In Black America; Black Women Entrepreneurs with Cassandra Hayes

jekk as From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. There's a movement happening just in business in general, particularly in the corporate arena to a more feminine style of management that you don't have to beat people over the head to get what you want, you know, the old saying that you used to hear, you know, you can get better to get them with honey than with vinegar. So that's the same type of strategy that's being employed in all rounds of business. You know, it's not as hard knows, you know, go in and just, you know, shoot them up type of strategy anymore.

You can reason with people, if you treat people with respect, that's the real strategy that's being employed and they understand, you know, what it means in their particular niche to be successful. They know how to penetrate their market because they've done the surveys, they've done the questioning to find out where they need to be and how to get there. And so they're pretty, you know, they're pretty dogged about their determination of being successful and they've made some very savvy moves. Cassandra Hayes, Senior Editor, Black Enterprise Magazine. According to a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners, minority owned businesses composed one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. economy. In 1996, 13% of the nearly 8 million women owned businesses in this country were even owned by Asian, black, Hispanic or Native American Alaskan Native. The number of firms increased 153% between 1987 and 1996, twice the rate of all women owned firms and three times faster than all U.S. companies.

They employed nearly 1.7 million people and generate $184.2 billion in annual sales revenue. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of in Black America. On this week's program, African American Women Entrepreneurs in Black America. Probably it's a thing where it just hasn't received immediate attention. I mean, long before banks were giving us any money or granting us any loans, it was family who helped, you know, put the seed money there for business. And I mean, that's really no different from how many small businesses start. You know, it'll be a small investment. Someone will cash in all their credit cards, which I don't advise. This isn't really better. You know, there'll be some small money that's been saved or some inheritance or some type of money that comes from inside that has helped a lot of businesses. Now, depending on the business you want or how fast you're growing, you know, eventually you do need to go to some outside funding.

But the challenge has always been there for us as African Americans to have banks approve us or venture capitalists even look at what we have to offer. And so oftentimes we did have to go to friends and family in order to get that money. Women business owners, one of the fastest growing segments of the economy. She has the same rewards and frustrations of business ownership regardless of ethnicity. However, African American women business owners are more likely to face barriers and access to capital and they are least likely to borrow capital to start their firms. Also, African American women business owners are more likely to have been turned down for a loan when launching their businesses. In the August edition of Black and the Prize magazine, senior editor Cassandra Hayes looks at today's African American women entrepreneurs. The edition features three African American women entrepreneurs with superior operations and revenues topping $2 million and three female CEOs from the BE's 100. Ironically, August is our anniversary month and so we celebrated our 28th anniversary and existence that month.

We, about a couple of years ago, decided that we needed to devote an issue solely to women. I mean, while we give wide coverage to women throughout the year, we thought that month would be just strictly dedicated to women. And last year we looked at women in corporate America. This year we decided to switch the tables and look at women entrepreneurs. What type of African American women where you are looking for as far as business owners are concerned? Well, what we were looking for were women who were pretty much established in their field for the cover story, which was business dynamo. What I wanted there were businesses that had at least $2 million in revenue. The women were in niche areas, you know, areas not particularly deemed for women or, you know, not where you wouldn't find a lot of black women, definitely. And just having a particular business strategy that was unique that kind of helped them thrive, that was the other factor I was looking at. Was it difficult to find these individuals?

And it was quite difficult. While there are a lot of black women business owners, in fact, you know, this is like the highest amount of black women business owners ever in recent polls that was taken. But because I wanted to find that exact criteria, it did become a little difficult. Most women, you know, a $2 million business is kind of hard to come by to have annual revenues of that much. And so, you know, it was screening and seeing who had a particular industry wanted to tap and still met those revenues. Were these women receptive for you all wanting to profile them? They were quite receptive. I didn't have, as a matter of fact, there were many women who we interviewed, who we could not use for this particular story, who we'd probably look at later. And overall, the entrepreneurs pretty much understand that, you know, in order to have their business thrive, it also takes having a lot of media presence. And so, they understand the power of the media and making sure your business gets out there and the word is out there. You get a little hesitation from people in the corporate arena because, again, they work for other people and, you know, might be a little apprehensive about saying things, but generally entrepreneurs, you know, they're confident with what they're doing and they come out, you know, shooting.

Who were the three animals? Well, there were three women were. The first one was Amsala Abaira and she's Somalian by birth and she is a wedding dress designer on the Madison Avenue boutique in New York and was quite successful with her wedding designs because she went against the norm. Most wedding dresses that you see are very decorated. They have a lot of beads and bobbles and lace and, actually, her business was prompted out of necessity. She wanted a gown that was very simple yet classic and designed her own wedding gown and subsequent to that decided to just make it into a business. The other woman profiled is Gail Carter and she is an environmental engineer and owns a firm that kind of goes in and troubleshoots different environmental sites for stores, for corporations to make sure that the ground water is safe or there's no pollutants or, you know, if they were to do construction that they wouldn't be imposing on the environment. And she's located in Pennsylvania and then the other woman is Janet Bryan Halroyd and she's out on the west coast and turns California.

She has a business act one personnel 63 million dollar business that provides temporary help to a lot of the companies in Silicon Valley and throughout California's entertainment area. Were there any common traits among the three women? I think the thing that ironically is most common, you would think that, you know, because you're an entrepreneur, you have to be very aggressive and this fighter instinct. And I'll tell you, if these women had it, they were very secure with it and were very humble with it because they were all extremely nice and extremely, you know, not self-serving in any way. You know, they understood the strides that they were making and the landmarks they were making, but they also understood what impact that had on their family. They were very concerned about family, you know, how their companies were perceived and positioned. So you were talking to these women who were wielding these million dollar enterprises, but yet you felt as though you were speaking to, you know, a family member or, you know, someone or a friend next door.

It seems that these particular individuals are in businesses that are basically non-traditional or to a point that there are not a lot of females that run companies in these type of industries. Do they find any obstacles in which they had to overcome to become successful? Well, essentially, the Amsala bearer knew the fashion and the work and she pretty much knew how to maneuver through the different facets. Her thing was knowing that she had a unique product and also not saturating the market with it. Once her designs caught on, there were many people who wanted to really exploit that, put it into a lot of different stores, really commercialize it, and she pulled back and held back and was very discreet in her distribution of her items. And so I would say that she didn't really run up against the obstacles that maybe the other two women did.

As for Gail Conner, the environmental engineer, of course, here you have this woman, a black woman at that in an industry that is totally male-dominated. Correct. If there are, you know, any other black woman in this industry, you can count them on one hand and probably still have fingers left. She had to sort of transcend what obstacles she got from the SBA. Her local SBA office ended up being her main enemy, so to speak, because they would steer contracts away from her. And she had to kind of really go out there and prove on her own that she can, you know, do the work that she was doing and make it so that the client would not be dependent on her. She made client self-sufficient, so once she would go in and troubleshoot, she would give them the information they need in order to take care of the problem themselves, where she would only come back sort of on a managing type of basis. And so her thing was to make the client self-sufficient and, you know, to not mimic the competition. Was it difficult for these women to find the financing to start their business and also the additional capital war with all to have their businesses grow?

All of these women got their money from family, either their own money or family. There were no loans involved. There were no additional loans taken out once they wanted to expand. And they all started from very small amounts of money. I think the most money was the Amsala Barra, who started out with $30,000. And that $30,000 was actually part of a one-page color ad in a bridal magazine, touting her dress and giving an 800 number for people to call. That was the bulk of her startup money. The Gayle Conor started with about $1,000 from her first independent environmental engineering job. With that, she bought the computer for her office and started to solicit clients from that point. And then the next person, Janet Bryan Howard, who did start about 20 years ago in her business? She took out $5,000 in loans from her family and set up a small shop in Beverly Hills.

I would just need to become successful being an entrepreneur. One must have certain standards to go by. But do you find women as CEOs and owner of businesses are more sensitive towards the needs and wants of their workforce? More so than their male counterparts? I don't know if I can necessarily make a broad stroke statement like that. I will tell you in the case of these three women, I was able to visit at least one of them and working conditions were excellent. They are very conscientious about how their employees fare and if they don't particularly overwork them in that sense. There is a lot of flexibility and schedule, a lot of understanding if they are working mothers. So I would say for these three, yes, there is that understanding. But at the same time, the employees don't take advantage of this.

There is a respect on both ends and that has been crucial to their success as far as their workforce. The amount of time that they spend at the office. I am quite sure it is not 8 to 5 and it is a lot of weekends and holidays. Once you own your own business, that 9 to 5 goes out of the window. They would spend, I would say, anywhere from 10 to 12 hours a day at their office and of course it varies depending on what season it is for them. Whether it is a high time or not. But generally there is no such thing as an 8 hour day for these women. And as for Jennifer and Howard, often I spoke to her while she was on the road. She has something like 57 branch offices across the country that she visits throughout the year. And visits different clients across the country. So catching her was quite a feat. Can you put your finger on why minority women owned businesses are one of the fastest growing segments of our economy today? I think you need to look at the major jump.

