Here are some excerpts from my new ebook “Mind Your Own Damn Business”

You are Most Valuable When You’re in a Position of Power

Most of us think we can relax when things are going well in business. It’s usually when you are the least stressed and in the best decision to grow. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. As a matter of fact it’s rarely the case. So many of us have worked so hard to get to a place where we can relax that once we do we take a deep breath and relax not realizing this is the BEST time to grow your business.

Calling One too many times for Favors Might Get Your Future Calls Avoided

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..calling on people for favors… constantly. We don’t want to be ripped off or taking advantage of but a lot of the time, it is exactly what we do to our contacts. We want special treatment again and again or we deliver half backed goods for a fully cooked price. Please know that while people will do you favors from time to time, it becomes annoying when you are CONSTANTLY calling them for favors. We don’t often know when to be classy about the exchange either. I’ve had “friends” call me for concert tickets not just for themselves but for 3 other people too. That’s tacky and nobody wants to be used. Moreover, if you keep calling in favors, the person you are calling will eventually stop taking your calls.

Consider a Job… College for Business

No matter how much we hate our current jobs the best way to look at the situation, I’ve learned, is to start using my jobs as “college.” I’m taking a course and I’m getting a stipend for learning. I give the job a certain amount of time to complete the required courses and when I’m done. I’m ready to graduate to earn my next degree in business. This may sound strange but this really helped me through some of those rough times. The many jobs that I had were the “courses” and the paychecks were certainly “stipends.” There are times when we reach the pinnacle of our careers early on and we don’t even know it. My goal in radio was to work for “a white station.” Why? Because I had heard how much better it was to work for white people in radio than Blacks. I finally got the chance and it was indeed better than any job I had working in black radio but I has to deal with another elephant in the room… racism. There was no more jealousy, envy, small checks, degrading bosses and I was allowed to have a level of self-esteem. But there WAS racism.

The Potential to Make the Most Lies in Running Your Own Company

All I ever wanted was a job where I could be myself. That was not going to happen until I started my own business. THEN I got offers from other people to come and do the same thing for them. I should have left radio once I KNEW that I had found the job of all jobs. There are times when things are just DONE and you need to move on, instead of to the side or backwards. If your next opportunity is not better than the last one…. You are most likely wasting time. Time that you will never get back.

Never Tell Anyone Your Plans Unless They Can Help You

As black people, we have such a dire need for approval. Mostly because it drives not just us but the human race. But we must realize that people will never see for you what they can never see for themselves. If a young awkward looking, tall thin black girl tells her family or friends that she wants to be a model, they may laugh at her and she may accept that they are right and forget about her dream. Even though she grows up to be outrageously beautiful and her dream could have very well been a reality. The people she depended on didn’t believe in her which caused her not to believe in herself. This is why black entrepreneurs would never tell someone else they can’t do something. Because we learn through doing business that anything is possible and our confidence to have our own businesses skyrockets to a level we never thought possible.

If the potential model pursues that goal without telling her family, they will usually be the same people who will say “I always saw something special in her, I knew she would be a star” My cousin use d to tell me “Everybody Loves a Winner!” and they want to be associated with them, even if they have nothing to do with their success. That’s our need for approval on the reverse. We want to take responsibility for all that’s great and shy away from what is negative. That’s not just black people, that’s the human race. So in essence, it is best to pursue your dream and keep your mouth shut, especially if the people you want to tell have no understanding of what you are pursuing. I have to tell the truth about my people, we can be some of the most negative people when it comes to encouraging each other. This, of course, is where the “crabs in the barrel,” theory comes from. I learned a long time ago that the best kept secret is the one you never tell. Also, in the ghetto, we don’t often understand the concept of business and how it works so that it usually the one thing most people will not tell you that you can’t do because they have no concept of how it works. No matter how you pursue your goal of being a business owner, always know….

It’s all in the Presentation…

This is probably one of the MOST important things you will see in this guide. P-R-E-S-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N! I don’t care what kind of business you have if you don’t present it, yourself or your documents right, you are almost DESTINED to fail. The first line of presentation is your idea. Just the other day a gentleman called me with an idea he had for a magazine. He was all over the place. I kept asking him if he had a business plan, you really don’t nee a FULL plan, something I will talk about later. I also asked him about start up capitol. He kept skirting around the questions. I asked him about investors and he didn’t trust anyone. As he went on and on about how he was going to get his business off the ground and the team he had in place, I lost interest. His lack of direction just sounded like someone mumbling after a while. It sounded like he was confused…. and if he sounds that way to me, how will he handle the business and how will he sound to anyone else that he presents this idea to? He made several common mistakes potential black business owners make they are as follows: