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The purpose of the show is to provide a critical examination of society and culture through the intersectional lens of race, gender, and class, more specifically it seeks to provide a COUNTER-NARRATIVE. The Show encourages a reflective assessment and critique of unique standpoints and their potential contribution to popular discourse.
Hello and welcome to the counter narrative show. Tonight's topic is or the the name of the show for tonight is minding her business. And tonight we're going to focus on black women entrepreneurs. I am joined by two very talented folks, natoya, as well as joy, and they're going to tell you a bit about the insides of their business, how they came to their business, and all that sort of thing.
I need to know everything, who in the what in the where I need everything. Trust me, I hear what you're saying, but I like it's new. What you telling me, I'm Curious George. I happen to pause for five and a horse. I'm ready for war. I'm coming for throws to turning with ghosts. I need to know everything.
But before we get into the nitty gritty of the the business aspect, let's get to know natoya and joy. Let's start with natoya. Natoya tell us hey. