Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Full Episode: Entrepreneurial masterminds Marcus Davis and Mychel “Snoop” Dillard, SBA District Director Terri Denison, & Food Network’s Chopped Sweets finalist Phillip Ashley

Transcript

Full Episode: Entrepreneurial masterminds Marcus Davis and Mychel “Snoop” Dillard, SBA District Director Terri Denison, & Food Network’s Chopped Sweets finalist Phillip Ashley · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: the AD Council. Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the
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Speaker 1: show that she has the secrets of success experience firsthand
1:25
Speaker 1: by marketing and Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know
1:28
Speaker 1: he's given me advice on many occasions. In occasion didn't notice,
1:31
Speaker 1: I'm not broke. You know. He'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs,
1:35
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do.
1:38
Speaker 1: It's what he likes to share. Now it's time to
1:40
Speaker 1: hear from my man, Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations. Here
1:44
Speaker 1: we go. Welcome to money Making Conversation. I'm your host,
1:48
Speaker 1: Rashan McDonald. I tell people every week it's time to
1:51
Speaker 1: stop reading other people's success stories and start writing your own.
1:54
Speaker 1: And people always talk about their gifts and their passion
1:57
Speaker 1: and if you have a gift, lead with your gift.
1:59
Speaker 1: And if you don't, if you're gonna do that, then
2:01
Speaker 1: don't let your age, friends, family or coworkers stop you
2:04
Speaker 1: from planning or living your dreams. People always talking about
2:07
Speaker 1: the interviews I have on the shows, feel like I'm
2:09
Speaker 1: always reminded people as what I'm trying to do with
2:11
Speaker 1: money making conversations. Yes, I have celebrities, CEO of entrepreneurs
2:14
Speaker 1: and what I like to call industry decision makers on
2:17
Speaker 1: money making conversation. My goal is to get them to
2:20
Speaker 1: tell you about their secrets to their success, their nuggets,
2:23
Speaker 1: drop some gems on you. You hit these gems, you
2:26
Speaker 1: use them. But because it's going to be tied to work,
2:29
Speaker 1: nothing is luck. Nothing has been at the right place
2:32
Speaker 1: at the right time. It's all tied to proper planning,
2:35
Speaker 1: proper effort, and realizing that hey, you can't be selfish
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Speaker 1: in pursuing your own dream. You have to put forth effort.
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Speaker 1: My next guest is Marcus David's been knowing him a
2:44
Speaker 1: long time. Straight out of Houston, Texas. He's the host
2:47
Speaker 1: of Fish, Grits and Politics. He's an entrepreneur, restaurant owner,
2:51
Speaker 1: and motivational speaker. Like I said earlier, he's located in Houston, Texas. Houston, Texas,
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Speaker 1: Marcus the spirit and entrepreneur. My my the mind behind
3:00
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club, which is nationally recognized. It first came
3:03
Speaker 1: to fame and Oprah way back in I had the
3:06
Speaker 1: blessing of inviting him on the Steve Harvey talk show.
3:09
Speaker 1: Blew him up even more. If you go there right now,
3:11
Speaker 1: there's a line at the door. The people are nice,
3:14
Speaker 1: the food is great, the reggae hood, the Alec catbar allowed,
3:18
Speaker 1: and the culture. He is best known for his charismatic personality,
3:21
Speaker 1: authentic customer appreciation, and his tireless commitment to the community.
3:26
Speaker 1: That's what it is. Marcus Restaurants are rooted in principles
3:29
Speaker 1: of faith, family, community, with a K and empowered. They
3:33
Speaker 1: treat every customer like family and believe that family is
3:36
Speaker 1: the corner stone of any community. So if they placed
3:38
Speaker 1: an emphasis on supporting activities and causes that enriched and
3:42
Speaker 1: strengthened family, he has created one of the most phenomenal
3:45
Speaker 1: restaurant success stories in the country. If you landed in
3:48
Speaker 1: the intercoming on the airport, is there his footprint is there.
3:52
Speaker 1: When I saw that man, damn their crimes, brother man,
3:56
Speaker 1: the breakfast the breakfast club at you know, yeah, that
4:01
Speaker 1: the terminal, my Delta termina. That's when I fly to
4:04
Speaker 1: the Delta terminent over there, he's working to money making
4:06
Speaker 1: conversation Marcus Davids, how are you doing, Marcus Man? After
4:10
Speaker 1: after listening to you and that that that, uh man,
4:14
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great. You just made me feel real well
4:18
Speaker 1: every time because because I fly on Delta, I'm based
4:20
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, so I always fly on Delta. And when
4:23
Speaker 1: I when I first landed Man, and I was telling
4:26
Speaker 1: my wife, I said, I think my boy, I think
4:29
Speaker 1: they're putting some up with in the Condal Airport. As
4:32
Speaker 1: she said, well, I think I think he's at the
4:34
Speaker 1: Coundonal Airport. Now your restaurant black owned, right and uh
4:41
Speaker 1: one of the busiest airports in the country. Walkers to
4:45
Speaker 1: the steps of how that came about Marcus in Houston,
4:48
Speaker 1: Texas and knowing the journey of the Breakfast Club. Well,
4:53
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny you said that because I've never
4:57
Speaker 1: been uh doung hole about the airport. I know a
5:01
Speaker 1: lot of people in business, a lot of people in restaurant. Uh,
5:04
Speaker 1: they are airport, airport, airport. And I'm a street side
5:07
Speaker 1: guy and and I was like, man, give me a
5:10
Speaker 1: good location on the streetside and I'll be good. And
5:13
Speaker 1: you know, years ago we started getting approach with questions
5:16
Speaker 1: about being in the airport, but we never pursued it.
5:20
Speaker 1: And then I got to working on the Convention of
5:22
Speaker 1: Business Bureau board. I was on the board here in Houston,
5:25
Speaker 1: UH to talk about, you know, visitors who comes here,
5:28
Speaker 1: how do we get more here, how do we elevate
5:29
Speaker 1: the brand of the city, the awareness of what Houston
5:33
Speaker 1: is about, how much better than Atlanta it really is,
5:36
Speaker 1: and all that good stuff. So yes, like sleeve that
5:40
Speaker 1: in there right absolutely, But you know, I'm magnoring you.
5:43
Speaker 1: I'm magning you. But and and while while doing that,
5:48
Speaker 1: you know, I saw that there was a need uh to.
5:51
Speaker 1: I believe in my definition of entrepreneurship, let's just started off,
5:55
Speaker 1: is filling a void in the marketplace that the marketplace
5:57
Speaker 1: is calling for consciously, our subconti entrepreneurship feeling a void
6:02
Speaker 1: in the marketplaces the marketplace is calling for consciously, our subconsciously.
6:06
Speaker 1: And one of the things we discovered was that people
6:08
Speaker 1: who came to Houston didn't really get the taste of
6:11
Speaker 1: Houston because of the number of flights that came into
6:14
Speaker 1: the airport where people just transferring UH to another plane
6:18
Speaker 1: to another city and never knowing the great food that
6:21
Speaker 1: we the great culinary city that that that that we are.
6:23
Speaker 1: So there was this effort to one bring about the notoriety,
6:27
Speaker 1: but to the need to put concepts in in uh,
6:31
Speaker 1: into the space. So I felt compelled being an ambassador
6:34
Speaker 1: of my city, being uh, you know, one to put
6:37
Speaker 1: on from my city and red for my city. I
6:40
Speaker 1: felt compelled to make it a point to be a
6:42
Speaker 1: part of that. I keep talking about it if I'm
6:45
Speaker 1: not gonna be about it. But to you to your
6:47
Speaker 1: other point, I have found how great it is to
6:52
Speaker 1: be a black owned restaurant in the airport, simply because
6:56
Speaker 1: it's in the space that African Americans typically say we're
6:59
Speaker 1: not in and so to have African American representation in
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Speaker 1: that space was was was quite gratifying and part of
7:07
Speaker 1: the gold part of the motive. Well, you know, it's
7:09
Speaker 1: really and I say that, and i' gonna stay on
7:11
Speaker 1: this for a minute, being that you know, you do
7:14
Speaker 1: have a I'm in Atlanta, so you know this is
7:16
Speaker 1: a persided that's recognized for Black forward movement. You know,
7:21
Speaker 1: you know there are a number of black entrepreneurs who
7:23
Speaker 1: do have restaurants at Heartfield Apple, which is classified as
7:27
Speaker 1: the biggest businest airport in the world. And so I've
7:31
Speaker 1: had people friends of mine setting photos like you're turning
7:34
Speaker 1: your restaurant over at the Incoming Apple into a tourist
7:38
Speaker 1: spot out of pride and say, you know, taking pictures
7:41
Speaker 1: of the food. So they ate here talk about this
7:43
Speaker 1: slower down man, because we know where the original spot is, okay.
7:47
Speaker 1: And then be at the airport. You know, I know you,
7:50
Speaker 1: I know you. You've been in the public side've been
7:52
Speaker 1: doing the morning show, doing public awareness and that from
7:56
Speaker 1: the basically being a voice of the people on the
7:58
Speaker 1: radio in Houston, Texas Caucuses. But to be part of
8:02
Speaker 1: something that you know is different and that has been
8:06
Speaker 1: at the airport. Really talk about how people the pride
8:11
Speaker 1: that people really took it to the next level with you,
8:13
Speaker 1: they also saw as a possibility it can be them too,
8:17
Speaker 1: right right, And and you know, we're getting ready to
8:20
Speaker 1: celebrate uh twentieth year in business this fall, and I
8:25
Speaker 1: look forward to having me back on to talk about
8:27
Speaker 1: that in in the fall. We're getting ready to celebrate
8:31
Speaker 1: our twenty year in business. And the model that I'm
8:34
Speaker 1: rolling with this twenty years of inspiration. We've been on
8:37
Speaker 1: the corner of Travis and Alabama, inspiring our community for
8:41
Speaker 1: over twenty years, inspiring entrepreneurship for twenty years. So to
8:47
Speaker 1: answer you a question about what does that feel like,
8:49
Speaker 1: it feels the same way as it does when we
8:51
Speaker 1: unlock the doors at thirty seven eleven Travis. To see
8:53
Speaker 1: the number of people that come through the door that
8:55
Speaker 1: are amazed, that are fascinated, that are impressed, that are
8:59
Speaker 1: proud of uh this establishment. When they look and they whisper,
9:04
Speaker 1: and they lean over the its like on and you're
9:06
Speaker 1: telling me, yes, it is for one of these one
9:09
Speaker 1: of these numbers, and and and and they all excited
9:12
Speaker 1: because they had a great experience. The professionalism, the quality
9:16
Speaker 1: of product, qualitive service, qual of the people that served them,
9:20
Speaker 1: UH was was fascinating to them. So UM we where
9:23
Speaker 1: we where they were pride. Similarly, when we stepped into
9:26
Speaker 1: a new space that we knew was a travel space
9:29
Speaker 1: and space that brought people from all over the world,
9:32
Speaker 1: we knew that we were stepping it up to another level.
9:35
Speaker 1: So UH it gave us an opportunity to want to
9:37
Speaker 1: be on a bigger platform for guests, but more importantly,
9:42
Speaker 1: on a bigger platform for entrepreneurs to see what is possible,
9:45
Speaker 1: what we're capable of doing you know, talking about again,
9:48
Speaker 1: I'm a street side got there, I know it. But
9:50
Speaker 1: you know, but but you're a smart guy because street side.
9:53
Speaker 1: But you're a smart guy because of the fact that
9:55
Speaker 1: when people give you a shot an opportunity, you deliver.
9:57
Speaker 1: When I say that we're gonna go back to Oprah,
10:00
Speaker 1: you know, giving an opportunity to feature your your brand,
10:03
Speaker 1: and this is open when she was on every day,
10:05
Speaker 1: five days a week, when everybody was watching her. And
10:09
Speaker 1: and then because even today, man, you have people lining
10:12
Speaker 1: up to come into your restaurant. That's twenty years man,
10:16
Speaker 1: I'm talking about if you I keep you not ladies
10:19
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, you go you try to just think you're
10:21
Speaker 1: just gonna walk into this restaurant. That's not going to happen.
10:26
Speaker 1: Well if you tell them, if you tell them that,
10:28
Speaker 1: uh put it on Rashawn's tab and you know, don't
10:34
Speaker 1: do it like that. Market are you talking about back
10:36
Speaker 1: on my show in the fall, Because because I've been
10:44
Speaker 1: there several times and like I said, I've done my duty.
10:47
Speaker 1: I I you know you're gonna do it two ways. Team,
10:50
Speaker 1: You're gonna get there with the restaurant immediately opens up
10:53
Speaker 1: then you can slide on it or slide on it,
10:56
Speaker 1: but you let an hour or two hours slide in.
10:59
Speaker 1: You're gonna be inlive at the breakfast Club. Yeah we
11:02
Speaker 1: we we we do here. I mean, I am grateful
11:04
Speaker 1: that people support us in an outrageous fashion. People come
11:08
Speaker 1: in and they say, hey, man, I'm proud of you,
11:09
Speaker 1: and I tell them, no, I'm proud of y'all. Y'all
11:11
Speaker 1: want that showed up. I share with my team every
11:14
Speaker 1: morning when you show up at seven am, every one
11:17
Speaker 1: on one unlocked the door. The first guests that walks
11:20
Speaker 1: through the door gets around to applause from my staff
11:22
Speaker 1: right for my team. And the reason is I try
11:25
Speaker 1: and share with my team that one we can never
11:27
Speaker 1: take for granted that we unlock that door, somebody's gonna
11:30
Speaker 1: walk in. We have to be grateful for every single
11:32
Speaker 1: person that walks into that door. We have to show
11:34
Speaker 1: them the gratitude that they deserve for choosing us as
11:38
Speaker 1: their destination for dyning over the other nine and ninety
11:42
Speaker 1: nine restaurants that are in the city of Houston. So
11:44
Speaker 1: um we we we we We are extremely grateful of
11:48
Speaker 1: the number of people that come from within the city,
11:51
Speaker 1: within the state, from throughout the country and beyond the
11:56
Speaker 1: Atlantic and the Pacific to visit thirty or seven eleven traps.
12:00
Speaker 1: I'm bragging a little bit, um, I tell folks, we
12:03
Speaker 1: we did this pre I G right, you know how
12:10
Speaker 1: you date things by BC and A V right right
12:12
Speaker 1: right right right, I tell I tell I tell, I
12:14
Speaker 1: tell you these young casts is doing will and congratulations
12:17
Speaker 1: to them, to all the ones that are you know,
12:19
Speaker 1: having success to day, I said, but how let you
12:21
Speaker 1: boar when you've been doing it for two decades and
12:23
Speaker 1: and and and and and take this out. We created
12:27
Speaker 1: that buzz with no instagram a face. That's why, that's
12:32
Speaker 1: why I want to score down with you, because you
12:35
Speaker 1: know Markus, you know, because first he naturally funny, as
12:38
Speaker 1: you can hear the interviews, He's a natural entertainer, and
12:41
Speaker 1: amiss all that. Sometimes you can go past the hard work,
12:44
Speaker 1: the commitment and the planning and the professionalism because I'm
12:47
Speaker 1: telling you you go into any of his restaurants, it
12:50
Speaker 1: is a professionalism. And I'm gonna tell you something what
12:52
Speaker 1: happens with black businesses because sometimes people kind of like
12:55
Speaker 1: knock us. You know, you know, the servis, the food
12:58
Speaker 1: quality and all that stuff and who you compared to. Now,
13:02
Speaker 1: if you know anything about Houston, Texas, it is the
13:05
Speaker 1: culinary game in Houston, Texas is a beast. I mean
13:09
Speaker 1: it is, it is. I mean, it's top notch. We
13:12
Speaker 1: we we have I think at one point we were
13:15
Speaker 1: we were the number one restaurant presquact uh for the
13:19
Speaker 1: for a capita in in in the nation. But we
13:21
Speaker 1: by far have uh we rank in the top. And
13:25
Speaker 1: the number of restaurants, the number of different cuisines uh
13:28
Speaker 1: that that we have because of the diversity of the city.
13:30
Speaker 1: And yes, flavor for sure, we and and look, look,
13:35
Speaker 1: I know I know you loved A, but I tell you,
13:37
Speaker 1: man that A can't touch the age when it's I'm
13:39
Speaker 1: the food. Don't get you on the phone to call
13:42
Speaker 1: all the fellows. Don't get me on the phone to
13:44
Speaker 1: call around to all the cats in the age. We
13:47
Speaker 1: just need to go ahead and put it down. We
13:49
Speaker 1: just need to put it down in restaurants. You're not
13:53
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna ever. I know I was born to
13:56
Speaker 1: raised in Houston. The food in Houston, man, is a beast, dude.
13:59
Speaker 1: I mean the seafood, the Mexican uh. The text of
14:03
Speaker 1: ex food the the the barbecue combibecu, you can just
14:05
Speaker 1: shut it down the breakfast spots. And so that leads
14:08
Speaker 1: me to my question is you had this hit, the
14:10
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club, and you needed to expand because you saw
14:13
Speaker 1: all of this diversity, you saw all of this opportunity
14:17
Speaker 1: and and Parlia and your reputation as as a of
14:20
Speaker 1: having a hit restaurant. Was that the need to expand
14:23
Speaker 1: into the reggae hud, the ally Cat bar and lounge,
14:26
Speaker 1: and the culture. So the that need goes back to
14:31
Speaker 1: the original. And that's why I gave the definition at
14:33
Speaker 1: the beginning, because I'm always come back to a filling
14:35
Speaker 1: the void in the marketplace that the marketplace is calling
14:38
Speaker 1: for consciously, subconsciously. And so the breakfast club was was
14:42
Speaker 1: a response to Midtown not having a breakfast spot. Uh,
14:45
Speaker 1: this new area of of Houston that was third wards,
14:49
Speaker 1: last fourth ward that was created and turned into Midtown, uh,
14:53
Speaker 1: not having a breakfast either in the city of Houston,
14:57
Speaker 1: having a space open for a Southern big breath breakfast concept.
15:03
Speaker 1: And quite naturally, quite honestly, rather you know, I wanted
15:07
Speaker 1: a you know, I go from the get go, was
15:10
Speaker 1: to be synonymous with the city of Houston. I wanted
15:12
Speaker 1: people saying when I go to Houston, I'm going to
15:15
Speaker 1: the breakfast club. I wanted that to move into I
15:18
Speaker 1: am going to Houston because I want to go to
15:20
Speaker 1: the breakfast club. And now today, twenty years later, I
15:23
Speaker 1: tell folks, if you have been to Houston and have
15:25
Speaker 1: not been to the breakfast club, then you, my friend,
15:28
Speaker 1: have never been to Houston. Absolutely absolutely talk talk talk
15:31
Speaker 1: the game, because the game is you my friend. Now,
15:33
Speaker 1: now let's talk about it. But but I want to
15:35
Speaker 1: make sure. I want to make sure I answer I
15:37
Speaker 1: answer your question. Uh. Those those other concepts the radio
15:41
Speaker 1: hud uh Alec had borne, lounge and culture were all
15:44
Speaker 1: birth out of the knee listening to the marketplace and
15:47
Speaker 1: what it was asking for looking at the marketplace and
15:50
Speaker 1: seeing what's what's what's what's not there, and being the
15:54
Speaker 1: go between, which is the original definition of entrepreneur, the undertaker,
15:57
Speaker 1: the person who would take on, uh this this challenge
16:00
Speaker 1: of this opportunity that that that's in front of us.
16:02
Speaker 1: And so the Regga hell was an existing business. The
16:04
Speaker 1: Reggio had started five years before t VK Regga had
16:07
Speaker 1: started and had its success. When I was still a
16:09
Speaker 1: senior UH at Texas and then I and then I
16:12
Speaker 1: went off and came back and opened the Breakfast Club
16:15
Speaker 1: and it was still going in and as an institution
16:18
Speaker 1: in our community. Our community wanted it to be open,
16:21
Speaker 1: to behold. So when it started to have it, it's
16:24
Speaker 1: its troubles. I put into practice the fourth principle of quanza,
16:29
Speaker 1: which is co operative economics. I took the money that
16:31
Speaker 1: the people were putting in the cash registered at thirty
16:34
Speaker 1: seven eleven Travis, and went and saved salvage a concept
16:38
Speaker 1: in Third War that our community needed to have sustained.
16:42
Speaker 1: And I say needed, and I closed on this. I
16:44
Speaker 1: say needed because in the African American community, we are
16:49
Speaker 1: hurt every time one of our business is closed, right
16:52
Speaker 1: it it tears at the moral and the morale fabric
16:56
Speaker 1: of our community. We may not express it, we may
17:00
Speaker 1: resting in the wrong way. Sometimes we may say stuff
17:02
Speaker 1: like see that I told you it was going to close,
17:03
Speaker 1: and we're saying that out of her out of pain.
17:06
Speaker 1: It's painful when I when our businesses in our community closed.
17:09
Speaker 1: So we fifteen years ago acquired the Reggae Hut to
17:13
Speaker 1: keep an institution in our community open to keep an
17:17
Speaker 1: additional place for us to circulate our dollars and to
17:21
Speaker 1: serve jerk Chicken. Of course, brother jerk Park. On my end,
17:25
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people, Oh hey have it.
17:28
Speaker 1: I mean, I got it for you know what I'm
17:30
Speaker 1: talking about. I'm but I'm gonna ask you this question,
17:36
Speaker 1: Marcus woman, say, okay, look, you got a popular The
17:39
Speaker 1: breakfast club is popular. Why don't we see another breakfast club?
17:43
Speaker 1: You know? You know they do it with Bojangles, they
17:45
Speaker 1: do it with you know, Chick fil A. Why don't
17:47
Speaker 1: we have like I know you're the airport, but why
17:50
Speaker 1: don't we have like four or five breakfast clubs with
17:52
Speaker 1: a k running around running around the city of Houston?
17:55
Speaker 1: And then't expand it in Texas? Man? You you you
17:59
Speaker 1: bring up an absolute perfect point. I've got a meeting
18:02
Speaker 1: today with a brother who is who is about to
18:05
Speaker 1: uh do something super spectacular. Uh. There's a void in
18:09
Speaker 1: the marketplace, right we as African Americans in the restaurant industry.
18:12
Speaker 1: The void that we have is there's not an African
18:14
Speaker 1: American concept that stretches across a region. That's not an
18:18
Speaker 1: African credit concept that stretches across the nation, we don't
18:22
Speaker 1: have a national concept we have, Don't get me wrong.
18:25
Speaker 1: We have successful restaurant tours, brothers that can buy a
18:28
Speaker 1: hundred uh taco bills or what have you, But we
18:31
Speaker 1: have no concepts where we're selling one hundred franchises. And
18:35
Speaker 1: that's where African Americans have to graduate too. If we're
18:38
Speaker 1: gonna do this business thing seriously, right, if we're gonna
18:41
Speaker 1: be serious about uh generational wealth, if we're gonna be
18:44
Speaker 1: serious about making rebuilding Black Wall Street running it back,
18:49
Speaker 1: if we're gonna be serious about building Wakonda, then we
18:52
Speaker 1: gotta start with our dollar. And the only way we
18:55
Speaker 1: can get those those things that you describe one to five,
18:58
Speaker 1: five to ten, ten to twenty across the country is
19:03
Speaker 1: if we're deliberate in our dollar. And that's where African
19:06
Speaker 1: Americans have to step in and step up to the plate.
19:09
Speaker 1: And yes, we do need to make sure that the
19:11
Speaker 1: concepts that are presented are are are desirable, uh, that
19:15
Speaker 1: they are palatable, that people love them, that they adore
19:18
Speaker 1: there they embrace them. But the one thing I do
19:21
Speaker 1: ask for the from the marketplace, from the African American marketplace,
19:24
Speaker 1: is fairness. And when I say fairness. When we're judging
19:28
Speaker 1: businesses from restaurants on down, keep that same energy, because
19:33
Speaker 1: we will walk into a nail salon and let them
19:36
Speaker 1: talk dirt to us and we take it. We will
19:39
Speaker 1: walk into beautisalon and let them follow us along the
19:43
Speaker 1: around the thing, and we still buy from them. Right.
19:45
Speaker 1: We will walk into a restaurant that has the highest
19:48
Speaker 1: level of discrimination I mean of of a bad service,
19:51
Speaker 1: which is discrimination, and we will try and force them
19:54
Speaker 1: to take our dollar. We're still trying to make somebody
19:58
Speaker 1: take our dollar. But you know, so those days have
20:01
Speaker 1: have to be gone. We have to have the same
20:03
Speaker 1: amount of patients and tolerance and persistence with building our
20:07
Speaker 1: business as we do with the tolerance that we have
20:09
Speaker 1: with others. Last one on this, no, last one. I
20:12
Speaker 1: just finished watching this another night when when when people
20:16
Speaker 1: ask you don't want how much tolerance? How much patients
20:18
Speaker 1: are we supposed to have? If you're talking about building
20:20
Speaker 1: your community for real? I encourage everybody to go back
20:23
Speaker 1: and look at the Montgomery Boycott West Boycott three hundred
20:28
Speaker 1: and eighty one days. That community was very intentional about
20:33
Speaker 1: accomplishing their goal. They had to do the big s,
20:36
Speaker 1: which we are not comfortable doing, which is to sacrifice.
20:40
Speaker 1: And if we want to rebuild Blackwall Street, if we
20:42
Speaker 1: want to build with Kanda, if we want a fortune
20:45
Speaker 1: five hundred restaurant company, if we want to restaurant food
20:48
Speaker 1: service comming and traded on the NASDAC, then we've got
20:50
Speaker 1: to be deliberate and where we circulate our doubts. I'm
20:54
Speaker 1: gonna slow you down on that one because I love
20:57
Speaker 1: because because you know, you know, you know, I'm the
20:59
Speaker 1: sun grand son and great grand son of the Black
21:01
Speaker 1: Baptist preachers. And it's what they're ever gonna stop here,
21:04
Speaker 1: They ever gonna stop now, but as a microphone around
21:07
Speaker 1: here somewhere. But as a black entrepreneur, you know, there's
21:10
Speaker 1: always been that fear if I tell people who I am,
21:13
Speaker 1: will I get the same reaction, you know, especially from
21:17
Speaker 1: the white community. And then when we all we had
21:19
Speaker 1: a great ground swell that was laid behind our tragic
21:23
Speaker 1: death of you know, uh, George Floyd, I apologize for
21:28
Speaker 1: the forking this name and uh. And so then of
21:30
Speaker 1: a sudden, the injured that the corporation said, hey, we
21:33
Speaker 1: want to know if you are black owned business. Google
21:35
Speaker 1: actually went out and said we have a little marker
21:38
Speaker 1: that you can actually say, if you my only business,
21:40
Speaker 1: check this. And so now you have black businesses saying,
21:44
Speaker 1: you know, we could actually come out of the dark
21:46
Speaker 1: and and and be appreciated. You know all the time
21:49
Speaker 1: you even say he was a black business, you could
21:50
Speaker 1: just sign up doing the right. Nobody would tear down
21:53
Speaker 1: your building. That's when you say you were black home.
21:55
Speaker 1: Prior to that, you didn't want to recognize it and
21:57
Speaker 1: be recognized at all. But we now at a point differently,
22:01
Speaker 1: like I said, post I G And that's the life
22:04
Speaker 1: we live in now where you could be proud, you
22:06
Speaker 1: can brag, you could promote that you're black owned business.
22:10
Speaker 1: Is that important? Marcus? Look and and I wish those
22:15
Speaker 1: people that you're talking about, I wish you had had
22:17
Speaker 1: pointing them out to me before, because I I, you know,
22:20
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I've seen it. I'm aware. I've
22:23
Speaker 1: seen what people will make an effort to conceal or
22:25
Speaker 1: two and I just see I'll say this, uh, post
22:29
Speaker 1: traumatic slave, this order is real. Right, anytime you decide
22:33
Speaker 1: that you gotta hide or have a fear of letting
22:37
Speaker 1: people know who you are or what you're about, you know,
22:40
Speaker 1: I deliberately from day one, September October two thousand and one,
22:45
Speaker 1: deliberately wanted folks to know that this was an African
22:47
Speaker 1: American owned established right now. That didn't mean that all
22:50
Speaker 1: of our all one hundred seats were for African Americans.
22:53
Speaker 1: It just meant that the person who had their name
22:55
Speaker 1: on the door, on on the martage, on the least
22:58
Speaker 1: on the partmit was African American. But we're gonna deliver
23:00
Speaker 1: a product that is good for the general market. And
23:03
Speaker 1: that was a goal, right some reason, For some reason,
23:06
Speaker 1: African Americans, well, for the obvious reason that that that
23:08
Speaker 1: phrase I just gave post traumatic slave disorder. African Americans
23:12
Speaker 1: have been denied the knowledge that we have the ability
23:16
Speaker 1: to create a product for the general marketplace. We've been
23:21
Speaker 1: convinced that the only market, the only product that we
23:24
Speaker 1: can create for the general marketplace, not just for black folks,
23:27
Speaker 1: because the whole pie was whether we can run fast,
23:30
Speaker 1: we can jump high, or whether we can sing or
23:33
Speaker 1: whether we can dance. Those were the only places where
23:36
Speaker 1: we felt our gifts, our talents, our skills were worthy
23:38
Speaker 1: of the general marketplace. And I'm here to say not so, right,
23:42
Speaker 1: I am here to build black business. I am here
23:45
Speaker 1: to build black business that will flourish in the general marketplace. Awesome.
23:51
Speaker 1: Now that that leads me to your stupid or your
23:54
Speaker 1: show host of fish. You know, because we've been actually
23:59
Speaker 1: having scripts and politics talk this entire interview, and that's
24:03
Speaker 1: how you know he's an entrepreneur, he's a game changer,
24:06
Speaker 1: and tell us about the show, tell us about the
24:09
Speaker 1: need for the show and what's the goal of the show.
24:13
Speaker 1: So you know you mentioned in in the in the opening,
24:16
Speaker 1: I spent some time uh doing uh commentary and this
24:21
Speaker 1: community voice community activists, whatever title it is, and my
24:26
Speaker 1: big mouth got landed me a seat on the radio,
24:29
Speaker 1: uh sitting next to my mentor. Uh sister died a
24:33
Speaker 1: K eight to atwards. She was she was a radio
24:36
Speaker 1: host in Houston for a number of years on the
24:39
Speaker 1: community program. And so I sat at her at her
24:42
Speaker 1: foot and learned from her and then went on to
24:45
Speaker 1: become the host of Magic one of two Sunday Morning
24:47
Speaker 1: Live for for ten years. I don't know if ten years.
24:52
Speaker 1: Thank you for falling, said, okay, all right, see he's
24:57
Speaker 1: seen me, Marcus and saw me all the way back
25:00
Speaker 1: to hip hop comedy stopped stopped. So, man, look, you
25:05
Speaker 1: know I had saved that. I had saved that to last,
25:07
Speaker 1: but since you brought it up, I'm gonna go ahead
25:09
Speaker 1: and talk about it. Now. Entrepreneurship is contagious. It is
25:13
Speaker 1: absolutely contagious. The day that I walked into the hip
25:16
Speaker 1: hop Comedy Stop and I did the same thing that
25:19
Speaker 1: people walking to the Bush Club. It's black home, it's us.
25:23
Speaker 1: Immediate spoils up. You know, you're standing a little taller.
25:26
Speaker 1: You know you're here. You get a little higher because
25:28
Speaker 1: you know this, this, this is us doing something. So
25:30
Speaker 1: when I heard those commercials running you and brother David
25:34
Speaker 1: uh and I win, I saw, and I went, and
25:36
Speaker 1: then it happened to go one night when Steve was
25:38
Speaker 1: there and I just you know, my ribs steel cracked
25:41
Speaker 1: from one of those late night shows. Man, where I
25:43
Speaker 1: just you know, the thing that Marcus is that you know,
25:49
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship is contagious. So I have to tell you that,
25:54
Speaker 1: uh that that that was a source of fertilization, uh
25:58
Speaker 1: for the entrepreneur. Uh see, that was inside of me.
26:02
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you and your brother's stepping out on
26:04
Speaker 1: faith in doing that. Well, you know, sometimes you know
26:07
Speaker 1: I've looked at my life and I just like I said,
26:09
Speaker 1: do it on faith. I do it on belief. I
26:12
Speaker 1: believe that somebody can't tell me no. If you're gonna
26:14
Speaker 1: tell me no, you're gonna tell me why, and speaking
26:17
Speaker 1: no stop to a lot of people. When you tell
26:18
Speaker 1: me no, you have to tell me explain, explain. Don't
26:20
Speaker 1: just tell me no. You have to explain to me
26:22
Speaker 1: to why, because that way I can If you tell
26:25
Speaker 1: me why and explain to me, I'm gonna figure out
26:27
Speaker 1: that I can do it because well, and you know
26:30
Speaker 1: part of why why it is were showing I've discovered
26:34
Speaker 1: part of why that is. And this goes back to
26:36
Speaker 1: your question about why not one team fifteen stores. Part
26:39
Speaker 1: of why there you hear the know is because what
26:43
Speaker 1: people are doing is they're attempting to project their fear
26:46
Speaker 1: and their faithlessness onto you. Right. What they're telling you,
26:50
Speaker 1: what they're saying when they say no, you can't do it,
26:52
Speaker 1: is they're saying, I've seen that I can't do it.
26:55
Speaker 1: I don't have the faith to do it. So I'm
26:57
Speaker 1: telling you how I feel and I'm gonna project it
26:59
Speaker 1: onto you. I'm not saying that they're doing a delivery.
27:01
Speaker 1: I think it's being done unconsciously right right. Uh, But
27:04
Speaker 1: but people have to understand that you cannot allow others
27:07
Speaker 1: to project their fearfulness onto you. You've got to stay in,
27:11
Speaker 1: flat footed and faithfully on the dream, the golden vision
27:15
Speaker 1: that was placed inside of you if you wanted to
27:18
Speaker 1: come into fruition. So going when when? The reason I
27:22
Speaker 1: mentioned the one that tends a hundred is because every
27:24
Speaker 1: time you have a restaurant concept and people talk about expanding,
27:27
Speaker 1: if you listen, the marketplace will tell you, oh, I've
27:31
Speaker 1: literally heard this. I took surveys and I've literally heard
27:33
Speaker 1: people say, don't do this. Every time we do this,
27:38
Speaker 1: we lose. And I point out to one young lady,
27:41
Speaker 1: I said, I can guarantee you I can in your day,
27:45
Speaker 1: I can point out three or four concepts that you
27:48
Speaker 1: support that wants one store operations. Right when you go
27:54
Speaker 1: get your coffer in the morning at that buck place,
27:56
Speaker 1: they started out as a single store. When you go
27:58
Speaker 1: get your nuggets at that filate place, they started out
28:01
Speaker 1: as a single store. And to be told, we are
28:05
Speaker 1: the ones that are financing the whole arm and leg
28:08
Speaker 1: of this growth of this expansion. And so we just
28:12
Speaker 1: have to turn that faith around and believe that we
28:14
Speaker 1: have the ability. We already have the bill. You know,
28:16
Speaker 1: McDonald's don't run McDonald's three six five for no reason.
28:19
Speaker 1: They run three six five because we're in there three
28:22
Speaker 1: six and five. Absolutely, And Marcus Uh. First of all, Man,
28:28
Speaker 1: I knew I was talking to your our conversation now,
28:31
Speaker 1: you know you're coming back for your twenty and adversity.
28:33
Speaker 1: That's gonna be really about that. But but I just
28:35
Speaker 1: want to get to these season, these these flavors behind you,
28:38
Speaker 1: because you know, I got a TV show called Rahard's
28:40
Speaker 1: Kitchen Now and a little a little Birden told me that, absolutely,
28:44
Speaker 1: and so I gotta get that stuff so I can
28:46
Speaker 1: start making stuff and start posting on my social media
28:49
Speaker 1: and support you this way. So tell us about the
28:52
Speaker 1: season and talk about the extension of going in the
28:54
Speaker 1: online packaging and grocery stores and stuff like that, because
28:58
Speaker 1: I gotta feature this stuff for Roosarge Kitchen. I gotta,
29:01
Speaker 1: I gotta. I gotta a cook. Of course, you know
29:04
Speaker 1: I can cook and bake and so and I just
29:07
Speaker 1: do it just anywhere from beans, the steaks, the fish
29:10
Speaker 1: now everything. Talk about your whole line of seasoning and packaging.
