The Inclusive Networker

The S.O.S. For Women and Minority Owned Businesses

January 09, 2024 • Dr. Raymona H. Lawrence • Episode 60

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Ever wondered about the challenges faced by women and minority-owned businesses? Join me on this episode where I share my personal journey, including the disparities in the business world and the struggles faced by women entrepreneurs. With a background in public health and a doctorate, I'm passionate about challenging broken systems that hinder people's potential.

Today we'll focus on minority-owned businesses, addressing issues like lack of access to capital, mentorship gaps, and childcare responsibilities. Let's work towards bridging the gaps for thriving businesses!

In this episode, you'll learn the following:
1. The three major challenges faced by women and minority-owned businesses.
2. The need for an inclusive network and support system for women and minority-owned businesses.
3. The significance of having efficient systems, streamlined operations, and adequate support for business success.

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Thank you for listening!

~Dr. Raymona

Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, hey and welcome welcome. Welcome to the Inclusive Networker Podcast. This podcast is the SOS. That's all the inside scoop on systems operations and the support for women and minority-owned businesses. We help small business owners and solo-preneurs become aware of gaps in knowledge or awareness that could be keeping their networks and businesses small. We help women and minority-owned businesses to support women and minority-owned businesses. So if that's you, or you want to authentically support women and minority-owned businesses, you are in the right place. But be warned you will be challenged. But here's the thing you won't be judged. I'm your host, dr Ramona. I'm the owner of the fabulous software as a service that's SaaS agency called I Engage you. I'm a speaker, coach, consultant, public health professor, wife, mom and a fierce challenger of broken systems that keep people from reaching their highest potential. I am so excited to be with you on your journey to becoming an inclusive networker. Let's jump right in. Hey, hey, hey and welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Inclusive Networker Podcast Today.

Speaker 1:

I am your host, dr Ramona, and today I am going so low on this episode. You all know, if you have been following me for any period of time, that I love to have guests on and to really call people into conversation, but today I'm going to give you a little bit of my heart for where we're going with the Inclusive Networker Podcast and the different things that we're going to do as we move forward with these episodes. And so, if you don't know me, I'll tell you a little bit about my lens. If you've followed me for a while, you know that I always say to the guests my first question is what is your lens? And so if you have not heard my lens, well, I am an African-American woman who was raised in the deep South, and so that gave me a lot of perspective about diversity, equity, inclusion, some of the issues that can be with DEI, especially with race and gender. I also say that I lived at the corner of black and blue because, as an African-American female and being in an African-American family, I also have a dad who was a police officer before he retired, and so that gave me an even different perspective because, as a daughter of a police officer, I had privilege. I could walk into the police department and say, hey, buzz me back. And I had great relationships with police officers and just enjoyed that life and the time around them and later on realized that that's not everybody's story, and so I recognized that privilege.

Speaker 1:

I also started a business, and so when I started that business, that first business that I had was in network marketing. And so when I started that business, they told me everybody with skin and hair can get to the top of this company. And I thought, yes, I work hard, I will be able to do that. I will be able to see other people doing that. And when I look up at the top of the company, I did not see many people with skin and hair like mine. And so, as I continue to grow in the business and really think about what was happening was it hard work? That wasn't happening? What was it?

Speaker 1:

I realized that there is no way that no African-American woman worked hard enough in decades to get to the top of the company, and that there was something else wrong. There was a systems issue, right. And so I just embarked on this journey of figuring out what is happening with systems, with business, with organizations, and what are these, what are the breaks within these systems. So that's part of of of how I got to where I am and why my lens is the way that it is. Another piece of that is that I have a doctorate in public health, and so I was. I say I was raised in a college of public health where I learned about health disparities, health inequities, and really thought about more things besides just my own situation. What is it that causes groups of people to not be able to thrive? And so when you put that education together with my initial business background, with the background of just being an African American female who was raised in the deep South, then that's why my lens is the way that it is and I say that my mission, my absolute goal in life, is to challenge broken systems that keep people from reaching their highest potential. And so that is me. That's Dr Ramona.

Speaker 1:

You know, you hear in my intro that I'm a professor, a mom, a wife, all of those things, and so I am coming to you now with the inclusive networker and I want to really start to focus on women and minority-owned businesses. So there is there are so many different diversity categories and there's so much that we can do with DEI, and I just felt this real passion for women and minority-owned businesses right One, because I'm a woman who, a minority, who owns a business, and I started to see that there were so many issues with businesses, and with women businesses in particular, and having them fail, along with a lot of the other issues that happened with just being a woman who is trying to navigate the world, and so now, on the inclusive networker podcast, that's why you've seen a little bit of a change. We are focusing on what are the things that happen with women, with minority businesses, and how do we bridge the gap. So why women and minority businesses? Well, you know, at this point, there are 33.2 million small businesses in the United States, right, and nearly 13 million of them are women-owned businesses, and so we are coming in here, women, with these businesses.

