Building a Brand: Lessons From African-American Entrepreneurs

welcome everyone well I'm just gonna dive in there about two and a half million black owned businesses here into the u.s. we generate about a hundred and fifty billion dollars in revenue annually and we employ about 1 million Americans that's all according to the US Census Department and we're about just a couple months away from the 400th anniversary of the first documented arrival of Africans in America it's kind of a momentous time for Africans in America and we thought it would be a good time to kind of stop and take a little pause and think about not just black owned businesses but really black owned brands and there certainly is a lot to think about when we think about black owned brands there's there's vision there's value and perhaps there's also the notion of if there's a different social contract when we think about the relationship between customer and creator between the brands of today and tomorrow and certainly when we think about brands of years gone by right we also want to have time for conversation with you so we'll chat for a little bit and then stop and take her questions so joining us this evening we have two brand creators who in the very early years of their brand build we have a very seasoned investor investment advisor who has decades of experience in crafting strategic deals with major brands and we have a multicultural marketing expert and then you also have me which Jon left something out all those things that he said about me which may or may not be true he left off something very very important I've spent about 30 years being a journalist most of which I spent in the dark in a control room or hiding behind a typewriter and so as an introvert I will be reading a lot but rest assured that in my heart I'm making eye contact with each and every I'm sure you feel that right now right who does show of hands I have one so that's great already we also very seriously are on the record so that's important there are a lot of journalists in the room so we are in the record and if anyone does want to follow up with quotes for stories or anything to get in touch with me and we are being recorded and we're being broadcast internally for all of our Bloomberg employees worldwide the end of the day this is very important for all of our employees so for those of you who are watching around the world good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you may be so we're gonna get started with our introduction introduction so first we have from the Bronx there must be someone here from the Bronx your noise I know John McCrory one of our senior executive editors is from the Bronx from the Bronx we have Chanel Campbell she's been named what-if Women's Wear Daily z-- 42 watch for 2018 its array Solange Knowles and Tracee Ellis Ross for among her clients she also teach that teaches at Parsons and she's 27 years old oh my god we may Don corn well partnered PJ T partners a global advisory investment bank Don has worked on some of the large complex sports and entertainment deals in the industry including the sale of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment the sale of Buffalo Bill the sale of IMG to William Morris Endeavor he also has retail and an apparel expertise and I will not say his age because I do not know from here he looks like he's 12 we have Terry Johnson the CEO of Harlem candle who just appeared with us on Bloomberg radio so thank you so very much and decorating fragrance company she founded in 2014 cherries created the candle for the film if Beale Street could talk based on James Baldwin's book and finally we have Andrew drew McCaskill a senior VP with communications and a multicultural marketing specialist in Nielson he also co-authored the Nestle Nielsen study consumers to creators on black entrepreneurship and the lives of black consumers so just quick round of applause to welcome so I'm very nerdy I like form so I like we have parts of this who are in part one for those of you want to keep up part one why this business brand voice so Terry I'm gonna start with you you had a very successful management consulting career and a very very successful video production company you were ready an entrepreneur and then you decided to that the world needed another candle company right it's a three build the u.s. candle companies the three billion dollar business right three billion dollars a year in candles I'm a woman of a certain age which we think is around 12 13 so I love candles buy a lot of them three billion dollars a year but we needed another candle what you said was beyond vanilla and lavender why what did you what did you think we were missing well by nature I'm a storyteller so my background in video production was basically my own show and it was a traveling lifestyle show called Travel ISTA travel east to Terry so I me and a friend decided to create this brand where we traveled around the world we filmed ourselves and then we started getting noticed and we've done projects for bttv one Sundance Channel Huffington Post Travel Channel we've done a lot of stuff in that world and I really enjoy telling stories and I'm not originally from Harlem but I've been living in Harlem now for over 15 years and I felt like Harlem is there's just so much history and so much art and so much culture and because I'm such a lover of fragrance and beautiful fragrances and I was spending a lot of money on luxury scented candles from other brands and I just decided that it would be really fun to take everything that I love that i'm passionate about harlem the harlem renaissance history and art and culture and just turned it into a beautiful brand that celebrated fragrance and celebrated people like Duke Ellington and Lynx and Hughes and Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday and yeah I really feel like it was the right time the right place and I honestly Harlem is going through as most of you probably know kind of a new renaissance and I wanted to be I wanted to really preserve the legacy and the history of all these people who have left their mark and I wanted to do it in a beautiful elegant way to celebrate them and I thought you know let's not just do lavender and vanilla and camomile candle let's let Josephine Baker be the inspiration let's let this symbols and Langston Hughes's life to be the inspiration and it's really fun because I like to tell stories and I think people kind of gravitate towards not just a candle but kind of evoking a mood and feeling the the soul and the essence of ooh Josephine Baker's boudoir yeah this is a sexy candle so it's just I think it's fun and I really feel like I created the perfect brand for me so hmm so should now Charlie was talking about symbols and stories and the perfect brand for her I think we expect from from a fashion designer we do expect a certain point of view right we do expect that but your brand you kind of extend at that point of view beyond the fashion and I think that was really evident in your fall 2018 debut show where your vision went way beyond the clothing can you kind of talk about what you did in that show that was really really caught people's attention well I think what I try to do with my show is basically the idea around everything I do is try to elevate black consciousness and create platforms where black people could see other black people doing things that is not so common so what I wanted to with my brand was first I modeled my model casting I did all by myself through Instagram I got all black models and then the idea is that that's not something that's so new to fashion getting black models or including PAC models on the runway but I wanted to elevate blackness behind the scenes like I had a black makeup artist a black hair stylist my nail artist was not an American but the venue in which I had my show was owned by a black woman so I was trying to create jobs and employ more black people so it's my about blackness in the front of house and blackness in the back of house and then from there we created just this very inclusive natural community it turned from a fashion show and some more of like a party like my friends were there it was just a very natural inclusive comfortable setting and like my models were telling me this is unlike anything that I've ever felt before which wasn't my intent I didn't know it would go so far but it happened and it was like a beautiful thing the true does this resonate with any of the research that you've done you've co-authored the study on absolutely one of the things that that Terri said I think is really is really interesting in terms of what our data is showing is that African American entrepreneurship particularly amongst African American women is up significantly in 2017 Africa the African American female entrepreneurs had the growth rate was at 67% I mean that's double what that's more than double what the rate is for all women and it is more than triple what the rate is for our non-hispanic white counterparts white women and so I think that that's really interesting the other piece of it is that's interesting that you have two african-american women who are entrepreneurs on the stage is also that african-american women typically I tend to be unapologetically black in in their endeavors into entrepreneurship one of the things that we have seen many times overall is that when we start businesses often we say what will cross over what will work for the general market what will people love but what we've seen with african-american women entrepreneurs is that they're saying beginning to say what if I double down on over serving black folks what if I double down on over serving people who look like me who engaged the way I engage who appreciate the history and the culture who know who Josephine Baker is and understands Langston Hughes and understands what the history of the Savoy is etc right and what we're seeing is that you can over serve african-americans and still make your money right that is a phenomenon amongst younger entrepreneurs because that was that is a typical of what we have thought previously we've always sort of been told you have to cross over not true the other piece of it is also is the democratization of digital has allowed for us to jump over the traditional barriers of our products being marking it or I'll jump over the traditional barriers of getting information around how to actually create products and services and so many entrepreneurs particularly african-american entrepreneurs who are much you tend to be a lot younger sometimes when they do these endeavors are saying that they can use digital platforms in very interesting ways to create a financial ecosystem if you look on Instagram a lot of Instagram is like a bazaar you can buy all types of things there right like it that is the essence of the democratization of digital you can source models you can source other people who are entrepreneurs and business owners and suppliers and all of those things there as well that is a very different zeitgeist for entrepreneurs particularly younger entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs of color than we've experienced previously and that's a really big deal for the barriers coming down for people who are trying to make it work in terms of entrepreneurship and we're seeing more and more a for us bias sort of mentality particularly amongst younger younger folks but across the board we're seeing that those numbers up and down the age category particularly again for african-american women I want to come back to that for us by us but I want to stay a little bit on in the money realm yeah for now Italian Chanelle you both I believe have self financed your operations is that right how do you actually make your business work so now let's be honest from my so I had to like use the savings that I had and I had to see how family help that was the only way it was gonna happen and then the people that I worked with they were so obsessed with my story that of course they worked with me at a like a lower rate or I see receive sponsorship so from Jeffrey Campbell they gave me twenty six pairs of shoes for my show and then my DJ his rate was extraordinary because he's a very popular DJ and was like what I can't afford you and he was like no I'm also from Parsons cuz I graduated from Parsons so as Parsons alumni we want to support each other and I love what you do you know I saw your name because of salon shoot like did an amazing job of putting my name out there so other people could find me and like from there people were just like I support you I'm interested and I want to help Terry yeah I self-funded I use savings I would take all the money that I would make which wasn't that much from travel east the travel east to creating video content and I would pour it into the Harlem candle company and I recently did my family had has been trying to give me money for this business for years and I've said no and I finally said yes because I really needed it but I also you know I I'm going off the beaten path from from what my family ever thought I should be doing you know my dad's an engineer my mom's worked in health care administration grandparents were educators so here I am in the fragrance industry it's like what are you doing creating content and traveling around the world I've been to 68 countries so to them it's just like you what are you doing so I've always really wanted to just prove myself and prove that I what I'm doing is is great it's it's perfect for me and I did that so I recently launched in Bloomingdale's this past November in four different location and I needed a little bit of money in order to just create the inventory and and so on so I also had a store at Grand Central for the holiday season and of course I needed a lot of money to make the inventory for that so I finally accepted it and you know they're proud of me so tell you much on two things that are sort of interesting first a few little data points seventy percent of all black owned businesses according to the u.s. black chambers are self financed 23% 4c funds from family and friends so you're not alone and 11 percent tap 401ks um you mentioned that your family had some history with with with already being well established and you were doing something that was sort of different done from your perspective how important is it that entrepreneurs or people who go into business already have a sense of of how business works I mean what should people regardless of the size of business there's in a different language for business for small business versus big business you've worked on some of the big biggest deals out there for me from where you set what should people all of us know about the world that these two women are trying to be a part of as they look at strategic deals as they look at what they're trying to achieve what should they understand sure so so look the product is everything sounds like both have amazing products and that's 95 percent of the battle unfortunately from a funding perspective as they both probably have experienced it's really hard out there and for people of color especially we're in a tough though and I was recently in a facebook fight with a buddy of mine who's a pretty prominent venture capitalist who wrote if your friends and family don't invest in the business don't come asking me for my response was that is blatantly wrong you are missing the point and from a diversity perspective you're gonna miss out on a lot of great products because there are people out there who don't have the friends and family to invest but they have great product and so I think you know for you as I sort of think about big deals with you know lots of money being funded and ubers of the world that's because they come up with a great product and that but half of it is also luck right and it's finding the person who's gonna fund you and I think unfortunately for people in this room it's hard to find those people that's where the real challenge is and that's why I work every day fight in the fight I was saying to my venture capital friend hey next time you get the the the meeting with somebody has a great product whose friends and family haven't invested take the extra meeting take the extra hour to really think about the quality of the product digital is it really has it really how important how important is is Instagram and the internet and new technologies to your business it's extremely important to mine like I mean that's the platform in which I like I have a website which of quarters and articles and news but in terms of like my visuals and editorials I put everything on my Instagram people find me that I was find me for like editorial shoots and like pulling things for celebrities is all through Instagram they see my work on there it's just so quick it's not like tap tap tap it's just like one quick feed of everything you get a very good idea of someone and then one click away you can have a conversation with them like and I respond to everybody who reaches out to me by Instagram because I mean I'm one woman team so like it's a very personal situation right now do you think that's a real fundamental game-changer John do oh it's huge and I think it's it's it's morphing everyday it used to be two years ago people would say oh that person's got a lot followers or they've got a lot of people on Instagram that's not really the game anymore it's interactivity and so what I just heard was a really positive sign that people you know they're flashing through their their their their their feed and they're seeing something that gets them interested so they take the time to comment the fact that you respond gets them back so when you're looking at funding people do look at engagement levels and what people are willing to do I think we also are all a bit more focused on what's really going on on social media you know I think for those of you that have watched the fire festival document it's a great example of that was a company that was built on a social media presence but they had a terrible product and I think the combination is finding that right balance and so it keeps on coming back to the to the product funny thing how it keeps on coming back to that brand so another little data point according to our census people the buying power black Americans expected to top one point four trillion dollars one point four trillion dollars by next year by us for us when I was wanting to go shopping back in in the 1970s which was really difficult because I hadn't actually wasn't actually born yet if I imagine if I imagine had I been born we had been born had we been born back in the 1970s imagining that I would go out and we would go out and write and we'd buy soft drinks and shampoos and I really did wouldn't have cared if there was a backstory right to my shampoo and now right there's the story right and often the story is more important than the product I want to be part of want to be part of that story and not just whether they're ethically sourced and they don't test on animals that's that's sort of that's just the basic cost of doing business but there's a bigger story right that I want to be part of drew you've done a bit of research on this got that hole for us absolutely so off top I want to touch on what you just said about so inching toward 1.4 trillion dollars I want to put that into context for the African Americans and therefore everyone in the room is that African Americans spoon have a spending power of one point almost one point four trillion we're at one point three trillion dollars right now if African Americans alone were a global economy african-americans would be the 15th largest GDP in the world just black folks right between Spain and Mexico is black America right and so if you put that into if you really think about that in terms of power and economic power of a people in a country is that there's a trade agreement with Mexico right that we have had in place forever right imagine if there was a trade agreement with a reciprocal trade agreement with African Americans so I mean I want I want you to understand that you know of course we should be talking about wealth in our communities we should be talking about savings and we should be talking about entrepreneurship but we should not negate the fact that that power that power of what we add to the to the US economy is high impact that's a lot of economic power and so to the point of the story our research shows that African Americans and again led by African American women the way my my generation and sort of lockstep with my parents generation thought about buying products was we wanted value millenials and and our in the younger generation the djinns ears they're thinking about value values right the difference between the value buyer and the values buyer younger consumers want to know the story they want to know that you support causes that are important to me they want to unto know that when I see your commercial I see myself and if I don't see myself why don't I see myself and if I see myself and I don't like what I see I'm gonna tell you about it I'm gonna tell my friends I'm gonna create a hashtag and then you're gonna get a call from from the crisis team saying why the hell is our brand trending with all of these memes saying you know that we have lost our minds right and so that is the difference so the story had a product is oftentimes really really important we've seen the story with it really incredibly successful products from African American brands where the stories on the is on the actual packaging now you know what I mean the story is part of it digital spaces give you a lot more freedom to tell the story of your product - another reason why that why african-american businesses are propelled forward by digital is because we create communities just like you create a financial ecosystem when black folks are the boss particularly when black women are the boss they source other black folks right and it creates that ecosystem that sometimes we're left out of when we're not engaging with entrepreneurs part of that is also the fact that we see we see so much about our cultural impact the things that black people enjoy on social media because we're such voracious social contributors and we have and our device ownership is practically ubiquitous we're almost at a hundred percent device ownership of every African American almost has a smartphone and we engage on social and social media so much that the things that we think are cool have a halo effect we make up 14% of the population but we make up 28% of the Twitter users right so there's somebody dedicated at several major metropolitan papers to look at what is happening on black Twitter because it's the canary in the coalmine for what's important and what's happening next black Twitter is your opportunity to see around the corner right it's why our shows are it's why black shows and shows that have african-americans at the top of the Call Sheet or have diverse cast it's why they're beginning to outperform shows that are that are not inclusive it's one of the reasons why if you talk about african-american impact on culture 2017 we saw R&B and hip hop surpass and sir plant rock music as the number one genre of music in America says the charts were invented right so rock music has been the number one genre of music in the country up until 2017 when it was supplanted by R&B and hip-hop mostly driven by black artists mostly streamed by everybody right and so it begins to have that conversation around the things that we engage in and that we tell the community and that we tell the culture and that we tell pop culture is important is what the entire culture American culture begins to respond to and as goes America goes the world that's a lot of power that African Americans have over culture are we aware of how much we are absolutely not aware every almost everyone knows the economic and cultural impact of African Americans except African Americans there's a quote that I love by a famed author who's been in a little bit of trouble lately so I won't say her name but I will say her quote is that the best way that people give up their power is by thinking that they don't have any and that's the issues that most of us don't necessarily know that we had that power Don I'm gonna ask you a question now when you look at the the work that you've been doing over the decades that you've been working the many decades seriously as you look at the work that you've been doing with some of the smartest people in the room what is it that successful people have in common what is it that they see is it's clearly there is something about brand clearly but what is it what is it that that they know is that is it a nimbleness is it an ability to to respond to changes quickly is it an ability to select partners the right partner we've talked Terry and I we spoke briefly about you have a partner to you when do you select a partner can you talk a little bit about that success and how to build upon the success you already have sure I think the answer is different depending where you are in your career but I think it starts off and it really is throughout your entire career mentorship finding the right person to emulate and to learn from you know I was very fortunate at an early age to have some people around me that taught me how to work and I think that even people I look at my boss the founder of my firm he's got his mentors right he's a very successful very wealthy individual but he's got people that he looks to for advice and tough times I think the second thing is managing personal brand I think you know you have to you know always think about even though you're likely an employee or if you're an entrepreneur and you guys do this every day your job but for most of us who aren't entrepreneurs you are your own business I think you know you've gotta think about how you support yourself in public how you have your social media presence and then you know figuring out okay how am I perceived at the in the job place and that's something that people react to they take criticism they react to it they evolve over time and I when I look at the the you know whether it's you know CEOs of big companies fortune 10 companies whether it's you know team owners that I work with all the time I can tell that they are have mentors and there are people who think about their brand and they are able to you know create more wealth because they are constantly thinking about how people perceive me and it's really impressive I know for for myself as an example I for years I struggled at doing some things at my job and it was because I was too thick-headed to listen to people around me at some point where I like finally heard the message that I was able to improve myself now do you have a mentor I'm finding them now yeah the people are reaching out I was gonna say that mentorship is super important because I know it from the other side of things not having mentorship and the moment that it like older black women sought me out and like we just I've just met so many women where it's like I feel like I've known you for years and they had to find me through like my debut collection through Solange putting my name out there so before that it was just kind of like this place where I worked hard cuz just of my Caribbean parents like you know how can ribbing sorry so I always worked hard but I didn't necessarily have the confidence that I should have knowing like what I'm capable of so that's what the mentorship is extraordinarily important but I didn't even know how much I needed it until I got it sorry I have I have a lot of my friends are also entrepreneurs so I would say not a mentor per se but I'm part of a group of women and we all own our own business most of them are older than me and successful you know six-figure businesses year after year so I guess they're kind of like mentors but they're more like friends who give me really great advice support yeah it's a really great support system you see this is a test of my my skills I had children mostly because of devices let's