29:15
Speaker 1: So yeah, so man, we um we have a line
29:19
Speaker 1: of products that give you the ability to uh take
29:23
Speaker 1: us home with you, right, you can? You can. You
29:25
Speaker 1: want that same great flavor of the chicken, You want
29:27
Speaker 1: that same great flavor of the fish, You want the
29:29
Speaker 1: same great favor flavor of the waffle. Uh. Then we
29:32
Speaker 1: have a lot of products. So we have where have
29:34
Speaker 1: our chicken fry, fish fry, We have our pancake and
29:37
Speaker 1: waffle mix. Where our coffee beans because we are a
29:40
Speaker 1: full service coffee shop. You can get the whole bean
29:43
Speaker 1: or you can get them ground up. And then most
29:45
Speaker 1: importantly less and most important, sorry're gonna do the selfless
29:49
Speaker 1: club we have we have our all purpose seasoning. Right,
29:52
Speaker 1: That's what I want, right for my being, for my
29:55
Speaker 1: green that look yeah man, I'm gonna tell you look club.
30:00
Speaker 1: I tell folks. So, my father, who was the biggest
30:03
Speaker 1: influence in my career because he was a great educator,
30:07
Speaker 1: he was a great musician, but he was also a
30:09
Speaker 1: great chef. He was I mean, this food was just
30:12
Speaker 1: absolutely dynamic, and he taught me what great great flavor
30:16
Speaker 1: uh actually was. And so fortunately is my first year
30:20
Speaker 1: in business, he was here with me to help formulate
30:23
Speaker 1: the recipes and and and the menu and all that
30:26
Speaker 1: good stuff. And this is a result of what he
30:30
Speaker 1: taught me. It's the base for everything that we do
30:34
Speaker 1: at the Breakfast Club. And I tell people because I've
30:37
Speaker 1: had people ordering and they and they're like, man, I
30:39
Speaker 1: can't believe how good that was. I was like, you've
30:41
Speaker 1: eating at the restaurant thirty seven thousand times? How not?
30:46
Speaker 1: I just I just didn't know. So for those who
30:48
Speaker 1: cooked anywhere that you and I'm not gonna give nobody
30:51
Speaker 1: else no props anywhere that you use those other people
30:54
Speaker 1: season right, stop, put it down and pick this up.
30:58
Speaker 1: So if you use that T word, yeah, substitute right here.
31:02
Speaker 1: If you use that slap yo whatever, whatever, whatever, substitute
31:05
Speaker 1: right here. Anywhere you're using an all purpose season I
31:08
Speaker 1: invite you to get the Breakfast Club season and take
31:11
Speaker 1: us home with you. I'll just tell you, We'll tell
31:14
Speaker 1: you Mark, don't don't send me nothing. I'll be ordering
31:17
Speaker 1: that today, okay. Because you know me, I always support
31:19
Speaker 1: black businesses, and in that way, I know I use
31:22
Speaker 1: all purpose seasoning. I have another young black lady who's
31:25
Speaker 1: really talented. I use her and she's African American season
31:28
Speaker 1: and stuff. But I gotta invite you into my kitchen,
31:30
Speaker 1: man Rashawn's kitchens talking about the product and all that
31:33
Speaker 1: good stuff. But again, man, the greatest talker and motivator
31:37
Speaker 1: in the game, in the restaurant game. His name is
31:40
Speaker 1: Marcus straight out of Houston, Texas. He'd be back on
31:43
Speaker 1: in the fall celebrating the twentieth year of the Breakfast
31:46
Speaker 1: Club in Houston, Texas, because we're gonna talk about a
31:48
Speaker 1: lot of great things. Thank you for coming back on
31:50
Speaker 1: the show. Man. You're a beautiful brother. Man. Thank you.
31:53
Speaker 1: I appreciate, I appreciate the invite. Man. You look great,
31:55
Speaker 1: you look fantastic. You look healthy. I'm glad. I'm glad
31:58
Speaker 1: you're taking care of yourself. We want you and need
32:00
Speaker 1: you here for a couple of more years, a few more,
32:04
Speaker 1: a lot of thank you, thank you, thank you, all
32:07
Speaker 1: right and and amen and thank you. I gotta say,
32:10
Speaker 1: you know, we we we we we got some national recognition,
32:14
Speaker 1: uh in our first couple of years of business. But man,
32:16
Speaker 1: we hit it big. We hit it big. Shan call
32:20
Speaker 1: and said, hey, man, y'all gonna be on the Steve
32:22
Speaker 1: Harpers Show. Man. Yeah, thank you Marguts for coming on
32:29
Speaker 1: money making conversations. Brother. I appreciate you. Brother. We will
32:33
Speaker 1: be right back with more money making conversations with your
32:36
Speaker 1: host Roshan McDonald. It's finally here, the season of celebration,
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Speaker 1: are now tuned into the money making conversations. Minute of
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Speaker 1: Inspiration with Rushan McDonald I recently interviewed Gina Yasay, a
34:43
Speaker 1: British comedian of Nigerian heritage. She has the co creator,
34:47
Speaker 1: co executive, ducer, writer and actress on the hit CBS
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Speaker 1: series Bob Hart Abashola. Gina is released in our first book,
34:54
Speaker 1: a memoir, Cat Candy Puts chronicles her odyssey to get
34:57
Speaker 1: to America and break into Hollywool. I wrote the book ovinually.
35:01
Speaker 1: It started off as just on Instagram. There was a
35:04
Speaker 1: hashtag fowback Thursdays where you past old pictures, and I
35:07
Speaker 1: was posting all pictures and writing the story behind the
35:10
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35:13
Speaker 1: the history behind the picture, and people were really interested
35:16
Speaker 1: in saying, oh my god, your story is so good,
35:19
Speaker 1: why don't you write a book? So I started keeping
35:21
Speaker 1: those and I want to school about my history because
35:24
Speaker 1: people don't seem to realize that the UK started safely.
35:28
Speaker 1: If you want to hear the full interview with Gina Yasharai,
35:31
Speaker 1: it's available on money Making Conversations dot com. Welcome back
35:35
Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversations with your host, Rashan McDonald. My
35:39
Speaker 1: next guest is one of my favorite people. Her name
35:42
Speaker 1: is Snoop Dillard. She's the owner of Dillard Hospitality Group.
35:46
Speaker 1: D HC. Dealer Hospitality Group is Atlanta based hospitality company
35:50
Speaker 1: that takes pride and delivering high quality care and customer service.
35:54
Speaker 1: With five restaurants, three salon suites, a charity organization to
35:58
Speaker 1: tourism and travel agencies, a real estate investment and business
36:02
Speaker 1: consulting agency. D h D has become a leader and
36:05
Speaker 1: provide in Atlanta now excellent examples of optimal delivery within
36:09
Speaker 1: the service industry of Atlanta, Georgia. On the show to Day,
36:12
Speaker 1: Snoop and I were going to talk to her about
36:14
Speaker 1: her road to recovery and also our mentorship program because
36:17
Speaker 1: last year both she and I were frustrated with this
36:21
Speaker 1: COVID nineteam when they were both entrepreneurs and also talking
36:25
Speaker 1: about putting your business back on the fast fast track
36:27
Speaker 1: to success. If anybody can talk about that because of
36:30
Speaker 1: our diversity of her portfolio, is her, Please welcome to
36:33
Speaker 1: the show Money Making Conversation, Snoop Dialard, Hey do snow
36:38
Speaker 1: thanks to having that phenomenal uh, that phenomenal phenomenal well
36:45
Speaker 1: you know you know those two are you one of
36:46
Speaker 1: my favorite people. And last time I had you on
36:48
Speaker 1: the show, COVID with beating us up as entrepreneurs was
36:53
Speaker 1: beating us both of you know, uh, your your your
36:56
Speaker 1: birthday tour got canceled everything, and I could I could
37:00
Speaker 1: hear in your voice you were frustrated and because there
37:03
Speaker 1: were no answers, can you walk us back to as
37:06
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a restaurant owner,
37:08
Speaker 1: because that was really scary because customers couldn't come in
37:12
Speaker 1: your business and talk about that whole process. Yeah, absolutely
37:17
Speaker 1: so um as you all know, of course, you know,
37:20
Speaker 1: we all went through the same thing with COVID nineteen
37:22
Speaker 1: and I think it was probably around the beginning of
37:26
Speaker 1: April or the end of March the human I spoke
37:29
Speaker 1: last year, And of course, definitely frustrating time. That was
37:33
Speaker 1: around the time when everything was just being shut down.
37:37
Speaker 1: We were unclear on when things would open up and
37:40
Speaker 1: when everything would even turn back to any type of
37:43
Speaker 1: normalcy or if there ever would be normalcy, and what
37:47
Speaker 1: that would look like, you know, um for months and
37:49
Speaker 1: years to come. So um, absolutely a frustrating time. As
37:53
Speaker 1: you mentioned, our own five restaurants. So it's just having
37:55
Speaker 1: all of those clothes that once was very very scary, UM,
38:00
Speaker 1: made me have to be super innovative. Um and really
38:04
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of think out of the box. Uh. Now,
38:07
Speaker 1: Fortunately we were able to open back up, you know,
38:11
Speaker 1: about a month after month later after we spoke you know,
38:15
Speaker 1: uh during that time last year. And so I was
38:18
Speaker 1: very surprised that we were able to open back up
38:20
Speaker 1: as quickly as we were, UM and even more so
38:23
Speaker 1: surprised and pleased to see people coming out and patronizing
38:28
Speaker 1: the businesses like they did, you know, once we were
38:30
Speaker 1: able to open back up. And so I went on
38:34
Speaker 1: to open up three new businesses during the pandemic. So
38:39
Speaker 1: that was definitely it was kind of like turning you know,
38:42
Speaker 1: lemons into lemonade, you know, making a bad situation and
38:45
Speaker 1: turning that into a positive situation. So um, everything ended
38:50
Speaker 1: up turning out all right. But it was definitely you know,
38:53
Speaker 1: a scary time, you know, for all of us. Then
38:56
Speaker 1: I think the time that will you know all never forget.
38:59
Speaker 1: We know, it's really interesting because you're always upbeat, You're
39:02
Speaker 1: always a positive and you know, and as a and
39:06
Speaker 1: I want to call your friend of mine, just hearing
39:08
Speaker 1: your voice and hearing the the the uncertainty and your
39:13
Speaker 1: voice doing COVID as an as an entrepreneur, because you're
39:16
Speaker 1: not only that you try to get customers the door,
39:18
Speaker 1: but you have people you're employing, and you're hearing their
39:20
Speaker 1: stories and their their checks and their bills that they
39:23
Speaker 1: cannot pay. But with that being said, there has been
39:26
Speaker 1: a difference in customer service now because now online or
39:31
Speaker 1: to go has become a has changed the dynamics, especially
39:34
Speaker 1: in black restaurants. Talking about how that has shifted your
39:38
Speaker 1: business model, well, you know, while we were shut down,
39:43
Speaker 1: we were when we were allowed to stay open just
39:45
Speaker 1: to do take out. Uh, So that made us have
39:49
Speaker 1: to focus, you know, on that aspect of the business
39:52
Speaker 1: much more than we ever had before before. You know,
39:56
Speaker 1: we always were more so concerned and cater to the
40:00
Speaker 1: customers that were coming into the business. So we ended
40:03
Speaker 1: up seeing a lot of our profits from you know,
40:05
Speaker 1: uber eats, grub hub, things that nature nature and even
40:09
Speaker 1: changing our platform um to see how we could do uh,
40:14
Speaker 1: take out and delivery without using those platform forms which
40:17
Speaker 1: take you know a certain percentage of profits. So, uh,
40:21
Speaker 1: it was definitely a time to kind of change some
40:24
Speaker 1: things change our we even looked at changing our to
40:27
Speaker 1: go containers, you know, to preserve food and make sure
40:31
Speaker 1: that our to go food was fresh just like it
40:35
Speaker 1: would be in the restaurants, you know, once you get
40:37
Speaker 1: it there at home. So UM, definitely a lot of
40:41
Speaker 1: thinking outside the box, you know, during this time period
40:44
Speaker 1: and some things that we've carried on up until now.
40:48
Speaker 1: You know, we've even implemented curbside windows that several of
40:52
Speaker 1: our locations UM and still keep those going to this day,
40:55
Speaker 1: even though people are coming back into the restaurants now.
40:59
Speaker 1: It was really interesting. I was with a friend I
41:01
Speaker 1: was at I was at the waffle House and we
41:03
Speaker 1: were sitting up at the bar eating and I could
41:06
Speaker 1: tell you it was actually the the the go pick
41:09
Speaker 1: up area at the end of the bar for Waffall
41:11
Speaker 1: was like amazing. It was like it was like a constant,
41:14
Speaker 1: steady flow. So I know the mentality of the customer
41:19
Speaker 1: now is they have no problem coming in, picking up
41:22
Speaker 1: their their food and exiting out of the facility. Is
41:25
Speaker 1: that it may be tied to maybe a fear or
41:28
Speaker 1: it's just a habit that was built. Droughing COVID a
41:30
Speaker 1: team when it comes to future restaurant customer. I think
41:33
Speaker 1: it was a habit that was built during that time period,
41:37
Speaker 1: and so that enabled you. That's why you said, Okay, Rishan,
41:39
Speaker 1: we used to have a certain way that we delivered.
41:42
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Snoop dialer, then her customers. She has
41:44
Speaker 1: five restaurants in the Atlanta area. And Snoop when we
41:47
Speaker 1: were talking about this, the ability to say, you have
41:50
Speaker 1: different things you have to You have the seal containers
41:52
Speaker 1: that you can just put a lid on top of it,
41:55
Speaker 1: and then you have the little the little style foam
41:57
Speaker 1: that you would just fold down and just walk out
42:00
Speaker 1: of there. So I'm assuming that you went more to
42:01
Speaker 1: a seal container as far as your to go and
42:04
Speaker 1: even with the styrofoaone, you know, we went to a
42:07
Speaker 1: more breathable styrofoam container that would you know, keep wings
42:11
Speaker 1: and fried foods, you know, fresh shirt by the time
42:15
Speaker 1: we got those to the to the home location. Okay, cool,
42:18
Speaker 1: But let's when we were out of that. You know,
42:20
Speaker 1: we're into two were playing it only because I know
42:24
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're not a person that six thirty
42:27
Speaker 1: days are you're playing a year in advance. You got
42:29
Speaker 1: the five restaurants, the three so long, sweet break down
42:32
Speaker 1: to everybody. Your five restaurants in the line of areas,
42:35
Speaker 1: so we get a sense of what the the hospitality
42:37
Speaker 1: the group is doing from a restaurant perspective. Absolutely, We've
42:41
Speaker 1: got Escobar Restaurant the top of Us, which is located
42:45
Speaker 1: downtown on Peter Street at three seven Peter Street. We've
42:49
Speaker 1: got Escobar South which is on the south side, and
42:52
Speaker 1: Moron George at eleven forty Mount Zion Road. And we've
42:56
Speaker 1: also got members only Lounge and Restaurant which is located
42:59
Speaker 1: at one third nine Ralphe mcgheo once again downtown. Uh.
43:03
Speaker 1: And then we've got Crazy Restaurant which is located in
43:06
Speaker 1: a little five points uh. And then I also owned
43:11
Speaker 1: Esco Sea Food, so that one was opened up during
43:14
Speaker 1: the pandemic and it's located at four or forty seven
43:17
Speaker 1: edge Wed Avenue. This opening up a restaurant during the pandemic,
43:23
Speaker 1: talk to me. You know people out there can't even
43:25
Speaker 1: get p P pay people out there, and you made
43:29
Speaker 1: a decision. Was it was that in the works already
43:33
Speaker 1: now it was not the reason why I made the
43:36
Speaker 1: decision to open up Sco Sea Food is because I
43:38
Speaker 1: saw the influx of people that were coming to Atlanta,
43:41
Speaker 1: being that we were one of the only cities that
43:43
Speaker 1: were opened up the way that we were during the
43:45
Speaker 1: pandemic UM, and just kind of wanted to take advantage
43:49
Speaker 1: of that. Also, there were some unfortunate restaurants that did
43:53
Speaker 1: have to close down run the pandemic, and so, uh,
43:56
Speaker 1: there were several second generation restaurant location is available UM
44:01
Speaker 1: that would allow us to get open pretty quickly. UM.
44:04
Speaker 1: And so once I found that location on Edgela, which
44:07
Speaker 1: is a pretty sought after, you know areas to be on. UM.
44:11
Speaker 1: There's a lot of walk up traffic on that street. UM,
44:14
Speaker 1: I figured that that would be a good area to
44:16
Speaker 1: start our sea food chain UM and go ahead and
44:20
Speaker 1: get that going. And so we actually get that, got
44:22
Speaker 1: that location open and about three months we opened December
44:26
Speaker 1: ninth of last year. Well, I'm good to be honest
44:29
Speaker 1: with everybody. When I talked to Snoop deal it, she's
44:32
Speaker 1: a visionary. I tell her that all the time, and
44:35
Speaker 1: she but she's also a grinder. When I say a
44:38
Speaker 1: grinder means that she's out there grind and she doesn't
44:40
Speaker 1: even realize how. She knows she's talented, but may not
44:43
Speaker 1: realize that how talent and the impact that she makes
44:46
Speaker 1: on other people. Well, she has a program mentorship program
44:49
Speaker 1: that uh that the Road to Mentorship program. Talk to
44:53
Speaker 1: us about that Road to mendorship program and why it's
44:56
Speaker 1: important and why did you started? Absolutely so, who is
45:00
Speaker 1: Snoop's Road to Millions mentorship Program? I pretty much started
45:03
Speaker 1: this mentorship program during COVID. One of the things that
45:06
Speaker 1: I did while we worshiped down was to film various
45:09
Speaker 1: courses that I felt would be helpful to people who
45:12
Speaker 1: wanted to get into entrepreneurship, who wanted to start saving
45:16
Speaker 1: and investing, who wanted to get into restaurant ownership UM.
45:20
Speaker 1: And then also during COVID UM, I took the course
45:24
Speaker 1: myself to sharpen my skills by a friend of my
45:27
Speaker 1: name Marcus Barney. He has this whole recession recession through
45:31
Speaker 1: family where he teaches financial literacy, credit repair, UM, funding,
45:37
Speaker 1: business credit, things of that nature. So UM. And just
45:40
Speaker 1: kind of pulling all of that together and combining some
45:43
Speaker 1: of the things that I've been teaching and questions I've
45:46
Speaker 1: been answering through my business consultation to the past few years,
45:50
Speaker 1: I said, well, let me kind of put together a
45:52
Speaker 1: mentorship program that would encompass all of this information UM
45:56
Speaker 1: to be able to help individuals with my platform form
46:00
Speaker 1: UM get to the point that they can be millionaires
46:03
Speaker 1: or get to the point that they can reach their goals.
46:06
Speaker 1: And so that's what it is that I'm doing. UM.
46:08
Speaker 1: It's a mentorship program at last about four weeks. UM.
46:11
Speaker 1: It encompasses teaching people how to invest, teaching people how
46:15
Speaker 1: to save UM, teaching UH, fixing individuals credit UM, showing
46:19
Speaker 1: them how to be a business credit, showing them how
46:22
Speaker 1: to get funding, showing them how to start businesses, how
46:26
Speaker 1: to scale businesses excuse me, UM, and there's a lot
46:29
Speaker 1: of one on one with my mentees. So UM it's
46:33
Speaker 1: been a great program. People have really really been and
46:35
Speaker 1: been enjoying it. UH. Started off wanting to take about
46:39
Speaker 1: ten mentees a month, kind of scale back so that
46:42
Speaker 1: it kind of became a little overwhelming. So right now
46:45
Speaker 1: I kind of take on about six to eight mentees
46:48
Speaker 1: per month UM and it's a great program. People can
46:51
Speaker 1: find out more information about it by going to my
46:53
Speaker 1: website at www dot Who is snoop dot com? Well
46:57
Speaker 1: here's the thing I'm talking to. She's on them deal
47:00
Speaker 1: at Hospitality Group. If you're not aware, it's an Atlanta
47:03
Speaker 1: based hospitality company takes pride and delivering high quality care
47:07
Speaker 1: and customer service. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about
47:09
Speaker 1: this all started with a party of bus you know,
47:11
Speaker 1: in the Atlanta way back in the day. And this
47:14
Speaker 1: is an idea of stepping out on some people. Some
47:16
Speaker 1: people use the word faith. Uh, you and I were
47:20
Speaker 1: kind of like, we got faith, but we also are
47:22
Speaker 1: planners and we also have a budget tied to the plan.
47:25
Speaker 1: So give people advice on that whole process because you know,
47:30
Speaker 1: you know, prayers used a lot when people make a decision,
47:34
Speaker 1: but also within that prayer, it has to be a
47:37
Speaker 1: sense of reality, a sense of revenue that you can
47:42
Speaker 1: generate out of your dream. And how do you put
47:45
Speaker 1: your ideas together, especially in the early days of starting
47:48
Speaker 1: your company and the building your I want to say
47:50
Speaker 1: the word empire. I think it starts with number one,
47:54
Speaker 1: first and foremost, having a good plan, as you mentioned,
47:56
Speaker 1: you know, and when we talk about playing a business plan,
48:00
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of people are excuse me,
48:03
Speaker 1: starting businesses without even having a business plan. Um, So
48:07
Speaker 1: it really starts there, you know, it starts with um.
48:10
Speaker 1: Having the business plan during the research UM, having good
48:14
Speaker 1: mentorship no individuals that are in the line of work
48:18
Speaker 1: that you're trying to get into or that have businesses
48:21
Speaker 1: similar to what you're trying to do, UM, and really
48:24
Speaker 1: studying and scaling those businesses and and putting the research
48:28
Speaker 1: together with the grind and the hustle UM because a
48:31
Speaker 1: lot of times people really don't research what it is
48:34
Speaker 1: that they're trying to do, and I end up spending
48:36
Speaker 1: and wasting a lot of money trying to learn along
48:39
Speaker 1: the way. So UM, that's been a big thing for me. UM.
48:43
Speaker 1: It's just having great mentors UM and having good planning skills,
48:48
Speaker 1: you know, UM. And also you know, having that funding,
48:50
Speaker 1: you know, saving and having the finances UM to be
48:54
Speaker 1: able to back up you know, those dreams and aspirations.
48:57
Speaker 1: But its interesting thing when I when I sit down
48:59
Speaker 1: and talk with Snoop Dealer, is that there's always a
49:02
Speaker 1: level of confidence but you and I would tell you
49:04
Speaker 1: that I I don't understand balance. You know, you seem
49:07
Speaker 1: to be able to understand. Hey, I can relax, I
49:10
Speaker 1: can go on vacation, I celebrate with my friends. How
49:14
Speaker 1: are you able to do that? Because I would tell you.
49:18
Speaker 1: I love you know, I tell people I love the work.
49:20
Speaker 1: I love the bought the building and doing covid use
49:23
Speaker 1: at that restaurant. I bought the building. Okay, So I
49:27
Speaker 1: bought into myself and believed in myself. And one of
49:29
Speaker 1: the great business decisions I've made in the past several years,
49:32
Speaker 1: how do you balance being able to be exceptionally busy
49:36
Speaker 1: as an entrepreneur, but then also having a family life,
49:39
Speaker 1: a social life, a life to be able to know
49:42
Speaker 1: your friends and spend time with your friends. Absolutely great question.
49:46
Speaker 1: I think for me, I made the decision a few
49:48
Speaker 1: years ago that it was just something that I have
49:51
Speaker 1: to do because it's extremely important to me. You know.
49:54
Speaker 1: I think that you know, we're all here for a reason,
49:57
Speaker 1: and that you know when we leave this earth. You
50:00
Speaker 1: we look at tomb stones and I've never walked by
50:02
Speaker 1: anyone tomb stones that said a great athlete, great business person,
50:07
Speaker 1: owner of such and such. You know, it says mother, father,
50:10
Speaker 1: and sister, doorter, friend to whoever. Um, and those are
50:13
Speaker 1: the relationships that I feel like are most important that
50:16
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that we make time for.
50:18
Speaker 1: So UM, it's definitely about having that balance and scheduling
50:21
Speaker 1: those things, and uh, it used to be a point
50:24
Speaker 1: in time where I would you know, be up all
50:27
Speaker 1: night checking emails, because in the middle of the night
50:29
Speaker 1: emails working. And so I've decided that, you know, I've
50:32
Speaker 1: got to have a cut off point because there are
50:35
Speaker 1: things that are also important in life that don't evolve
50:40
Speaker 1: around money in business. Well, before I get into the
50:44
Speaker 1: the good credit and credit repair company, I want to
50:48
Speaker 1: talk about your charity organization. And then I also want
50:52
Speaker 1: to talk about something that African Americans really don't get into,
50:55
Speaker 1: is that the tourism and travel business. And we know
50:59
Speaker 1: that's about to take back off. Just this past weekend,
51:02
Speaker 1: cruise ships have been released. They're starting to go back
51:05
Speaker 1: out into the waters and travel with this world. I'm
51:08
Speaker 1: a big component of a friend, a big fan of
51:13
Speaker 1: people doing cruisers, especially black people. They don't realize that
51:16
Speaker 1: you go out there, you get your room, you get
51:17
Speaker 1: your food, you get your experience. It's done. You know
51:20
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Closer, it's all inclusive. So talk about
51:24
Speaker 1: first about your charity, and then we're going to go
51:26
Speaker 1: over into the tourism and travel agencies and encompasses. On
51:29
Speaker 1: the d h G absolutely, as so my charity organization
51:33
Speaker 1: as Her Impact Foundation UM. And what we do is
51:37
Speaker 1: we just try to help the community in any way
51:39
Speaker 1: so that we can. So we have UM movements where
51:41
Speaker 1: we feed the homeless UM and set up you know,
51:44
Speaker 1: UM coalitions you know, with various organizations in the community
51:48
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. We also help UM
51:52
Speaker 1: kids you know that are going back to school that
51:55
Speaker 1: aren't able to you know, whose parents aren't able to
51:58
Speaker 1: provide you know, their school supply and things of that nature. UM.
52:01
Speaker 1: We've got a Friends Giving UH event that we do
52:05
Speaker 1: which is also just based around during the Thanksgiving time UM,
52:09
Speaker 1: feeding the community UM and giving back to some of
52:13
Speaker 1: the homeless individuals. So UM definitely try to focus a
52:16
Speaker 1: lot of efforts and that UM. I was a single mother,
52:20
Speaker 1: so we do. I do a diaper drive as well
52:23
Speaker 1: once a year, and it's just UM basically you know,
52:27
Speaker 1: getting donations you know of pampers UH and diapers and
52:31
Speaker 1: donating those two mothers that are in need. UH. So
52:35
Speaker 1: we do a lot of different, you know, combinations of
52:37
Speaker 1: different efforts to give back to the community here in Atlanta, UM.
52:42
Speaker 1: And then moving over to the travel UM leg of things.
52:46
Speaker 1: So UM we're actually kind of in the works of
52:49
Speaker 1: putting that together right now. But it's just hoping individuals
52:52
Speaker 1: to be able to see the world um and travel,
52:55
Speaker 1: you know, UM and be able to you know, because
52:59
Speaker 1: right now travel is so high. Last year it was
53:03
Speaker 1: you know, the dropping prices on everything because not as
53:05
Speaker 1: many people are traveling, and now that everything is kind
53:07
Speaker 1: of opening back up, they're hitting everybody over their head.
53:11
Speaker 1: So UM. But they do have programs where you can
53:13
Speaker 1: get tickets on the Old Way and things of that nature.
53:16
Speaker 1: But a lot of people don't realize, you know, how
53:18
Speaker 1: reasonable it can be, you know, to travel and just
53:21
Speaker 1: what the importance of it is and being able to
53:24
Speaker 1: have that culture um and expand your mind a lot
53:27
Speaker 1: of times, you know, as your I see things, um,
53:29
Speaker 1: your mind expands um and it and it cultivates and
53:33
Speaker 1: creates different dreams for you um and different goals that
53:37
Speaker 1: you may want to reach. So I think everything is
53:39
Speaker 1: all connected. Well, I know you do. I see a future,
53:42
Speaker 1: you know, talk join the type cruise in your future.
53:45
Speaker 1: I know you. I know you. I tell you that
53:48
Speaker 1: you know you just to party. But that's how I
53:50
Speaker 1: al started. That's just a bigger version of that to
53:53
Speaker 1: get to travel and safe and friends and family. Well,
53:57
Speaker 1: how how big you want to go with this now,
53:59
Speaker 1: because you know we're doing anything small, it's always in
54:01
Speaker 1: the smallest the planning stage. But once the planning states
54:05
Speaker 1: go on, that come on that the whole process of
54:08
Speaker 1: getting the African Americans out into the travel space. And
54:12
Speaker 1: like you said, because of COVID, car runnods are extremely
54:17
Speaker 1: high nowadays. You know, getting a good car is ridiculous,
54:19
Speaker 1: especially begetting to the Florida area. So getting with the
54:22
Speaker 1: travel agency or tourism organization that can protect you and
54:26
Speaker 1: provide you with information. You really can't just jump out
54:28
Speaker 1: there like you used to. You know, gas prices are
54:30
Speaker 1: high in certain states, in certain places, parts of California's
54:33
Speaker 1: five dollars a gallop in California. So that's the type
54:37
Speaker 1: of information that that comes to your organization when people
54:41
Speaker 1: come to you. It's like basically you protect people, providing
54:43
Speaker 1: them with information that makes you steering them in the
54:45
Speaker 1: right direction. Correct, absolutely, absolutely. Now let's talk about good
54:50
Speaker 1: credit bad credit. Black people are notorious that we have
54:55
Speaker 1: a history. I'm not saying we do, but we always
54:58
Speaker 1: hear the jokes. You know, you you put your your
55:01
Speaker 1: child's name or your on your own, your own, your
55:04
Speaker 1: gas bill or your life bill that your po child
55:07
Speaker 1: grew up they realized they got bad credit. We've we've
55:11
Speaker 1: we've seen these stories. We've heard these stories and been
55:14
Speaker 1: a part of this story. Depending on who's listening to
55:16
Speaker 1: this interview. When you talk about good credit in your
55:20
Speaker 1: repair company, to help that out, let's talk about what
55:23
Speaker 1: exactly is good credit? Snoop, you know, good credit they
55:27
Speaker 1: used to be a seven twenty or better, but you
55:29
Speaker 1: know they're saying it nowadays that doesn't even cut it. Um.
55:33
Speaker 1: But you know, a good credit report number one is
55:36
Speaker 1: at least you know, ten open positive accounts. Zener wrote
55:39
Speaker 1: the rocket story accounts zero late marks, zero items and
55:43
Speaker 1: collections and only two to three inquiries, um. You know
55:47
Speaker 1: over the past couple of years, um. And that could
55:50
Speaker 1: be easily attainable, you know, just by hiring your credit
55:53
Speaker 1: re scare something and kind of show show you what
55:55
Speaker 1: it is you need to do. Even a lot of
55:57
Speaker 1: people that I know they have good credit, they don't
55:59
Speaker 1: need and know how they've gotten there, especially a lot
56:02
Speaker 1: of you know, people from you know, our our older
56:04
Speaker 1: generations and things of that nature. So I think it's
56:07
Speaker 1: so important to have that literacy behind it because you know,
56:10
Speaker 1: it used to be like cash is king, um and
56:13
Speaker 1: I still believe that to this day. But hey, if
56:15
Speaker 1: you've got good credit, you can keep a lot of
56:17
Speaker 1: that cash in your pocket. Um. You know, and if
56:20
Speaker 1: if you've got good credit personally, then you can build
56:24
Speaker 1: and establish the business credit. UM end up getting a
56:28
Speaker 1: lot of things in your business name, and they don't
56:31
Speaker 1: have to go on your personal credit report um and
56:34
Speaker 1: affect your debt to income ratio. So UM. I think
56:37
Speaker 1: it's probably one of the most important things I'm doing
56:40
Speaker 1: right now is you know, my credit repair business and
56:43
Speaker 1: helping individuals be able to repair their credit because UM,
56:46
Speaker 1: a lot of people's financial goals and dreams are based
56:50
Speaker 1: are based around having a good credit score. UM. You know,
56:54
Speaker 1: it's hard to buy at home if you don't have
56:56
Speaker 1: a good good credit you know. UM, it's hard to
56:59
Speaker 1: get the dream are that you want if you don't
57:01
Speaker 1: have the credit. You know, it's hard to start that
57:03
Speaker 1: business if you don't have the credit. So UM, that's
57:07
Speaker 1: one of the things that I took courses on and
57:10
Speaker 1: did a lot of research. One during the pandemic UM
57:13
Speaker 1: and I'm using that information now to be able to
57:16
Speaker 1: teach that to other entrepreneurs and just other individuals. You know,
57:21
Speaker 1: it was interesting I would tell people for some reason
57:23
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen years old, always protected my credit always.
57:27
Speaker 1: I was always protective of paying my bills on time. Now,
57:32
Speaker 1: when you when somebody comes to you your credit repair service,
57:36
Speaker 1: you know they confused. Obviously is messed up. That's obviously
57:40
Speaker 1: the case. One of the course of the steps and
57:43
Speaker 1: sitting down with a person and getting them pointed in
57:46
Speaker 1: the right direction because they have to do something to
57:48
Speaker 1: you know, because they wouldn't be sitting in front of
57:51
Speaker 1: you if they didn't do it right. Okay, right, Um,
57:54
Speaker 1: So one of the first steps for me is number one,
57:56
Speaker 1: finding out what their goals are. You know, what are
57:58
Speaker 1: your goals for your credit? Because you know, you can
58:00
Speaker 1: fix somebody's credit, but you know, if they don't have,
58:03
Speaker 1: you know, the right amount of trade lines or the
58:05
Speaker 1: right mix of credit, a lot of times it's still
58:08
Speaker 1: hard for them to get what it is that they're
58:09
Speaker 1: looking to obtain. So the first and foremost thing is
58:12
Speaker 1: finding out what their goals are. Um. Secondly, um, it's
58:16
Speaker 1: hoping to create a budget for them because as you mentioned,
58:19
Speaker 1: there are still some things that they're gonna need to
58:21
Speaker 1: do on their own, and they're gonna need to they
58:23
Speaker 1: may have to pay some things down or whatever the
58:25
Speaker 1: case may be. UM. Third, it's pulling their credit report. UM.
58:29
Speaker 1: So getting those three credit reports and seeing exactly where
58:33
Speaker 1: it is that they are and what we need to do,
58:36
Speaker 1: you know, whether it's getting things removed off of their credit,
58:39
Speaker 1: whether it's paying some of our credit cards down. I've
58:43
Speaker 1: got some people who come with decent credit and they
58:46
Speaker 1: just need to know how to UM hide their utilization
58:50
Speaker 1: or they need to know how to manufacture they're spending
58:55
Speaker 1: UM so that they can get higher credit limits. UM.
58:58
Speaker 1: So it's it's a up the different things. Sometimes it's
59:01
Speaker 1: selling trade lines to individuals, are helping provide them with
59:04
Speaker 1: trade lines so that they get more established credit history um.
59:10
Speaker 1: You know, to show their potential creditors. So UM it's
59:13
Speaker 1: a basic looking at it. And then one thing that
59:15
Speaker 1: I offer is a free consultation. So a lot of
59:18
Speaker 1: times people will go to credit repair individuals and their
59:22
Speaker 1: fixed their credit, but they have no information on how
59:24
Speaker 1: to keep that credit score up. UM. And so that's
59:27
Speaker 1: one of the things that I teach is just you know,
59:29
Speaker 1: how can you keep that credit score up? Um? What
59:32
Speaker 1: is it that the credit bureaus and the credit report
59:35
Speaker 1: agencies are looking at? How do we get this scoore
59:38
Speaker 1: or what is this score comprised stuff? So there's also
59:41
Speaker 1: some education that goes behind it as well. Where when
59:44
Speaker 1: we were as we wrapped up this call and we
59:46
Speaker 1: talk about you know, black people in general trying to
59:50
Speaker 1: be mobile. We've we've had the social movement we recognize
59:55
Speaker 1: as a credible part of this country and and still
59:59
Speaker 1: being demon That is because people don't want to acknowledge
1:00:01
Speaker 1: that there is a problems as a as a black
1:00:05
Speaker 1: business owner in the city of Atlanta. What are the
1:00:08
Speaker 1: advantages that you are achieving and what are the negatives
1:00:12
Speaker 1: that you're still having to overcome? Um. I think some
1:00:15
Speaker 1: of the advantages just being in a black city, of
1:00:18
Speaker 1: black city where when you go down to city hall,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: a lot of those individuals and officials that are making
1:00:23
Speaker 1: decisions look just like you. They're the same color as
1:00:25
Speaker 1: you are. Um, they're here is the same way, etcetera.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: I just think that that is very very helpful and
1:00:31
Speaker 1: very very inspiring, especially coming from a city like Nashville, Tennessee.
1:00:36
Speaker 1: You know, I went to high school and college in Nashville, Tennessee,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: originally from Detroit. And so um, I've seen both sides
1:00:43
Speaker 1: to the coin and how difficult it can be when
1:00:46
Speaker 1: you don't live in a black city, UM and you
1:00:48
Speaker 1: don't have the help of you know, city hall and
1:00:51
Speaker 1: various council members and things of that nature. I think
1:00:54
Speaker 1: some of the negatives is just some of the influx
1:00:57
Speaker 1: of prime that we've seen here in Atlanta do to
1:01:00
Speaker 1: covid Um. It definitely was not like this before the pandemic.
1:01:04
Speaker 1: We get a lot of people who moved here from
1:01:06
Speaker 1: other cities, a lot of people who traveled here, you know,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: from other cities, UM to be able to take advantage
1:01:13
Speaker 1: of a lot of the great things that we have
1:01:16
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. UM. And I think that we definitely
1:01:20
Speaker 1: need that uh revitalization and reconstruction you know, down in
1:01:25
Speaker 1: city Hall. And it starts with you know this this
1:01:28
Speaker 1: mayor race that you know we're gonna have in the
1:01:30
Speaker 1: next four or five months. So UM, I think that
1:01:34
Speaker 1: that's probably one of the biggest negatives. Are really don't
1:01:38
Speaker 1: see too many outside of that. Hey, you know, Atlanta
1:01:41
Speaker 1: is a great city and it's been great to me. So, um,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: can really come up with too many negatives other than
1:01:47
Speaker 1: just some of the things that we're battling now that
1:01:49
Speaker 1: we're due to the pandemic. Absolutely, you know, always fantasy.
1:01:54
Speaker 1: First of all, happened to the smile back? Okay. Secondly,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: I'm finally gonna get to you on your restaurants to
1:02:00
Speaker 1: sit down and eat with you and Dad, because you
1:02:02
Speaker 1: invited me to a couple of testings taste testings that
1:02:05
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to make it. So that's my goal
1:02:08
Speaker 1: this year. Congratulations are always success and I always keep
1:02:11
Speaker 1: me posting and I got a Outum, I always gotta
1:02:13
Speaker 1: have my annual you know, Snoop check in Okay, it's check. Absolutely.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: I appreciate you so much. It was so good to
1:02:21
Speaker 1: see you this morning. Okay, Cool, you stay strong and
1:02:23
Speaker 1: we talked soon, okay, Snoop, alrighty, thank you. You have
1:02:26
Speaker 1: a good one, Okay, Cool. We will be right back
1:02:29
Speaker 1: with more money making conversations with your host Roshan McDonald.
1:02:33
Speaker 1: At ADP, we understand the importance of building the right
1:02:36
Speaker 1: team and offer the data insights to help. Just as importantly,
1:02:40
Speaker 1: our AI technology helps you pay. The team accurately grow
1:02:44
Speaker 1: stronger with adp HR, talent, time and payroll. What grows
1:02:50
Speaker 1: in the forest trees, Sure you know what else grows
1:02:53
Speaker 1: in the forest, our imagination, a sense of one day,
1:02:57
Speaker 1: and our family bonds grow too, because when we just
1:03:00
Speaker 1: connect from this and connect with this, we reconnect with
1:03:06
Speaker 1: each other. The forest is closer than you think. Find
1:03:10
Speaker 1: a forest near you and start exploring. I discover the
1:03:13
Speaker 1: forest dot Org, brought to you by the United States
1:03:16
Speaker 1: Forest Service and the AD Council. And we're live here
1:03:20
Speaker 1: outside the Perez family home, just waiting for the and
1:03:23
Speaker 1: there they go, almost on time. This morning, Mom is
1:03:27
Speaker 1: coming out the front door strong with a double arm
1:03:29
Speaker 1: kid carry. Looks like Dad has the bags. Daughter is
1:03:32
Speaker 1: bringing up the rear. Oh but the diaper bag wasn't closed.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: Diapers and toys are everywhere. Oh but mom has just
1:03:41
Speaker 1: nailed the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And
1:03:45
Speaker 1: now the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine
1:03:47
Speaker 1: or ten, has secured herself in the booster seat. Dad
1:03:50
Speaker 1: SIPs the bad clothes and they're off. Ah, but looks
1:03:54
Speaker 1: like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on
1:03:56
Speaker 1: the roof of the car and there it goes. Oh,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: that's a shame that mud was a fan favorite. Don't
1:04:03
Speaker 1: sweat the small stuff, just nailed the big stuff, like
1:04:06
Speaker 1: making sure your kids are buckled correctly in the right
1:04:08
Speaker 1: seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more than n h
1:04:10
Speaker 1: t s A dot gov slash the Right Seat visits
1:04:12
Speaker 1: n h s A dot gov slash the Right Seat
1:04:16
Speaker 1: brought to you by NITZA and the ad Council. You
1:04:20
Speaker 1: are now tuned into the money making conversations. Minute of
1:04:24
Speaker 1: Inspiration with Rashan McDonald. I spoke with Sean Robinson, the
1:04:27
Speaker 1: Emmy Award winning journalists and executive producer who was a
1:04:31
Speaker 1: proud graduate of Spellman College and HBCU in Atlanta, Georgia.
1:04:35
Speaker 1: We discussed how Spellman College shaped her life. You know,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: Spellman gave me an appreciation, a real appreciation for sisterhood
1:04:44
Speaker 1: and also when you empower a girl, she can change
1:04:48
Speaker 1: the world. I would not trade my education at Spellman
1:04:52
Speaker 1: for anything in the world. It just taught us that,
1:04:56
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, taught us the value of
1:04:58
Speaker 1: education and us real connection about our ancestry and where
1:05:03
Speaker 1: we came from, and the fact that it was up
1:05:05
Speaker 1: to us to help change the world for the better
1:05:08
Speaker 1: for all these little black girls coming after us. If
1:05:12
Speaker 1: you want to hear this full interview with Sean Robinson,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: visit money Making Conversations dot com. Keep winning. Welcome back
1:05:20
Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversations with your host, Rashan McDonald. My
1:05:24
Speaker 1: next guest is Terry Dennison. She's the Georgia District Director
1:05:27
Speaker 1: of the U s Small Business Administration you know as
1:05:30
Speaker 1: the s b A, and this role has made two
1:05:33
Speaker 1: thousand two. She's responsible overseeing the implementation of the SBA's
1:05:37
Speaker 1: financial counseling, training, and business development program for small business
1:05:42
Speaker 1: throughout Georgia. The SBA is the only cabinet level federal
1:05:45
Speaker 1: agency fully dedicated to small business and provides counseling, capital,
1:05:50
Speaker 1: and contracting expertise as the nation's only go to resource
1:05:55
Speaker 1: and voice for small business. If you're a small business
1:05:58
Speaker 1: own listen up. This is a show you want you
1:06:00
Speaker 1: don't want to miss. She's my friend. Every time I
1:06:03
Speaker 1: get a chance to bring on the show, she drops
1:06:05
Speaker 1: pearls of wisdoms to all entrepreneurs people who want to
1:06:08
Speaker 1: go into the entrepreneurial space. Even in the chaos of
1:06:12
Speaker 1: this situation, small business owners still so opportunities, and she
1:06:16
Speaker 1: was there to help them seize that opportunity. Georgia District
1:06:19
Speaker 1: put process over one billion dollars for traditional sp A
1:06:23
Speaker 1: loans over the past year, despite the challenges of COVID nineteen.
1:06:27
Speaker 1: Please work with the money making conversation to Georgia District
1:06:30
Speaker 1: Director of the s p A, Terry Dennison, How are
1:06:33
Speaker 1: you doing, Terry? I'm doing fine. Great to see you again.
1:06:38
Speaker 1: Wait too long? Thank you? You know well, I call
1:06:41
Speaker 1: you my friend. I call you my friend because you
1:06:43
Speaker 1: come on my show and you enlighten people about an
1:06:47
Speaker 1: organization that quite frankly, a lot of people know nothing about.
1:06:53
Speaker 1: And it's true. How do we how do we change that? Because,
1:06:57
Speaker 1: like I said, I learned about it when I opened
1:06:59
Speaker 1: my comedy club way back in the day when I
1:07:01
Speaker 1: was living in Houston, Texas. I went in there. Resources
1:07:05
Speaker 1: were free, Counseling was free. You guys, who are the
1:07:09
Speaker 1: organization of Texas which is just the same like the
1:07:11
Speaker 1: SBA here, we're there to want to want me to
1:07:14
Speaker 1: be successful. If I was opening a nightclub, they will
1:07:17
Speaker 1: tell me you here's a book you can this is
1:07:20
Speaker 1: how you can work out your budget, they had counseling
1:07:22
Speaker 1: and organizations and things like that. So you've been at
1:07:26
Speaker 1: this hym asince two thousand two in the State of
1:07:29
Speaker 1: Georgia talk about the growth and then technology accelerating some
1:07:34
Speaker 1: of the opportunities are working as an entrepreneur with the
1:07:37
Speaker 1: s b A well. Definitely, this past year has really
1:07:42
Speaker 1: tested the idea of connecting with people virtually. It's not
1:07:46
Speaker 1: necessarily in all cases the best option, but it was
1:07:52
Speaker 1: an option that we could use, and I think it
1:07:55
Speaker 1: forced us to cut up our game in terms of
1:07:57
Speaker 1: our technology and the application of that technolog energy to
1:08:00
Speaker 1: reach across the state because our office is responsible for
1:08:05
Speaker 1: the entire state of Georgia and so this is definitely
1:08:07
Speaker 1: a tool that we can use for that. We also
1:08:12
Speaker 1: have a new program that is coming up. It's a
1:08:14
Speaker 1: pilot program under the American Rescue Plan called Community Navigators,
1:08:20
Speaker 1: and that's where we would UH grant to key UH
1:08:27
Speaker 1: community organizations and stakeholders who have networks within the communities
1:08:34
Speaker 1: across the state UH to basically be that liaison between
1:08:39
Speaker 1: US and the small business community UM. Sometimes it's hard
1:08:43
Speaker 1: for us as a federal government agency, being the government
1:08:46
Speaker 1: to UM connect or people feel they can connect to us,
1:08:51
Speaker 1: and this is a way for us to utilize those
1:08:53
Speaker 1: stakeholders that already have a reputation in various communities um
1:08:59
Speaker 1: to be more knowledgeable about us and to help connect
1:09:02
Speaker 1: us to those small business owners existing and uh perspective
1:09:08
Speaker 1: in those communities. Well, you know, you're just really interesting
1:09:11
Speaker 1: you're saying that because let's just use the terminology when
1:09:13
Speaker 1: you when they always talk about the police, they always say,
1:09:16
Speaker 1: if the police would be in the neighborhood, then it
1:09:18
Speaker 1: would be better served for that neighborhood. So it sounds
1:09:21
Speaker 1: like you're taking your the brand, which is a national brand,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: there's also localized in each state, and now you're taking
1:09:28
Speaker 1: it more into the community. Let's let's stay on that
1:09:30
Speaker 1: a minute, because I think that's really uh important. We
1:09:33
Speaker 1: talked about the Community Navigator, which is a program and
1:09:35
Speaker 1: established to provide grants to organizations and local communities that
1:09:39
Speaker 1: help small businesses connect to local sp A resources, and
1:09:43
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about the very top about. I
1:09:47
Speaker 1: know about the s b A, but a lot of
1:09:48
Speaker 1: people who need to know about the s b A
1:09:50
Speaker 1: know nothing about it. And that's what the Community Navigator
1:09:53
Speaker 1: will be able to help in this role. Correct, That
1:09:57
Speaker 1: is correct now when they serve as a link between
1:10:00
Speaker 1: in these small businesses existing and the startups. Now, let's
1:10:04
Speaker 1: let's talk about if you can walk me through and
1:10:06
Speaker 1: slowers down because we always hear about the opportunities terror
1:10:10
Speaker 1: you always hear about well you know this is available
1:10:13
Speaker 1: to you, but still how do you access it? So
1:10:16
Speaker 1: we have this great community navigated program, how do I
1:10:20
Speaker 1: access that program? Uh? And also I'll be interested in
1:10:23
Speaker 1: knowing how I can be a part of that program.
1:10:25
Speaker 1: It feels like something that my organization of me and
1:10:28
Speaker 1: general should be naturally associated with because I'm always trying
1:10:32
Speaker 1: to be that connected dot with local local businesses and
1:10:35
Speaker 1: that's local businesses, local entrepreneurs and a lot of times
1:10:38
Speaker 1: people need to understand it's not always a brick and mortar.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: You know, entrepreneur has a wide range of opportunities where
1:10:45
Speaker 1: and so don't be confused that you gotta you gotta
1:10:48
Speaker 1: be selling the you gotta be a restaurant, you gotta
1:10:50
Speaker 1: be a mechanics store, or you gotta be a place
1:10:53
Speaker 1: of a full flshed business. You are a business and
1:10:57
Speaker 1: you have to reach certain requirements. Now, this community navigator,
1:11:00
Speaker 1: how long has it been in place theory well as
1:11:04
Speaker 1: actually just was passed back UH in this that would
1:11:09
Speaker 1: be in March when the American Rescue Plan was UH enacted,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: And we're really just getting the program off the ground. Currently,
1:11:17
Speaker 1: the agency is accepting proposals from various organizations what we
1:11:24
Speaker 1: call hubs, which would be like the lead organization, and
1:11:27
Speaker 1: they will be presenting proposals on how they utilize SPOKES
1:11:33
Speaker 1: or other smaller organizations within a certain area. It could
1:11:39
Speaker 1: be nationally, it could be statewide or within a certain
1:11:42
Speaker 1: geographic area says city or county. UM. So that actually
1:11:47
Speaker 1: that application process goes through July was actually extended to
1:11:52
Speaker 1: allow the maximum number of applications to be submitted as possible.
1:11:57
Speaker 1: So we're at the very beginning of ample manating this program, okay.
1:12:01
Speaker 1: And the purpose of the programs we stated earlier is
1:12:04
Speaker 1: kind of creating more a more granular or more localized
1:12:08
Speaker 1: level of communication. It can be somebody in your church,
1:12:11
Speaker 1: it can be people that you walk down the street,
1:12:14
Speaker 1: you hang out with. Basically, then you know that the
1:12:17
Speaker 1: difficulty of being able to relate to the sp A
1:12:19
Speaker 1: isn't as difficult as you think. If you know somebody
1:12:22
Speaker 1: and you feel comfortable with extending the conversation because a
1:12:24
Speaker 1: lot of people feel they just it's just this program
1:12:27
Speaker 1: may beyond their needs and their means because the s
1:12:29
Speaker 1: c b A offers loans and we're gonna break that down.
1:12:32
Speaker 1: But I want to talk about this program is a
1:12:35
Speaker 1: little bit more so through July twenty three. You say,
1:12:38
Speaker 1: individuals can go online at the website. Where can they go?
1:12:43
Speaker 1: They would go to grants dot gov, which is the
1:12:46
Speaker 1: official federal government portal for submitting grant applications. So you
1:12:52
Speaker 1: didn't look up community navigators and grant that. It will
1:12:56
Speaker 1: take you to the page, give you all the updates
1:13:00
Speaker 1: art the request for proposal document and what's being asked
1:13:04
Speaker 1: and of course what documents need to be submitted. Okay, cool, well, good,
1:13:09
Speaker 1: good for your boy. Gonna get on that. Not Terry,
1:13:12
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this opportunity, and so let's talk about
1:13:14
Speaker 1: the National Small Business Week. You know, usually sometimes I'm
1:13:18
Speaker 1: just getting ahead of the curve now, because I've learned
1:13:20
Speaker 1: that if you don't get ahead of the curved terry
1:13:23
Speaker 1: with information, people always say I didn't know, I didn't know,
1:13:26
Speaker 1: Nobody told me. So we know that National Small Business
1:13:30
Speaker 1: we will be celebrating mid September, you know, and no
1:13:33
Speaker 1: wards be given this year, but it would be recognized
1:13:35
Speaker 1: the when I like to call we have been, Uh,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: I've been. I've been. I've been interviewing people from Texas,
1:13:41
Speaker 1: from California, from New York, and I say that I'm
1:13:43
Speaker 1: talking about small business owners and it has been a
1:13:46
Speaker 1: challenge to understand how you can keep your bills on
1:13:50
Speaker 1: the table, your people are employees employed. What has been
1:13:53
Speaker 1: the most trying, um controversy I shouldn't say they word,
1:13:58
Speaker 1: but trying opportunity of trying to keep these businesses afloat
1:14:02
Speaker 1: other than the p PP program a loan programs. Terry Well,
1:14:07
Speaker 1: I think even before we get to the money aspect,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges is that was you know,
1:14:15
Speaker 1: people's business models, and if you had a business model
1:14:19
Speaker 1: that was dependent upon people coming into a location or
1:14:23
Speaker 1: you interacted with them face to face. UM, now you've
1:14:27
Speaker 1: got to change that dynamic because of the restrictions, you know,
1:14:31
Speaker 1: the social distancing and business is actually being closed for
1:14:35
Speaker 1: a time and then once they reopened, they had to
1:14:37
Speaker 1: meet certain guidelines, uh for safety and health purposes. So
1:14:43
Speaker 1: a lot of businesses were just trying to figure out
1:14:44
Speaker 1: how do I now deliver my good or my service
1:14:48
Speaker 1: in a way that I had not envisioned originally or
1:14:51
Speaker 1: normally we would not h people had to rethink things like, uh,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: there's supply the supply chain, because even if I'm operating
1:15:01
Speaker 1: to some degree, now the suppliers that help provide the
1:15:05
Speaker 1: good or service that I'm delivering, those have been disrupted
1:15:09
Speaker 1: as well. And now we've got to try to figure
1:15:12
Speaker 1: out how do we get what we need to keep
1:15:15
Speaker 1: the business going. So I really my hand my hats
1:15:19
Speaker 1: off to our resource partners such as SCORE in the
1:15:23
Speaker 1: Small Business Development Centers and the Women Business Centers, who
1:15:26
Speaker 1: have really helped the Georgia District Office in working with businesses,
1:15:31
Speaker 1: not only in terms of accessing the various resources UH
1:15:37
Speaker 1: with p PP and the Economic Injury disaster loans, etcetera,
1:15:40
Speaker 1: but helping people figure out how to manage and structure
1:15:44
Speaker 1: their organizations and their operations to meet the challenges of
1:15:48
Speaker 1: the situation. Well, you know, and you never know where
1:15:51
Speaker 1: the challenge comes from or whether whether because I'm gonna
1:15:54
Speaker 1: tell you when the Panama Command when that that ship
1:15:56
Speaker 1: got trapped and just I, um, it affected me personally
1:16:01
Speaker 1: because I I take cows and pills and I went
1:16:04
Speaker 1: into Walry when the CVS and I was like, finally,
1:16:07
Speaker 1: I said, excuse me, what's going on? Easier man? He said,
1:16:10
Speaker 1: that ship there's blocking the Panama Canal is shutting down
1:16:15
Speaker 1: all available transport between that canal. And so that's what
1:16:20
Speaker 1: we just need to know. This may be in the
1:16:22
Speaker 1: COVID name team, but there are other scenarios out there
1:16:25
Speaker 1: that can stop you from becoming a resourceful company if
1:16:29
Speaker 1: you don't plan ahead or you don't have alternative sources
1:16:33
Speaker 1: to move your product forward. That's what you were talking about, right, Terry. Correct.