Speaker 1:

We own small businesses, and so if we don't thrive, our economy doesn't thrive, and so these women businesses. They generate nearly $1.8 trillion in revenue and employ almost 10 million people, and so when you think about the impact of that, it's important it is so important that we thrive, and so there are issues, though, and so when you look at studies and we start to think about what is, what are some of the big things that happen with women in business, one of the issues with women and owning their business and having their business thrive is this issue of lack of access to capital. Capital is funding, right. That is a big issue with women who own small businesses, and particularly when we talk about women of color, and so that is something that we need to start to address. So women of color are more likely than white counterparts to self-fund their businesses. So what happens with that? That makes them more vulnerable to personal financial risks. And so if you're putting all of your money into a business and you're going on your just individual credit, your family's finances that you're pulling together, then if something happens with the business, then your finances are at risk if you are a woman of color or if you have put specifically your own personal finances into that business.

Speaker 1:

And so one other thing that is just a shocking statistic that I was reading is that black female founders of businesses. They earn an average revenue of just guess what y'all $24,000, right, compared to 142,900 among all women-owned businesses. So $24,000 is nothing. How are you living off of $24,000? And so when I think about these statistics, I think about the things that are happening with businesses, then we always think about well, what is the problem? I want us to fight these statistics, right? So you know, as women, we always go hard for our kids. We're like my child is not gonna be a statistic. Well, your business cannot be a statistic either, right? And so we have got to think about what are the different ways that we can support women and women minority-owned businesses so that they can thrive, because it's not only about the women minority-owned businesses not thriving. The country everybody fails when the women who are minorities don't thrive in their businesses.

Speaker 1:

And so one of the other things that I found is that women often don't have mentorship. So we find that a lot of times, men are groomed to be CEOs. They're thought of as leaders. They're not thought of as the person who is gonna be the secretary in the business or the person that needs to be the support, the help. They are thought of as leaders initially, and so a lot of times, women are not getting the mentorship that they need in these programs, in the, in business programs or in businesses in general, when they start to try to rise up the corporate ladder, because women are not recognized sometimes as leaders.

Speaker 1:

And so we need to build networks and support for our own business success, and so that's why I call this podcast the inclusive networker, because we want to, yes, include women and minorities, but we also need to figure out how do we network, how do we even network with each other? And I'm gonna talk about that a little bit in the next episode of the inclusive networker podcast. So stay tuned, I'm gonna talk about the, that it is the who, not the how, right, cause we're often focusing on the how do we get things done, but it's not the how, it's the who, and so we need network. So that's why I continue to call this the inclusive networker podcast, because that is something that's gonna be important for us as women. Another issue is childcare, right, and so women are often the caretakers of children and they're not able to go out and work in their businesses all times of day and night. They're having to make sure that the children are nurtured and cared for, and so that's another huge issue. So we have the lack of capital, the mentorship, the childcare. Those are the three big things that that support that women need to be able to thrive in their businesses.

Speaker 1:

And so, introducing right, the Inclusive Networker podcast because we're going to talk about all of this and introducing I engage you, and so I have told you all many times that my purpose is to challenge broken systems that keep women from reaching their highest potential. I am absolutely, absolutely set on that, and you know, in anything in my life, if I see that the system system is broken, I'm like let's fix this, let's figure out how to make all of this fit together and to work. So that's what I want to do as we move forward with this podcast, and so I've developed a software as a systems service that's SAS and it's called I engage you. And so, with I engage you, we've developed a village concept, right. So with a village, this is what women need. We need shared resources, we need support to be able to thrive in our businesses, and so I really base this village concept on the concept of Ubuntu, which is I. It really means I am my greatest self when you are your greatest self, right. And so if, if you're not being who you need to be, then I can't be who I am supposed to be. And so how do we share resources? How do we share the support that we each need to be able to thrive in our businesses as women and as women who are minorities as well.

Speaker 1:

So I have said, I always say that I engage you is the SOS for women and minority on businesses. So here's the things that we need. We need systems, okay, we need operations and we need support. That's what SOS stands for. So the systems I engage you is a CRM. It is a system you can do every single thing you could ever possibly need for your back end, for your automation, for your website phone calls, sms texting, invoicing, looking at social media and all of your conversation in one place. Social media scheduling, I mean. You can do it all, all of the apps. And when you got this, like Oprah, it's an app for this, an app for that, an app for that, that when you're spending all that money, you don't have to do that anymore when you use I engage you. So we've got to have the back end systems.