see if I can do this I have faith in you there we go I just wanted to put this up because what we're looking at is looks good I started doing my research on Ontarian and Chanel I like these images really where they caught my attention because I just think they're quite awesome but maybe again it's the person who spent much of her life hiding in the dark I found them also quite frightening in a way we're looking at at Terry's if Beale Street could talk handle and at Chanel's Tracee Ellis Ross wearing her lovely fuchsia skirt what is the fabric it's a bright red cotton canvas skirt lovely the t-shirt is about the vote it is from before the midterm elections this is the American Music Awards which was seen by 6.5 million people and I just think it's it's awesome because again back when I was a youth that skirt would have been a moment in time gone forever right no VCR you can't watch it again right and the candle I don't know how one would find an image of something that you'd have to go to the shop and actually go and look at it right there's the notion that you can be seen and something that you can make right can can be so visible so so quickly and and and someone can see you see something that you've made and said I want that right it's quite powerful but then how do you manage that right to you know to get to Don's point of how do you introduce points how do you stay on how do you stay on message how do you control your brand how do you control your message how do you stay in control of your business neither one of you have assistants right so literally it's just you so when something as amazing as that happens how do you how does that not overwhelm you I think for me it's like small enough that I could still manage it right now like I got maybe a lot of exposure from it a lot of maybe followers on Instagram which was amazing and it was like so inspiring to see somebody that I watched on girlfriends when I was like 8 years old like we're something of mine it's so crazy but then in terms of like people reaching out and so many people wanted that skirt after then that's where you have a little bit of an issue because it's like now I have to find money for producing something so complex and then people also come to me and they realize that's gonna cost fifteen hundred dollars it's a high-end handmade garment that I made myself you know what a sewing machine I don't have any manufacturers or companies working with me right now like I would do everything myself so now it's finding like getting that business partner to partner to move this forward and I get overwhelmed I just don't let it last I don't let it linger I get over it because I realized okay this opportunity is a this is a blessing and when you see it as a blessing and you just kind of calm down like oh this is happening you breathe and you're able to figure it out you're able to make those those decisions whether it's hiring temporary help looking for a different contract manufacturing company sometimes even getting my friends to come over hey I got an order for 300 candles and they need them in three days can you help me yeah it would I just you have to stay nimble and thankfully everything that I do is here it's I'm not doing anything overseas everything is here so I'm able to respond pretty quickly when there are you know huge orders huge volume I'm able to respond fast which makes makes it not as stressful yeah we're gonna open it up for questions any last words before questions I would say to the two potential for folks who are tech focused or have some tech acumen I always say this to audiences of African where they're large swathes of African Americans is that 73% of African Americans over age 13 consider themselves to be gamers right but there's so few games or gay games or characters out there that look like us or that tell black stories or that are from the Diaspora right it's a thirty six billion dollar industry and it's a industry that is so right for african-american entrants right and so I would say that we're talking about entrepreneurship we're talking about culture we're talking about economics is that there are so many places where we have traditionally thought were saturated markets oh there's already so many where would I fit in the reality is that we have as a community and a culture been so underserved and unrecognized or maybe even ignored that there are wide gaps there for things that are uniquely geared toward us as a community so there's a ton of blue ocean space out there for entrepreneurs and so I would just say that that's one one category that we all think about they were like oh I never thought about building a video game yet it's the video that they're tough they're only handful of black games or black themed games even in app stores now and all of them are consistently at the top of the list of downloads because we want to see ourselves we want to hear our story we want to see our culture represented in a way that is authentic and not you know subverted and so the desire is out there thank you so much to John for opening remarks and for coming and being with us today to all of you for coming and joining us we're gonna be here for the next hour drinking and and and following up and having some nibbles and to our guests drew Terry Don and Ann Chanel [Applause]

Channel: Inside Bloomberg

Views: 22,600

Rating: 4.8933334 out of 5

Keywords: Building a brand, brand, marketing, representation, black history month, black business, harlem, business owners, independent, CEO, bloomberg

Id: ROYMnvjs6YY

Length: 38min 30sec (2310 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 27 2019