1:16:38
Speaker 1: And one of the things, you know, we talk about
1:16:40
Speaker 1: business plans. Of course, a lot of people don't bother
1:16:42
Speaker 1: with business plans, which, of course that's another discussion why
1:16:46
Speaker 1: you should do one. But even when they do the
1:16:49
Speaker 1: business plan, they kind of focus on the maybe the
1:16:53
Speaker 1: most likely scenario or the best case scenario, But we
1:16:57
Speaker 1: never look at the other end of the spectrum. What
1:17:00
Speaker 1: if things don't go according to plan? You know, what
1:17:04
Speaker 1: if my UH supply chain and delivery systems are compromised
1:17:09
Speaker 1: because of a given situation or emergency. Um, what if
1:17:14
Speaker 1: my revenues go down, Uh, what does that look like
1:17:20
Speaker 1: in terms of my bottom line or my expenses go up?
1:17:23
Speaker 1: You know with COVID nineteen people now I had to
1:17:25
Speaker 1: think about additional cleaning, you know, methods, more frequent cleaning,
1:17:31
Speaker 1: Certain types of equipment they had to think about ppe
1:17:35
Speaker 1: of course, personal protection equipment. That was extra expenses they
1:17:39
Speaker 1: had not envisioned, uh, prior to the pandemic. So when
1:17:44
Speaker 1: you're doing business plan and you really got to look
1:17:46
Speaker 1: at the full range of possibilities and have at least
1:17:50
Speaker 1: an outline of a game plan on how you can
1:17:52
Speaker 1: counter or mitigate some of those situations when they occur. Well,
1:17:57
Speaker 1: let's talk about the budget. It seems to be nobody
1:18:00
Speaker 1: wants to do a budget, but everybody wants to run
1:18:02
Speaker 1: a business. How can we convince people? Terry, come on,
1:18:07
Speaker 1: help me, I tell you this. A budget. You got
1:18:12
Speaker 1: to know what your expenses are, not just how much
1:18:15
Speaker 1: you're trying to generate. That there has to be a
1:18:18
Speaker 1: plan special If we're not talking about a one off party,
1:18:21
Speaker 1: one off party, you probably get away with that. If
1:18:24
Speaker 1: you're trying to do sign elites with somebody, if you're
1:18:27
Speaker 1: trying to lockdown employees, if you're trying to generate revenue
1:18:31
Speaker 1: on a consistent daily, weekly, and monthly and annual basis,
1:18:35
Speaker 1: there has to be a budget tied to that and
1:18:37
Speaker 1: that's where the SCORE organization, which is part of s
1:18:40
Speaker 1: p A, can assist young, old or people who are
1:18:45
Speaker 1: trying to follow their dreams with the budget planning part. Correct, Terry, Yes,
1:18:52
Speaker 1: we have SCORE that can help with that. The Small
1:18:54
Speaker 1: Business Development Centers we partner here with the University of
1:18:57
Speaker 1: Georgia have numerous locations around the state, as does SCORE.
1:19:02
Speaker 1: We have a Women's Business Center that can provide assistance
1:19:05
Speaker 1: UH for women entrepreneurs particularly, but they insisted the mail
1:19:11
Speaker 1: owned businesses as well. But there's a lot of different
1:19:14
Speaker 1: resources and expertise that can sit down with you and
1:19:19
Speaker 1: kind of help you work through those types of questions
1:19:21
Speaker 1: and issues. And the counseling is free. Say that one
1:19:26
Speaker 1: the counselors right now, the counsel you do not have
1:19:28
Speaker 1: to pay for the counselor, but in a way you
1:19:30
Speaker 1: have because as a taxpayer, your tax dollars go to
1:19:35
Speaker 1: help under right, SCORE and the small Development Centers, Women's
1:19:38
Speaker 1: business Centers, etcetera. So you're just recouping on the investment
1:19:43
Speaker 1: you've made as a taxpayer. Really, and and here's is
1:19:47
Speaker 1: never packed. It's people are in there, but it's never
1:19:50
Speaker 1: like a line out the door. So you will not
1:19:52
Speaker 1: be discouraged by going in there, and then they're receptive
1:19:55
Speaker 1: to you. I'm just talking about my experience, right, you know.
1:19:58
Speaker 1: I I have a relationship and in Texas, have a
1:20:01
Speaker 1: relationship in Georgia with the s b A. And I'm
1:20:03
Speaker 1: fans of trying to tell people how important it is.
1:20:07
Speaker 1: It was a young man, uh and his brother, Uh,
1:20:10
Speaker 1: we're looking at opening up a local restaurant. Look kind
1:20:13
Speaker 1: of like a subway type set up, you know, but
1:20:15
Speaker 1: it was original food. And I asked him it was
1:20:17
Speaker 1: like three weeks ago, Terry, I said, uh, he kept
1:20:21
Speaker 1: asking me questions. I said, you gotta put together. But
1:20:23
Speaker 1: I got there, sir, he said. I said, well, you
1:20:25
Speaker 1: need to get a design layout, because you really can't
1:20:29
Speaker 1: get a layout of before they're working. I said, have
1:20:31
Speaker 1: you been to the SPA? He went, what you're talking about?
1:20:34
Speaker 1: I said, wow, okay, cool, here we go. Here we go.
1:20:36
Speaker 1: Now you gotta go there because it's free and you
1:20:40
Speaker 1: gotta start talking. And they have mentors. There's like mentors.
1:20:43
Speaker 1: I'm just telling everybody there's being like mentoring. They're mentoring
1:20:47
Speaker 1: young businesses to be successful. Because the goal is the
1:20:52
Speaker 1: current administration has a new goal to increase small disadvantaged
1:20:56
Speaker 1: business contracting goals from five to fifteen percent. Okay, this
1:21:01
Speaker 1: is an initiative to empower underserved communities. Now you might
1:21:05
Speaker 1: say I'm not underserved. Well, if you don't know any
1:21:07
Speaker 1: information about how to run your business, you are underserved
1:21:10
Speaker 1: and you need to gain information. And that's what this
1:21:12
Speaker 1: BA is about. Talk about what I just said about
1:21:16
Speaker 1: increasing the goal of disadvantages business contracting goals from five
1:21:21
Speaker 1: percent to fift because what I'm just trying to tell everybody, Terry,
1:21:24
Speaker 1: is that you are on a mission. You've always been
1:21:26
Speaker 1: on a mission, and your mission and your organization is
1:21:29
Speaker 1: to really tell minorities and invite them into this diverse
1:21:33
Speaker 1: pool of entrepreneurial opportunities. Correct, yes, that is correct and
1:21:40
Speaker 1: um with in terms of the small disadvantaged business though,
1:21:44
Speaker 1: you know, the federal government buys a lot of products
1:21:48
Speaker 1: and services and a year, uh, we spend government wide
1:21:55
Speaker 1: five hundred billion, six hundred billion dollars and goods and
1:21:59
Speaker 1: services throughout the federal various federal agencies. So there's a
1:22:03
Speaker 1: lot of opportunity things that you wouldn't necessarily think of
1:22:07
Speaker 1: the government purchasing, you know, at first thought, you realize
1:22:12
Speaker 1: they do. So it's always been a goal. How do
1:22:15
Speaker 1: we make sure that all segments of the small business community,
1:22:18
Speaker 1: as well as the small business community as a whole,
1:22:21
Speaker 1: right from uh participating in the federal procurement system. Uh.
1:22:27
Speaker 1: And we do have programs and tools to help people
1:22:30
Speaker 1: who are looking to enter the federal contracting market or
1:22:33
Speaker 1: to expand their presence and activity in that market. Uh.
1:22:38
Speaker 1: You know, it's really it's really amazing. When I talked
1:22:40
Speaker 1: to you, Terry, you know some ways that you know,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: you know, you know me, I can get frustrated because
1:22:46
Speaker 1: I just want to give information. I want people to win.
1:22:48
Speaker 1: And I'm talking to If you don't know who I'm
1:22:50
Speaker 1: talking to, Terry Dennison. She's a Georgia District director of
1:22:53
Speaker 1: the US Small Business Administration you know it as you
1:22:57
Speaker 1: know it as the s b A. She's been in
1:22:59
Speaker 1: the roles has made two thousand two when I came in,
1:23:02
Speaker 1: and is marketing with money Making Conversation. She's one of
1:23:06
Speaker 1: the very first guests that I brought on the air
1:23:08
Speaker 1: and when and and it really and our reason. That's
1:23:11
Speaker 1: what money making conversations about. It is about letting you
1:23:14
Speaker 1: see and talking to I call industry decision makers. That's
1:23:17
Speaker 1: what she is. Yeah, she's not a celebrity, she's not.
1:23:20
Speaker 1: She's an industry decision maker. When of words, she can
1:23:23
Speaker 1: give you information that can change your life. And when
1:23:26
Speaker 1: I say change your life, we're talking about so many
1:23:28
Speaker 1: people who are trying to open up businesses and trying
1:23:31
Speaker 1: to run a business and have no knowledge of that opportunity.
1:23:34
Speaker 1: And so tell us the primary role of the s
1:23:38
Speaker 1: b A. And I'm gonna ask a couple of more
1:23:39
Speaker 1: questions before I let you get you out of here. Okay, Oh,
1:23:43
Speaker 1: what is our role? Okay? Well, of course we're a
1:23:46
Speaker 1: federal government agency. A lot of people don't realize that.
1:23:48
Speaker 1: They think we're a nonprofit corganization, But we are part
1:23:51
Speaker 1: of the federal government and we've been around since nineteen three,
1:23:56
Speaker 1: and our mission has always been to support the U.
1:23:59
Speaker 1: S economy through supporting small business in terms of small
1:24:02
Speaker 1: business creation and uh uh growth. We do that in
1:24:09
Speaker 1: a variety of ways. We have our loan programs, mainly
1:24:13
Speaker 1: our loan guaranteed programs, where we guarantee loans made by
1:24:16
Speaker 1: commercial lenders. We also have a micro loan program for
1:24:21
Speaker 1: those UH and UH businesses that maybe their home based
1:24:26
Speaker 1: or as a sole preneurs. They don't need a lot
1:24:29
Speaker 1: of capital, they don't need millions of dollars, but they
1:24:33
Speaker 1: need what they need when they need it, so they
1:24:35
Speaker 1: provide loans up to UH fifty dollars and those are
1:24:39
Speaker 1: done by nonprofit community development financial institutions, so they may
1:24:45
Speaker 1: have a they have a little more leeway in terms
1:24:48
Speaker 1: of how they look at credit compared to a commercial lender.
1:24:51
Speaker 1: For profit UH. We've talked about the counseling and education
1:24:56
Speaker 1: resources that we have for people who are got an
1:24:59
Speaker 1: idea and don't know what the next step should be.
1:25:02
Speaker 1: To someone who's been in business, they've gone through the
1:25:04
Speaker 1: start up stage. Now maybe they have new challenges, new
1:25:07
Speaker 1: opportunities because of their growth, and now they need to
1:25:11
Speaker 1: prepare and situate that business to be able to enter
1:25:15
Speaker 1: the new stage of that business life cycle. And then
1:25:19
Speaker 1: the government contracting peace which we alluded to earlier, to
1:25:24
Speaker 1: help small businesses that want to enter that market from
1:25:26
Speaker 1: five percent up to now before one area I wanted.
1:25:30
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that were created during COVID
1:25:32
Speaker 1: nat pandemic. The SBA delivered various relief programs. I want
1:25:36
Speaker 1: to ask you if these programs not trying to put
1:25:38
Speaker 1: your bot. If you unaware of the UH, please let
1:25:41
Speaker 1: me know. But I wonder know if they're still in existed.
1:25:43
Speaker 1: If they are still in existence, what purpose do they serve.
1:25:46
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start off with their Paycheck Protection Program program
1:25:49
Speaker 1: that I used UH in the month of May UH
1:25:52
Speaker 1: to help pay my staff when the country was shut down.
1:25:55
Speaker 1: So talk about their payroll Protection program. Is that's still
1:25:58
Speaker 1: available and where how is it serving a purpose now
1:26:02
Speaker 1: that the country's opening back up. Well, actually, the Paycheck
1:26:06
Speaker 1: Protection Program or p p P sunset on. It's sunset
1:26:11
Speaker 1: it on May thirty one. Okay, so uh, SBA no
1:26:17
Speaker 1: longer took applications from participating lenders and we've actually cleaned
1:26:21
Speaker 1: out the backlog of applications and it's totally shut down
1:26:26
Speaker 1: as of June thirty Okay, cool, Great. What about the
1:26:29
Speaker 1: Restaurant Revitalization Fund program? Is that still available? Actually? That
1:26:34
Speaker 1: is not UH. It was a case of a lot
1:26:38
Speaker 1: of demand versus what was allocated for the program. Twenty
1:26:42
Speaker 1: point six minute excuse me, billion was allocated for the program.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: We received applications nationwide totally around seventy billion, so that
1:26:52
Speaker 1: money went pretty quickly. So currently the program is closed,
1:26:57
Speaker 1: and I know there's been some discussion of maybe Congress
1:27:01
Speaker 1: providing more funds and we'll just have to wait and
1:27:03
Speaker 1: see about that, but it is closed as of now.
1:27:07
Speaker 1: So basically letting everybody know that the country is coming
1:27:10
Speaker 1: back to normal. The supports system that you may have
1:27:14
Speaker 1: experienced or may have been a part of previously during
1:27:17
Speaker 1: the COVID of has changed, but you do have programs,
1:27:22
Speaker 1: new online programs and learning coaching platforms like the Ascent
1:27:26
Speaker 1: for Women business Owners. That is that new or that's
1:27:29
Speaker 1: something that that's been around it I'm just made aware
1:27:31
Speaker 1: of through this interview. No, it's relatively new. It launched
1:27:35
Speaker 1: back in January of this year. It had been several
1:27:39
Speaker 1: years in the making, but it was really created to
1:27:42
Speaker 1: help women owned businesses who have gone through the start
1:27:46
Speaker 1: up phase and now they're in a position or considering scaling.
1:27:52
Speaker 1: That's been one of the biggest challenges I think the
1:27:55
Speaker 1: women owned businesses and probably other underserved communities as well.
1:27:59
Speaker 1: You know, when we're may be able to get the
1:28:01
Speaker 1: business started, but it remains basically a self employment. Awesome.
1:28:06
Speaker 1: I want to wrap so this is about how you
1:28:08
Speaker 1: get to that next stage, especially if you have the
1:28:11
Speaker 1: market and the product of service that iscalable. And I
1:28:15
Speaker 1: want to just close out by bringing up the Community
1:28:17
Speaker 1: Navigator's program again, which I'm very excited about. You said,
1:28:21
Speaker 1: just go to if it's available on grant dot gov. Right,
1:28:24
Speaker 1: if you go there and this isn't this is an
1:28:27
Speaker 1: RFP type or response to this if you want to
1:28:30
Speaker 1: be a part of being considered for this in the
1:28:32
Speaker 1: state of Georgia only correct. Well, actually it's nationwide. Okay, okay, cool,
1:28:37
Speaker 1: it's nationwide, so they're looking to give rewards out across
1:28:41
Speaker 1: the country. Uh. What I would say is, once again,
1:28:44
Speaker 1: it's for organizations, so nonprofit entities, government entities that uh
1:28:51
Speaker 1: or you know, provide technical assistance to small businesses. So
1:28:56
Speaker 1: it's not to finance small businesses themselves. Okay, cool. And
1:28:59
Speaker 1: I want to clear so the Community Navigator has to
1:29:01
Speaker 1: be a nonprofit that is correct, Okay, cool? Great. I
1:29:05
Speaker 1: want to make sure that everybody understood that. Again. Terry
1:29:08
Speaker 1: Denison thank you for coming on my show. You've been
1:29:10
Speaker 1: fantastic as usual. Like I said, when I go live
1:29:12
Speaker 1: with on w c OK in the fall, I want
1:29:14
Speaker 1: to bring you back and we celebrate and take some
1:29:17
Speaker 1: phone calls to the properly screen of course, to talk
1:29:20
Speaker 1: about how we can move forward and continue to grow
1:29:23
Speaker 1: entrepreneur especially in disadvantaged ofhoods, especially in minority community, because
1:29:28
Speaker 1: my goal, my passion is to let everybody know that
1:29:31
Speaker 1: sp A is there for you. As she clearly stated,
1:29:34
Speaker 1: it's your money. Your money is being spent. That's why,
1:29:37
Speaker 1: that's why our scorer is there, That's why all these
1:29:39
Speaker 1: organizations are there. So why not use resources that you've
1:29:43
Speaker 1: already paid for. Thank you again, Terrynion Dennison for coming
1:29:46
Speaker 1: on Money Making Conversations. It's been a pleasure. I look
1:29:49
Speaker 1: forward to seeing you again. Okay, thank you very much.
