by using and selling a product that can both make them feel good and make them some money. They can realistically make money by selling hair products, or by recruiting other women to sell hair products under them. And this strategy worked, making many sistas very successful.
Your network marketing offering has to be like this. Unfortunately, most of the offerings I see are scams, or scammy. All the money goes to those at the top of the pyramid while most people under them are broke. Yeah, some of you will tell me to come to one of those revival style meetings where everyone is happy and motivated, but realistically, they can’t truly prove that the business model is viable. So let’s be honest and provide a real offering where it doesn’t take someone having to go to a cult meeting to prove that most
people can make money. If I can easily read up on Madame CJ Walker and Mary Kay Cosmetics to see how a lot of people made some kind of realistic money, then your network marketing offering should be just as easy to research. If not, then I can’t risk my brand being entangled with a business that some might consider fraudulent. That’s why I’ve shied away from reposting such businesses.
Tips for Hollywood movie promoters
From time to time, we get approached by major movie promoters wanting us to promote their movie releases for free. In the beginning i used to entertain them, but stopped that practice soon after because there is no benefit to us. Why do you entertainment industry promoters do this? Every business deal has to be win win. A few movie promoters would at least offer
VIP tickets to early movie premieres, which is better. But even then, they should also list us as co sponsors of the movie release across the Dallas Ft Worth area. So for all you movie promoters out there who want us to post your movie releases, you just now read our terms: VIP tickets and a mention in your press releases that we are co sponsors. Now I know that most of them are independent promoters with no business sense, but the few who are business savvy will agree that these terms are reasonable.
And let this also be a lesson to you small business owners: know your worth and don’t settle for less. You put a lot of hard work, sweat and tears in your dream. Why let someone cheapen it by treating it like crap? Kick them to the curb. Anyone who wants freebies from your business without
reciprocity is for the streets, to paraphrase rapper Future. Success minded entrepreneurs don’t have time for failure minded individuals. Anyone who wants a one sided freebie from you is a loser.
Well that’s it for now. I want to especially thank and welcome all of our Patreon members and followers of our social media platforms and website. Let’s make this experience a win win for us both. We want to continually hear from you regarding your business and career successes and challenges. Until the next video, take care, business warriors.
Affluent Blacks of Dallas 