Speaker 1:

One thing that is a huge issue is, if you are trying to get the capital, if you are trying to go to a bank and get the things that you need For your business, how is that possible if you have not had your system set up? You don't have your records, you don't have the documentation, you're inconsistent, right? You got to have systems for everything in your business. So that is what I engage you will do. It helps to make sure that all of the back-end systems are happening, that everything is automated, that you have invoicing going out, you have proposals, you have your membership site, whatever it is that you possibly need. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Then there is the operations piece. So when we think about operations, a lot of times we are not really doing things in our businesses as women because we're not able to implement life be life-in Right. So life is life-in and we are not consistent. We don't follow up with people, we're not getting invoicing out in time, there's lots of different things going on. So within the village, we actually give you a team of VA. So we shared the resources. So another thing that I've learned that women are not really great at sometimes is hiring team One. If you don't have the money or the capital to hire team, or if you're not able to really be effective at getting that team to work together and telling them what to do, that's an issue. So we already have all of that together for you in the I Engage you system in the village, part of that, okay, and so that is a team of VA's to help you with emails, to help you to make sure that you put together your social media, to schedule the social media out. If you run ads, they can do that. If you are trying to make sure that you're sending out your membership stuff for people who have subscriptions to your site, all of that is included in the village piece of I Engage you.

Speaker 1:

Then there's me. I'm Dr Ramota Week. They call me the Village Keeper, and so what if you had a person who was a chief operations officer? That is how I act in the village. I am the person that you can come to, you tell what task you have. I help you with the strategy and then I make sure it gets done. I send it out to our VA team to ensure that you have everything that you need, and it's not just let me give you the software, let me throw you in there and just tell you to figure it out. No, you have the software, but you also have the team to help you actually implement the software. Okay, so you have a chief operating officer in me, the Village Keeper, and then there is the VA team. That's the operations piece.

Speaker 1:

Then there's the support. So what happens with the support? We have what I call the systems tank. It's kind of like Shark Tank. Shark Tank is one of my most favorite shows, but we don't act as sharks. We act as sisters that help you to think through your business ideas. It is a community of support. We talk about all things business and personal and all things about women, right, because you need support in so many other ways. So what if you had to launch something? You're super busy and you need that personal support with your family to get out. Like maybe you want to send your husband a few things because you're like I know I'm going to be super busy and I want him to know that I do love him and care, but I just am really focused on this in this moment, so let me give him these items that are going to be sent to him each day. We even have that personal piece that we have in the support, and so everything that you could possibly need for a business is right here in the I engage you village.

Speaker 1:

So I created this concept against so much advice. People are like, no, just give people the software. You can take your hands off of it, just letting them figure it out. But no, what do we need? We, as women, need this community, we need a village, we need these types of things, we need the shared support, we need the operations. We need the systems so that we can show that we're actually running a business, and we need to make sure that we're implementing.

Speaker 1:

And so that's what is included in the I engage you village, and so you all absolutely, absolutely need to jump in on I engage you. What I have for you is a free 14 day trial. You can try out the system, and if you want to be a part of the village, then that is another step that we can take. But there's a free 14 day trial of I engage you, and so jump in, go to I engage you dot com, jump in on that 14 day free trial. If you need to talk to me or ask me any questions, please feel free, but that that is there for you. We are ready and so excited to invite you into the community, and so this is the SOS. What are you waiting for? Come in, join us, hop into the vision of the village and I engage you, and I am so excited to continue to cheer you on as a woman and minority business owner. So I will see you in the next episode of the Inclusive Networker Podcast. Bye, and that wraps up another episode of the Inclusive Networker Podcast.

Speaker 1:

I want to express my sincere gratitude to you, our listeners, for joining us on this journey of learning and growth. Your support and engagement are truly, truly appreciated. But before we go, I have something special for our business owners out there. If you're looking to take your business to new heights, I've created a game changer just for you, introducing I Engage you. It is the SOS, that is, the systems, operations and support for your business. It is the all-in-one platform designed to ignite explosive growth for women and minority owned businesses.

Speaker 1:

Imagine a world where your business runs seamlessly, where overwhelm becomes a thing of the past and you finally have both a thriving business and a life you love. With I Engage you, you can conversationally convert leads from your pocket. You can generate sales with the push of a button and effortlessly scale your online reputation. And here's the best part you can experience the power of I Engage you with a 14-day free trial. It's time to increase your business efficiency, reduce overwhelm and step into a future of success. So head over to IEngageYoucom to start your 14-day free trial today, thank you. Thank you again for being part of the Inclusive Networker Community. Until next time, keep networking inclusively and thriving in your journey of success. Take care and we'll catch you in the next episode.