1:29:52
Speaker 1: We will be right back with more Money Making Conversations
1:29:55
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Speaker 1: You are now tuned into the money making conversations. Minute
1:31:33
Speaker 1: of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald Molly Music is a Grammy
1:31:36
Speaker 1: Award winning musician, songwriting and producer. He is an artist
1:31:40
Speaker 1: first and foremost, but he will not be put in
1:31:42
Speaker 1: the box. He loves the freedom of creating amazing music
1:31:45
Speaker 1: no matter whether it's gospel, R and B, hip hop
1:31:48
Speaker 1: or rock. You open up the doors to be heard
1:31:51
Speaker 1: out by different races. Then it gets uncomfortable for just
1:31:54
Speaker 1: because you start bringing out different issues. I recently traveled
1:31:58
Speaker 1: to Nashville to do some song writing Chad Lee saying
1:32:01
Speaker 1: Christian rock band Unspoken, and it was a challenge for me,
1:32:05
Speaker 1: especially coming from soul background gospel background, but I had
1:32:09
Speaker 1: to remember I have songs that have rock feels for it,
1:32:12
Speaker 1: so man, the spreading and the falling of the genres,
1:32:15
Speaker 1: it's definitely good. I've been watching it happen to hip
1:32:18
Speaker 1: hop and other genres for a long time, and I'm
1:32:20
Speaker 1: glad that it's finally made it to the gospel. If
1:32:23
Speaker 1: you want to hear the full interview with Model Music,
1:32:25
Speaker 1: it's available on money Making Conversations dot com. Welcome back
1:32:29
Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversations with your host, Rashaan McDonald. My
1:32:33
Speaker 1: next guest is Philip Ashley Rex. Philip Actually Chocolates is
1:32:37
Speaker 1: one of the world's pre pre eminent they were right there,
1:32:40
Speaker 1: pre eminent ships and designers of luxury chocolate. He is
1:32:45
Speaker 1: an award when the chocolate Chocolate Tour. Is that that
1:32:48
Speaker 1: just that correct, Philip Chocolate Tour. Yeah. Founding in Memphis, Tennessee.
1:32:53
Speaker 1: That's right up, I mean Atlantis. That's just a little
1:32:56
Speaker 1: bit up. No, you know, we all know about the barbecue.
1:32:58
Speaker 1: We know about that hot chicken in Memphis. Now you're
1:33:01
Speaker 1: about to find out by Philip Astley Chocks in twenty two.
1:33:04
Speaker 1: That's when it all start. The brand has an international
1:33:07
Speaker 1: following and is retained by high profile clients, top corporations
1:33:11
Speaker 1: and major events to offer premium gifts. And we all
1:33:14
Speaker 1: know about the COVID nineteen pandemic shut down this country. Well,
1:33:18
Speaker 1: in February twenty prior to the code COVID shutting down
1:33:21
Speaker 1: a company, he had a lot of major eights on it.
1:33:24
Speaker 1: He was on the Food Networks Chop Sweet to the
1:33:26
Speaker 1: Finals and then in November that same year Oprah's Favorite
1:33:30
Speaker 1: Things to Listen to, buy the book to putting your
1:33:33
Speaker 1: Gifts for Christmas for whatever you wanted to do. Philip
1:33:36
Speaker 1: is also known for his branding and marketing expertise that
1:33:39
Speaker 1: checked this out. In twenty one, he found an Uncommon
1:33:42
Speaker 1: Hospitality Group, a real estate development company focused on driving imagination, innovation,
1:33:48
Speaker 1: and impact in the mixed used commercial real estate space.
1:33:51
Speaker 1: Please welcome to the show. An innovator. I want to
1:33:54
Speaker 1: I wanna call him an instigator because he got chocolate,
1:33:56
Speaker 1: you know, but he looks like my little twin brother.
1:33:58
Speaker 1: But believe for the show, Philip. Actually Rex, how you doing, Philip?
1:34:02
Speaker 1: How you doing? Thanks for having me? You know a
1:34:05
Speaker 1: good looking guys. So I got I got throw that
1:34:07
Speaker 1: that right now. You know, I got the big got
1:34:09
Speaker 1: the glasses so so. But you clean every every week,
1:34:14
Speaker 1: every week, and people don't understand, you know women. Women
1:34:17
Speaker 1: was like like, it's hard, looking like us, it's hard.
1:34:21
Speaker 1: You gotta keep you gotta maintain this. This is a
1:34:23
Speaker 1: weekly process. I go to the barber, get us straight
1:34:27
Speaker 1: right every Saturday morning. So you know. That's why I
1:34:31
Speaker 1: just want to let everybody know because I got an
1:34:33
Speaker 1: identical looking guy on the phone on video on my
1:34:36
Speaker 1: on my talk show today. It looks like me. I
1:34:39
Speaker 1: put in the work every day to just get up.
1:34:42
Speaker 1: I wish I could just walk out of that door, Philip.
1:34:45
Speaker 1: But people were like, I'm broke. They were looking like
1:34:47
Speaker 1: I'm sick. They won't ask me what's wrong? All those things?
1:34:51
Speaker 1: So you are a brand, correct fellow, Yes, sir, yes, sir.
1:34:54
Speaker 1: And and like you said, they think that you know
1:34:57
Speaker 1: everything takes you know, curation management, you know. So like
1:35:02
Speaker 1: I said, if we I don't have hair, you don't
1:35:04
Speaker 1: have but that there's a process, you know, because you
1:35:09
Speaker 1: can you come out there with a little scattered half,
1:35:11
Speaker 1: people act like what's wrong man? What you do? You
1:35:13
Speaker 1: have time? You have time. So because we just started
1:35:17
Speaker 1: out like that talking about image, talking about brands, talking
1:35:21
Speaker 1: about because that's part of what you are pursued about
1:35:24
Speaker 1: marketing and branding, and a lot of people throw those
1:35:27
Speaker 1: words out because you hear, but what's my because you're
1:35:29
Speaker 1: branding a lot and some people just saying they don't
1:35:32
Speaker 1: even know what that means. And then because sometimes they
1:35:35
Speaker 1: put the word branding. They're marketing together, thinking it's all
1:35:37
Speaker 1: one world, and that's not true. You know, brand, you develop.
1:35:41
Speaker 1: Marketing is what you do to get the word out
1:35:43
Speaker 1: about your brain. So talking about being one of the
1:35:46
Speaker 1: sought off most sought off people in that area, and
1:35:49
Speaker 1: how did that really start launching your own brand? How
1:35:52
Speaker 1: did that manifest itself into your brand? Philip? Yeah, so
1:35:56
Speaker 1: really it started two thousand seven. I was living in
1:36:03
Speaker 1: Baltimore at the time, living in Baltimore, working in Corporate America. Uh,
1:36:08
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning, woke up from the dream.
1:36:11
Speaker 1: It was like, Okay, I'm gonna be a chocolate teer
1:36:13
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life and make chocolate for
1:36:15
Speaker 1: a living. And and that's literally how it happened. Uh.
1:36:19
Speaker 1: And from there it just became an obsession. You know.
1:36:22
Speaker 1: I was already in the consumer packaged goods industry, moving product,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: working with companies and individuals. Uh. And I've been cooking
1:36:32
Speaker 1: for a long time. I was I started learning how
1:36:34
Speaker 1: to cook for my grandmother at five and so I
1:36:36
Speaker 1: was always a really good cook. But you know, so
1:36:40
Speaker 1: a lot of things kind of fell into place, ended up,
1:36:44
Speaker 1: you know, pursuing chocolate and so I spent the better
1:36:47
Speaker 1: part of five years, the first three in particular, teaching
1:36:51
Speaker 1: myself about chocolate, learning everything about food. You know, how
1:36:55
Speaker 1: do you taste? Uh, you know, the zones of the palette,
1:36:59
Speaker 1: studying herbs, spices, proteins, you name it. And then you know,
1:37:04
Speaker 1: my main goal was to recreate that stick of gum
1:37:09
Speaker 1: from Willy Wonka. I was always fascinated with that story, um,
1:37:14
Speaker 1: and particularly that concept where he had the roast beef,
1:37:17
Speaker 1: the blueberry pie uh, and the potatoes in one thing.
1:37:22
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, I want to do that in
1:37:24
Speaker 1: real life. Uh. And so subsequently, that's what we've become
1:37:29
Speaker 1: known for in putting blue cheese and chocolate one of
1:37:32
Speaker 1: our our most popular flavor. One we've won a Good
1:37:36
Speaker 1: Food Awards, which is kind of like a Grammys for food. Um,
1:37:40
Speaker 1: you know, and that's the thing is our French blue
1:37:42
Speaker 1: cheese chocolate calls some boy. Uh. And you know we've
1:37:46
Speaker 1: won awards for a number of chocolate, barbecue, chocolate, sweet
1:37:49
Speaker 1: potato chocolates, you know, chocolates that really tell stories. And
1:37:53
Speaker 1: so you know, what does your show takes like? And
1:37:56
Speaker 1: so we create something that has your person out with
1:38:00
Speaker 1: your DNA, your favorite foods, your favorite colors, and we
1:38:04
Speaker 1: kind of create and craft and extract the flavor and
1:38:08
Speaker 1: turn it into a bon bon well, you know we
1:38:11
Speaker 1: we always um you know, sweech grabs anybody's attention, you
1:38:14
Speaker 1: know their palate, as they say. And chocolate is also
1:38:19
Speaker 1: you know that that version. My wife loves chocolate. She
1:38:22
Speaker 1: but but there's a different chocolate. You don't have to do.
1:38:25
Speaker 1: And because you're gonna educate me here a little bit, Philip, okay,
1:38:28
Speaker 1: because you have your premium chocolate, like my my favorite
1:38:32
Speaker 1: premium chocolate candy is turtles. Okay, I love those. Now,
1:38:36
Speaker 1: by the way, I went to your website now and
1:38:39
Speaker 1: ye out of turtles. So I was mad at you, Philip,
1:38:42
Speaker 1: because I like that that we just hearted back all
1:38:44
Speaker 1: the day. So because because because when I try to do, Philip,
1:38:49
Speaker 1: when I interviewed somebody like you have food, I always
1:38:52
Speaker 1: like to test your product and trust the whole system.
1:38:54
Speaker 1: How does it work? So I go online and order
1:38:57
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, it came. I got notified K shoes,
1:39:00
Speaker 1: and because that lets me know where they staying as
1:39:02
Speaker 1: far as trying to get the product to the customer.
1:39:05
Speaker 1: Because we're coming on my show, money making conversation. I
1:39:07
Speaker 1: get assists of who you are, and so I went
1:39:09
Speaker 1: on there and I said, so turtle, oh May out
1:39:12
Speaker 1: of turtles because that's my favorite man. So so you
1:39:16
Speaker 1: you have something on the way, So we will be
1:39:19
Speaker 1: very I'll be very happy and I'll be posting it
1:39:21
Speaker 1: on my social media to me eating that you're through
1:39:25
Speaker 1: Philip Ashley chocolate turtles, because tell us why what is
1:39:29
Speaker 1: between me just grabbing something off the shelf and let
1:39:32
Speaker 1: me just know, not just being derogatory like a Snickers
1:39:35
Speaker 1: ball has chocolate it around it U or anything like
1:39:38
Speaker 1: that versus your premium chocolates that you serve. Yeah, no,
1:39:42
Speaker 1: that's a great question. We what we really focus on,
1:39:46
Speaker 1: like I said, is that storytelling element. And so it's
1:39:49
Speaker 1: not just chocolate or a box of candy. It really
1:39:52
Speaker 1: is an experience. You know, where else are you gonna
1:39:55
Speaker 1: find a chocolate that has sweet potato in it or particular?
1:40:00
Speaker 1: We have chocolates that are a collar green and corn
1:40:03
Speaker 1: bread chocolate that tastes good and tastes like the things
1:40:07
Speaker 1: that we say are in it, and so you know,
1:40:11
Speaker 1: truly handcrafted, like we are in here in Memphis. I'm
1:40:15
Speaker 1: in my chocolate factory, the two point o version of it. Uh.
1:40:19
Speaker 1: And we make everything by hand. I'm sourcing the best ingredients.
1:40:23
Speaker 1: We're constantly scouring the earth for the best cocoa beans
1:40:27
Speaker 1: out of Ghana, out of coach before you know, where
1:40:30
Speaker 1: can we get the best strawberries from? Whose farm do
1:40:34
Speaker 1: we need to go to? Um? You know, it's just
1:40:37
Speaker 1: always in this constant, perpetual state of daydreaming new flavors
1:40:43
Speaker 1: and new ideas and then how do we bring those
1:40:47
Speaker 1: to fruition uh in the chocolate and and so that's
1:40:50
Speaker 1: what you're getting. Different from your standard variety chocolate on
1:40:55
Speaker 1: the shelf, you know, we we have chocolate something else
1:40:58
Speaker 1: that's on its way to you. We do a collection
1:41:01
Speaker 1: for Uncle Nears, which is a premium whiskey, the amazing
1:41:06
Speaker 1: whiskey makers. That distillery is here in Tennessee, not too
1:41:10
Speaker 1: far from us, just out of side of Nashville. And
1:41:13
Speaker 1: so we have an entire collection that captures the whiskey
1:41:16
Speaker 1: as they have, but not just that. We didn't just
1:41:19
Speaker 1: throw whiskey in the chocolate. We said, okay, what's the
1:41:22
Speaker 1: story of Uncle Nears, what's the story of Lincoln County
1:41:25
Speaker 1: and the process that differentiates Tennessee whiskey from bourbon. How
1:41:30
Speaker 1: do we convey that through a bond? Bond? And so
1:41:33
Speaker 1: that's really what you're getting now. When when we talked
1:41:37
Speaker 1: about you, you based in Memphis, Tennessee. Like I said earlier,
1:41:41
Speaker 1: barbecue chicken, you know, the little ducks, you know music,
1:41:48
Speaker 1: and then you the chocolate tier. Now you said you
1:41:51
Speaker 1: was in Boston. You know two thousand seven, he was
1:41:54
Speaker 1: in Boston. Now you're down in um Memphis. What made
1:42:00
Speaker 1: what inspired you to go in this direction? Other than
1:42:02
Speaker 1: the fact it was a passion, It was carried off
1:42:05
Speaker 1: from a childhood dream Willie Wonker. Because a lot of
1:42:07
Speaker 1: people a doubt you. A lot of people tell you, man,
1:42:11
Speaker 1: you know that you need to be making a soul
1:42:13
Speaker 1: food restaurants, something that people gonna buy a lot of,
1:42:15
Speaker 1: because people don't conceptualize this business. Like I always tell people.
1:42:20
Speaker 1: People understand the ninety five when I left my job
1:42:23
Speaker 1: to tell people I wanted to be a stand up comic,
1:42:25
Speaker 1: they went, how are you gonna make money? Well, quite frankly,
1:42:27
Speaker 1: I couldn't really tell you either, but I knew this
1:42:30
Speaker 1: is what I wanted to do for my life, my dream.
1:42:33
Speaker 1: And so when you made the decision to do what
1:42:36
Speaker 1: you had to do. There was a lot of doubts
1:42:38
Speaker 1: talk about walking through that process and then when he
1:42:41
Speaker 1: started clicking for you professionally, Yeah, and I believe you
1:42:45
Speaker 1: can attest this. I think when when you really are
1:42:48
Speaker 1: driven by you know, purpose, passion, in a in a
1:42:52
Speaker 1: real desire like you said with comedy, you know, and
1:42:55
Speaker 1: you've obviously learned this that you know that's gonna make
1:42:59
Speaker 1: way for you and make room for you, particularly when
1:43:02
Speaker 1: you're you know, You're like, I was just driven, like
1:43:06
Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything else if I wasn't doing this essentially,
1:43:10
Speaker 1: and I can do a lot of other things just
1:43:13
Speaker 1: by the means of survival so to speak, but you know,
1:43:16
Speaker 1: to truly live. And it didn't matter about struggling or
1:43:20
Speaker 1: not struggling, you know. It was like, Okay, this is
1:43:22
Speaker 1: something that I have to do. Uh and and so
1:43:26
Speaker 1: through again, you know, and I've always just been different
1:43:29
Speaker 1: and I learned real early. I think, like my sophomore
1:43:33
Speaker 1: year in college, I was working a part time job
1:43:36
Speaker 1: at a call center, and I knew then that entrepreneurship
1:43:41
Speaker 1: was the way I was going. And again and I'm
1:43:45
Speaker 1: I never I'm always and for and understand the need
1:43:50
Speaker 1: for nine to five. Heck, we have people that work
1:43:53
Speaker 1: for us, you know, and that's we love our employees.
1:43:57
Speaker 1: Were working well and hard for them to make sure
1:44:00
Speaker 1: that they make a living wage and all of that.
1:44:02
Speaker 1: But I knew for me personally, I wanted to be
1:44:06
Speaker 1: the employer. And then I wanted to create something through
1:44:10
Speaker 1: the talent and then in the imagination and the gifts
1:44:14
Speaker 1: um that I've been fortunate to be blessed with and
1:44:16
Speaker 1: and chocolate again was that medium. And like I said,
1:44:20
Speaker 1: you know, their writers, their directors, there's actors, there's all
1:44:24
Speaker 1: sorts of storytellers. And I've always been fascinated by the
1:44:30
Speaker 1: storyteller world, play rights, etcetera, etcetera. You know, just growing up.
1:44:34
Speaker 1: You know, I've written plays in school and all kinds
1:44:36
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I was like, you know, but I
1:44:39
Speaker 1: wanted to marry three things, you know, my passion for storytelling,
1:44:44
Speaker 1: my love of food, and in my deep interest, uh
1:44:48
Speaker 1: in the consumer package goods industry. And I understood very
1:44:52
Speaker 1: early on that creating a product, in being able to
1:44:55
Speaker 1: move product across the supply chain, and then creating a
1:45:00
Speaker 1: sustainable one is where it's at. Uh, and so I
1:45:04
Speaker 1: wanted to bring those three things together. Now, in bringing
1:45:07
Speaker 1: those things together, two things that happened to you in
1:45:11
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna break it apart. One was the
1:45:14
Speaker 1: parents on Food Network, the competition and then Oprah's Favorite
1:45:18
Speaker 1: Things List. Now me if I was your manager, sir,
1:45:23
Speaker 1: and I go, okay, you you have a popular brand
1:45:25
Speaker 1: out there. Why would you go on a competition show
1:45:29
Speaker 1: where if you don't win, you know, you considered a loser. Okay,
1:45:34
Speaker 1: So you made the finalist Food Network? Hey, we know
1:45:37
Speaker 1: I watched the Food Network all time. I know who
1:45:39
Speaker 1: you are, Okay because I saw your Food Network Okay, Chops,
1:45:42
Speaker 1: which one of my favorite show. So when you start
1:45:45
Speaker 1: that's the part of the brand. We're talking about your marketing,
1:45:47
Speaker 1: your branding. Okay. So when you made that decision, what
1:45:51
Speaker 1: was the idea and the concept? Because it was about money,
1:45:54
Speaker 1: So what was it about? Well, just a general spirit
1:45:57
Speaker 1: of competition. You know, I wanted to go on what
1:46:00
Speaker 1: what I feel like, it's a big stage for food
1:46:04
Speaker 1: and for for chefs and compete. You know, I played
1:46:07
Speaker 1: sports and it's rare nowadays that we actually have a
1:46:10
Speaker 1: chance to at least for me to to compete against
1:46:15
Speaker 1: others and in in a true arena, so to speak.