From 1987 to 1996, the number of minority owned firms owned by women had jumped 153%. And much of that was attributed to, I think, the downsizing of the late 80s, early 90s prompted many women to look around and say, you know, wait a minute. I don't have the mindset of where to go back into this workforce. And I really can do this on my own. I can really run my own business. The glass ceiling, as you mentioned earlier, was a big motivator for women to get them out of that sort of closed and feel. And into something where they can really exercise their creativity and be their own business person. So a lot of it was prompted by, you know, just always having wanted to be an entrepreneur. Many of them worked in the field that they ended up being business owners in. So in other words, you'd have women who were in human resources in a corporation and then became human resource consultants running their own businesses after that. And a lot of them did it part time. I mean, most of the women owned businesses started as a result of, you know,

them making that transition from the workforce into their own thing. And they didn't, it wasn't a dramatic leap, but many of them did it. And while still working, and then gradually made the transition to their own thing. But I would say glass ceiling being on your own and, you know, the downsizing of the early 90s prompted a lot of women into their own ventures. With this particular article in August, Black Enterprise, do you see more young, African American females looking to become entrepreneurs more so than going to work for businesses and other corporations? I do. And I don't know if that's necessarily just a trade of African American women. I think overall the climate, the social climate is prompting many to go out on their own. Small businesses growing overall and Black business and particularly Black women owned businesses are growing tremendously. But it's the nature of the beast. You have corporations that were once the, you know, the storehouses for people to work.

And you thought, oh, I get a job with one of the big Fortune 500 firms that I'm there for life. And many people know that, you know, they're going to go into those institutions now, stay for a few years and eventually find a vehicle to start their own business. So I think overall many people understand that the way to really thrive and how you're going to really make it is to be on your own. Other than then having the strength and the courage to go into business ownership and knowing that you're your own boss. Some of the other chief rewards of entrepreneurship. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that again? Some of the other rewards of entrepreneurship owning your own business. Of owning your own business. A lot of, for a lot of people providing a particular service. You know, people go into businesses that they love most times. Yes, there are those who will see opportunities in different arenas and take advantage of it.

But oftentimes it's areas where they know they can make a difference and impact and some type of change. And the fact that they're able to do that is the impetus often for going into those ventures. That's one of the rewards. As we mentioned earlier, making your own hours, you know, being able to, you know, eventually you will be able to make your own hours. Probably at first, you know, you're putting in a lot of hours, you know, trying to build a client base and making sure that your clients are service properly. But you're pretty much beholden only to yourself. And there's a beauty in that independence and not having to answer to someone else. Regulating your income. You know, you make as much as little as you can work hard enough to get. You know, that's always an incentive for people. When you're on a salary, you know, let's say for some people you're making $40,000 a year, maybe $50,000 a year. And that's great, but you don't really have much control over making a quantum leap from that.

I mean, you know, you have your merit raised throughout the year or incremental leaps. But as a business owner, you know, depending on the supply and demand, your revenues could double in fact each year. And that's another thing that's inviting about owning your own business. Another feature in the August edition was women of the BE100s. You took a look at the CEOs running large black-on corporations today. Exactly. We have the BE100 list that we put out each June. What that is is the list of the top 100 black companies in America. And they range from different industries. We have auto dealers. We have banks. We have financial institutions. We have service and industrial companies. And what we did was we looked at the women on that list. And there's really only about a handful. I would say just off the top of my head, maybe there's about seven total. And what we did in this story was talked to three of them, three women business owners who, you know, are running their own shops and really calling the shops for America's top black companies.

Where most of the next question is, is there any particular geographical area that is more receptive to black-on business or is it just finding that particular niche and being able to go forth with those ideas? I think it's very easy and urban and metropolitan areas to be able to, you know, start the groundwork for many black businesses. Because oftentimes when black business starts, they get their clients are black. And so you're going to find that really in your metropolitan cities. But there are business owners we know who are in small towns in Kentucky, remote parts of Oklahoma, who are offering a service that is color blind. And they have built a client base and are quite successful. So, regionally, I wouldn't say that someone should look at moving in order to, you know, provide a particular service, as much as it is, do you have a service that's needed in your area, that you're passionate about providing? And that's what's going to make a business thrive, doing the demographics, doing a market plan, doing a business plan to determine if your business can thrive in a particular environment and if that's the environment for you.

But unless you're catering to, you know, something like entertainment, so you want to be in California or you want to be in New York or you're catering to technology companies, so you want to be in the Silicon Ranch of Texas or Silicon Valley of California. Really, it's just a matter of what you have to offer and if there's a market for it. Has it been difficult for these women to divide their time between business and family? Overall, I'd say yes. And they definitely walk a tight rope because nonetheless, when you come home, you're still mom, still the wife, and while many of them did have the help of their husbands, you know, they weren't solely on their own all the time. They either had financial backing, emotional backing, or, you know, the husband was right in there with them. You know, you're still mom when you come home and they still have to do those chores. Now, I'm sure there were some who may have had the help of, you know, family at home or, you know, maybe some hired help.

But generally, they were just able to toe the line between the two and they were finding through time management to do this abruptly and be a success. Yeah, I was one of my next questions, the support of family and extended family on the road to success for these women. Right. Family played, at least as far as our business dynamics, family played a very important part in their business. I did sort of an informal survey and oftentimes you interview male entrepreneurs and they don't always necessarily give credit to family. You know, they pretty much, you know, take the credit all on their own. But you know, somewhere in there there was some children or a spouse who, you know, was right there behind them, if nothing else, just having the home comfortable for them to come home to. But for these women, they came right out and, you know, said, you know, their husbands were the ones who put up the first seed money.

Or as the case of Janet Bryan Howard, she called her husband Mr. Mom. He was home while she was out trying to build her business. He had already established his own successful business. And it was time for her to do hers and he stayed home and helped raise their two children. And as far as Gayle Conner, her husband, you know, they're both engineers and her husband actually thought that her starting her own business would be a way for her to just get a little, you know, mad money. Being, you know, a $2 million business, but he was right there behind her and actually was side by side with her in the company for a while. We're the pointing history where at this point in time will be the largest transfer of wealth for one generation to the next. Are these young women tutoring and nurturing their family members to take over the business once they retire? There is succession planning by many of these women. As Janet Bryan Howard, what she did was actually integrate seven of her family members into the business.

She has them in everything from advertising to marketing to accounting. There's some family member who's in there and understands the business enough that if she does decide to step back that they are able to take over. I don't think any savvy business owner in this day and age would not have some type of succession plan in place, you know, be it a family member taking over or grooming some confidant or some employee who can then be able to run the business afterwards. These are not just one generation deals. These people are looking for the long haul here. Are there any support systems for these African American entrepreneurs, organizations, groups in which they banter about the problems and concerns they have as being entrepreneurs? We end the women's package with a resource list for women. In that, it lists the various organizations that people can get help from. They are women focused. They do definitely have resources for men and if men were to call these numbers, you know, can then be put in touch with other organizations.

But there's quite a bit. There's like the Women's Self Employment Project, the National Association of Women Business Owners. Many of these places have websites. If you just go in and punch in women's business, you'll get a slew of organizations that are targeted to women's business and specifically black women own businesses with information, everything from counseling and helping with loan papers to venture capitalists who are looking to fund women businesses. Did you find any women to be as tough as their male counterparts in making prudent, hard business decisions? Oh, yeah. I think that they, you know, there's a movement happening just in business in general, particularly in the corporate arena to a more feminine style of management that you don't have to beat people over the head to get what you want. You know, the old saying that you used to hear, you know, you can get better to get them with honey than with vinegar. So that's the same type of strategy that's being employed in all rounds of business.

You know, it's not as hard knows, you know, go in and just, you know, shoot them up type of strategy anymore. You can reason with people, if you treat people with respect, that's the real strategy that's being employed and they understand, you know, what it means in their particular niche to be successful. They know how to penetrate their market because they've done the surveys, they've done the questioning to find out where they need to be and how to get there. And so they're pretty, you know, they're pretty dogged about their determination of being successful and they've made some very savvy moves. Did they mention any of their role models or the people in which they can fight in? Again, we go back to family. They all may reference to their husbands, you know, and their families being the motivators for them. You know, one may have had a professor or, you know, another will cite another family member, but they're immediate, you know, person, right hand person.

Is there spouse or children? And those, those are the people who give them the get up and go each day. You mentioned earlier in the conversation that most of these entrepreneurs received their financial backing from family members. Is this a new trend or a trend that hasn't received a lot of notoriety or media attention from the African-American community perspective? Probably, it's a thing where it just hasn't received immediate attention. I mean, long before banks were giving us any money or granting us any loans, it was family who helped, you know, put the seed money there for business. And I mean, that's really no different from how many small businesses start, you know, to be a small investment, someone will cash in all their credit cards, which I don't advise, this is really bad. You know, there'll be some small money that's been saved or some inheritance or some type of money that comes from inside that has helped a lot of businesses. Now, depending on the business you want or how fast you're growing, you know, eventually you do need to go to some outside funding.

But the challenge has always been there for us as African-Americans to have banks approve us or venture capitalists even look at what we have to offer. Cassandra Hayes, Senior Editor, Black Enterprise Magazine. If you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBA technical producer David Alvarez, I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. Thank you for joining us today and please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network.

I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. Join me this week on in Black America. I think that you have still have the inherent drive to be your own person, to own your own venture and that has been the motivation for many women business owners. After the American Women Entrepreneurs with Cassandra Hayes this week on in Black America.