1:46:18
Speaker 1: And so I thought that was fun. Then of course
1:46:20
Speaker 1: it's Food Network. I mean love Food Network. Grew up
1:46:23
Speaker 1: watching it, always been around it, you know, particularly at
1:46:27
Speaker 1: you know, at its hype. Uh And so chip was
1:46:31
Speaker 1: a has definitely been a favorite of mine. And so
1:46:33
Speaker 1: when they came out with the sweet version, I was like, yeah,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: of course I want to do it, you know, I
1:46:38
Speaker 1: do the regular one. So the original so um that
1:46:42
Speaker 1: was that was really the thought process behind net um.
1:46:46
Speaker 1: You know, Losing or not finishing was never entered my mind. Uh,
1:46:52
Speaker 1: you know, and I even think you know, and and
1:46:55
Speaker 1: my friend Ambercroom, who I know, uh so, yeah, you know,
1:47:01
Speaker 1: she did a fantastic job. You know. Of course the
1:47:04
Speaker 1: competition or the competitor in me is like, yeah, I
1:47:08
Speaker 1: should have won the same time a great job as well.
1:47:13
Speaker 1: You know, she's very talent, Amber, I know it very well.
1:47:16
Speaker 1: Uh and so so so that, but what did it
1:47:19
Speaker 1: do it far as your popularity? Did he bring, visual recognition?
1:47:22
Speaker 1: Did it bring did it bringe sales to your brand?
1:47:26
Speaker 1: News articles of course, especially in the market of Memphis,
1:47:29
Speaker 1: talk about that part of the the the blessing. Yeah,
1:47:33
Speaker 1: it was definitely one of those things, you know, continue
1:47:35
Speaker 1: to seek national uh acclaimed visibility, which leads to growth,
1:47:41
Speaker 1: and that was the real motivation behind it. This is
1:47:45
Speaker 1: a large stage where I get to showcase not only
1:47:48
Speaker 1: my talent, but talk about my brand, my business uh
1:47:53
Speaker 1: and my product uh and and on in a um
1:47:57
Speaker 1: media or on a medium that put us in front
1:48:00
Speaker 1: of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people
1:48:05
Speaker 1: viewers around the country and even the world. And so
1:48:08
Speaker 1: you know, we we ship internationally and so you know,
1:48:12
Speaker 1: I've always been thinking beyond the four walls of Memphis,
1:48:17
Speaker 1: you know, and and that's really the main thing. And
1:48:20
Speaker 1: like I said, my goal was to uh you know
1:48:25
Speaker 1: when of course, but if not when have a good showing.
1:48:30
Speaker 1: And I felt like that would would know who we
1:48:33
Speaker 1: were and what we do here. Absolutely, you you've accomplisated,
1:48:37
Speaker 1: like because you came on my radar. You came on
1:48:40
Speaker 1: my radar. And so so now we're talking to Philip
1:48:42
Speaker 1: all you know, he's defied in CEO of Philip Ashley Chocolates.
1:48:46
Speaker 1: Now that's fast forward to November that you know, Oprah's
1:48:51
Speaker 1: favorite things. That's a definitely different conversation. Now, you know
1:48:54
Speaker 1: the beauty of life man, Oprah. There's two black people
1:48:57
Speaker 1: in America that you always want to be associated with. Tyler.
1:49:01
Speaker 1: If Tyler peer call you and me, you got acting job.
1:49:04
Speaker 1: If Oprah call you and me, she likes something you're doing. Okay,
1:49:08
Speaker 1: In this case, o people call you contact you said, hey, man,
1:49:11
Speaker 1: you're chocolates. What was your reaction to that man and
1:49:15
Speaker 1: what did you do to capitalize on that opportunity she
1:49:18
Speaker 1: gave you to be on that list? Yeah? Well, first
1:49:20
Speaker 1: of all, I was just grateful and and and you know,
1:49:23
Speaker 1: I'm all about, you know, setting goals, creating a vision,
1:49:28
Speaker 1: working to manifest it, and you know, and a lot
1:49:31
Speaker 1: of it is, you know, timing opportunity, um favorite look,
1:49:36
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. And so you know,
1:49:38
Speaker 1: I said eight years ago when I found the coming Man,
1:49:41
Speaker 1: we should be one of Oprah's favorite things. Clearly we
1:49:43
Speaker 1: weren't ready then, even when we got the call, which
1:49:47
Speaker 1: would have been this time last year, when we got
1:49:49
Speaker 1: the original call saying hey, we're looking at you, uh,
1:49:53
Speaker 1: and then when we months later when we got the
1:49:55
Speaker 1: final hey, you know you're one of them and we
1:49:59
Speaker 1: want the perfect turtle Uh that product and we make
1:50:04
Speaker 1: a really good turtle. I think you'll enjoy it. Uh.
1:50:07
Speaker 1: And so it was a huge thing. Of course, it's oprah,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: you know, the amount of attention. UM. Of course we
1:50:14
Speaker 1: had to also contend with the pandemic. So uh in
1:50:19
Speaker 1: a year where one of the biggest things that could
1:50:22
Speaker 1: happen to us, the world is essentially um on hold
1:50:26
Speaker 1: and you know, all the things that all the challenges
1:50:29
Speaker 1: that came with that, I'll tell you was you know,
1:50:33
Speaker 1: but ultimately that it was a great opportunity, huge momentum
1:50:38
Speaker 1: generated behind that, which put us again on an even bigger,
1:50:43
Speaker 1: more national and international stage than Food Network. UH. And
1:50:48
Speaker 1: then that led to other opportunities and other visibility UM.
1:50:53
Speaker 1: You know, and we also I'll tell you we had
1:50:55
Speaker 1: some some mighty challenges um navigating uh that world because
1:51:01
Speaker 1: as you know, growing growing really really quickly is difficult.
1:51:07
Speaker 1: UH it's even harder when you know, again not to
1:51:10
Speaker 1: make excuses, but the pandemic created challenges that you know,
1:51:14
Speaker 1: we I had to figure creative ways around and so
1:51:18
Speaker 1: uh dealing with backlog, dealing with uh, you know, only
1:51:22
Speaker 1: being able to have so many people uh in in
1:51:25
Speaker 1: an area for so long that kind of thing. Uh.
1:51:29
Speaker 1: You know, so it was tough, but I'll tell you what,
1:51:31
Speaker 1: it definitely taught me a lot, not only about myself,
1:51:35
Speaker 1: but how I see the business, how I operate. And
1:51:39
Speaker 1: we've been making some incredible enhancements to our operations to
1:51:45
Speaker 1: increase production, to um communicate with our customers more efficiently
1:51:51
Speaker 1: and effectively, and really again just make the experience from
1:51:56
Speaker 1: start to finish that much more favorable, uh and and
1:52:01
Speaker 1: more enjoyable. So ultimately, I'm super grateful that she found us,
1:52:07
Speaker 1: even with the challenges that came our way and the
1:52:10
Speaker 1: things that we have to navigate. You know, I think
1:52:12
Speaker 1: you learned the most kind of things like that. You know,
1:52:16
Speaker 1: if it were just, oh, you know, over called us up.
1:52:19
Speaker 1: You know, we saw and we did well in sales.
1:52:22
Speaker 1: But also if there was no challenge behind it or
1:52:26
Speaker 1: nothing that really pushed me. I mean you may we
1:52:30
Speaker 1: may not be talking and it would just be like
1:52:32
Speaker 1: another thing, you know what I mean. Well, you know
1:52:34
Speaker 1: the thing about it, I think from a standpoint of
1:52:37
Speaker 1: we all know how minority business, of business of color
1:52:41
Speaker 1: and African or were impacted by COVID. But the blessing
1:52:44
Speaker 1: of it is that I think as restaurant owners and entrepreneur,
1:52:47
Speaker 1: we learned, we learned, We learned that we will kind
1:52:50
Speaker 1: of like cheating ourselves on how we should be doing
1:52:53
Speaker 1: our business model. And COVID and all the pandemic said, okay,
1:52:57
Speaker 1: there's a model to win with long term and you
1:53:00
Speaker 1: you to have a plan B, and the plan B
1:53:02
Speaker 1: should move you forward. The plan B is not a
1:53:05
Speaker 1: plan that's to say you're trying to shortchange yourself. Is
1:53:08
Speaker 1: to let you know that the perfect world does not exist,
1:53:11
Speaker 1: and you should have options how you sell your product.
1:53:15
Speaker 1: And when you were saying what Philip is saying about
1:53:17
Speaker 1: is that you could be selling business, but that doesn't
1:53:19
Speaker 1: mean when you're selling stuff, that means that your your
1:53:22
Speaker 1: dollar comes back to you as fast as you sell it.
1:53:24
Speaker 1: So that means when somebody like an Oprah, if a
1:53:26
Speaker 1: massive business, come and say we want a lot of
1:53:28
Speaker 1: your product, Okay, there's a payment period that you gotta
1:53:31
Speaker 1: also also be able to deliver to the people and
1:53:35
Speaker 1: say hey, I got to buy the product, I gotta
1:53:37
Speaker 1: make the product, and I got to shift the product.
1:53:40
Speaker 1: So you got to have revenue or income sitting there,
1:53:43
Speaker 1: or some type of investor to come in and be
1:53:45
Speaker 1: able to help you move that product to the level
1:53:47
Speaker 1: so you can deliver on time and be and be
1:53:51
Speaker 1: recommended as a company of choice and also be recommended
1:53:54
Speaker 1: as a company that can deliver what they say. That's
1:53:56
Speaker 1: what people have to understand when you're talking about these products.
1:53:59
Speaker 1: And that's what thats one of the great skills that
1:54:01
Speaker 1: you developed that you talk about and people come to you,
1:54:03
Speaker 1: right Philip, in regards to these levels of conversation, talk
1:54:06
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, you know, just talk to Shelby County
1:54:10
Speaker 1: government Mayor Lee Harris had me talked to his folks
1:54:14
Speaker 1: about that very thing. And really you know, focusing, um,
1:54:18
Speaker 1: you know, and and and that's what we've had to do.
1:54:20
Speaker 1: Focus and me personally as the business owner. There's so
1:54:24
Speaker 1: many things, and you know, people are always kind of
1:54:27
Speaker 1: coming at you with this or that. You know, really
1:54:30
Speaker 1: focusing on ensuring the long term success of the business. Uh.
1:54:36
Speaker 1: And and part of that is is really being agile
1:54:39
Speaker 1: and and how to pivot, you know, and and create
1:54:43
Speaker 1: opportunities out of even you know, the rest in a sense,
1:54:47
Speaker 1: you know, well, what are the difficult things that have
1:54:49
Speaker 1: come via uh this opportunity? What mistakes did we make? Uh?
1:54:55
Speaker 1: And how can we improve on them in hands and
1:54:57
Speaker 1: then prevent those same things from the current next time.
1:55:01
Speaker 1: And so um, that's again just just understanding how to
1:55:06
Speaker 1: develop the business to scale it, you know, because you know,
1:55:09
Speaker 1: I'm trying to five x tenets this thing and beyond.
1:55:12
Speaker 1: And so how do we improve our standard operating procedures,
1:55:17
Speaker 1: how do we bring in employees, trained them more effectively,
1:55:22
Speaker 1: how do we refine our product? You know, how do
1:55:25
Speaker 1: we communicate and market and even be on stages such
1:55:28
Speaker 1: as this and on your show then let people know that, Hey,
1:55:33
Speaker 1: you know, we are a small business that's growing. We
1:55:35
Speaker 1: are black owned business, but you know we we do
1:55:38
Speaker 1: an amazing job at what we do. Let let's talk
1:55:41
Speaker 1: about because you kind of walked about which I what
1:55:44
Speaker 1: I want to lend into my next question is about
1:55:46
Speaker 1: putting young black men and women in this in the
1:55:48
Speaker 1: craft trade environment. Talk about that and then I want
1:55:52
Speaker 1: to close what you're talking about your uncommon hospitality group. Yeah, so, um,
1:55:57
Speaker 1: it's really important. And I mentioned you know earlier about
1:55:59
Speaker 1: just uh curing a sustainable supply chain, and for me,
1:56:03
Speaker 1: that's both in sourcing UM raw materials, so from our
1:56:09
Speaker 1: coco um beings and things of involvement in Africa and beyond,
1:56:14
Speaker 1: but also with our employees, with our with with the
1:56:18
Speaker 1: labor uh. And particularly being in Memphis. Memphis, like a
1:56:22
Speaker 1: lot of other cities, UM, we have a we're seventy
1:56:27
Speaker 1: African American. You know, seventy percent of Memphis is black.
1:56:30
Speaker 1: And so with that, you know, my focus from an
1:56:34
Speaker 1: employment standpoint has really turned the focus on young men
1:56:39
Speaker 1: and women African American and of color between the ages
1:56:43
Speaker 1: of eighteen and twenty one, specifically because these are folks
1:56:47
Speaker 1: that you know there if they're not going to college. Um,
1:56:51
Speaker 1: and and these just hired another young man yesterday, he
1:56:54
Speaker 1: started today, eighteen, just graduated, wasn't going to college. But
1:56:58
Speaker 1: of course high schools aren't really focused and on trades
1:57:00
Speaker 1: anymore either. UH. So bringing them in, showing them a
1:57:05
Speaker 1: craft trade, uh and then saying, look, you know, we're
1:57:08
Speaker 1: gonna pay you fifteen dollars an hour uh for the
1:57:11
Speaker 1: first year, but by the end of the first year
1:57:14
Speaker 1: you will be upwards to twenty dollars an hour. So
1:57:17
Speaker 1: at nineteen barely twenty, you're gonna be making forty plus
1:57:21
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in a city where the median income or
1:57:24
Speaker 1: the partner lies like thirty five, So we got you
1:57:28
Speaker 1: above that at a young age. But I'm also working
1:57:32
Speaker 1: with uh folks like my friend up in Pittsburgh, Manya Erick.
1:57:38
Speaker 1: Um that will help with financial planning and doing all
1:57:41
Speaker 1: those kind of things. Uh, that will work with these
1:57:45
Speaker 1: young folks to not only make money, but when they're
1:57:49
Speaker 1: twenty five, thirty five and forty five, they understand the
1:57:53
Speaker 1: value of the dollars that they've earned and they can
1:57:55
Speaker 1: go off and do investing and do other things. And
1:57:58
Speaker 1: so that's the bigger picture. I suggest employ them today
1:58:01
Speaker 1: and pay them fifteen bucks or twenty bucks, but really
1:58:05
Speaker 1: set them on a course of success and and and honestly,
1:58:09
Speaker 1: looking at some of the things that I had to
1:58:11
Speaker 1: navigate between eighteen and forty two. Uh, and if I
1:58:16
Speaker 1: can knock out a few of those roadblocks, you know,
1:58:19
Speaker 1: then you know, hopefully it's it's a good thing. And Uh.
1:58:23
Speaker 1: The Uncommon Hospitality Group, Yes, Uncommon Hospitality Group is something
1:58:29
Speaker 1: that you know, is really a part of me in
1:58:32
Speaker 1: my next kind of phase of of bringing a real
1:58:36
Speaker 1: chocolate factory to life. But again, I'm all about the experience,
1:58:42
Speaker 1: you know, So I curate things like a Grand masterade
1:58:46
Speaker 1: ball in the uh in November. You know, we do
1:58:49
Speaker 1: all these really cool tastings, virtual tastings, live tastings. Uh.
1:58:54
Speaker 1: So you know, again the chocolate is a big experiential element.
1:58:58
Speaker 1: And so taking that field and that brand to commercial
1:59:03
Speaker 1: real estate where mixed use um. You know, so then
1:59:07
Speaker 1: bringing in black owned businesses, wine companies, restaurants, uh, you know,
1:59:14
Speaker 1: commercial businesses and even residential and so that's what it's
1:59:18
Speaker 1: all about, starting here in the heart of Memphis, working
1:59:22
Speaker 1: to source several properties to put together just a really
1:59:26
Speaker 1: cool experience for people to come. Not only experienced Philip
1:59:29
Speaker 1: ashially chocolates, but that's that's the anchor of core. But
1:59:32
Speaker 1: then just kind of see a community uh that that
1:59:37
Speaker 1: is business oriented uh and focused on consumer goods and
1:59:42
Speaker 1: focused on consumer experience uh and and and and living
1:59:47
Speaker 1: in a downtown community. Uh and just kind of showing
1:59:50
Speaker 1: people that there are other folks that can develop, you know,
1:59:54
Speaker 1: really cool things uh in a city as well. It's beautiful.
1:59:59
Speaker 1: He's based in Memphis. Uh. You can buy his products online, international, domestic,
2:00:04
Speaker 1: But more importantly, when you go to Memphis nowadays to
2:00:06
Speaker 1: go out film for the blues, go there for the
2:00:08
Speaker 1: hot chicken going there for the barbecue. Now you go
2:00:11
Speaker 1: up there for the turtles, the perfect turtles down there
2:00:14
Speaker 1: that Philip Ashley chocolate. Hey, Phillips Man. Thank you for Philip.
2:00:17
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on my show man Money Making Conversation.
2:00:21
Speaker 1: Pleasure and you know it's always nice. Looking at my
2:00:23
Speaker 1: twin brother too. I love it. I love it. Well,
2:00:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get up to Memphis, man. And you said
2:00:31
Speaker 1: in the fall you do some things. I want to
2:00:33
Speaker 1: come up them and be part of it. Just hang
2:00:35
Speaker 1: out with the calendar out and also when you do
2:00:38
Speaker 1: the next virtual testing center to me so I can
2:00:40
Speaker 1: post them on social media and put my news letter. Okay,
2:00:43
Speaker 1: we'll do. Thank you, my brother. Thank you Philip for
2:00:45
Speaker 1: coming on Money Making Conversation. If you want to hear
2:00:47
Speaker 1: or see any of my interviews, please go to money
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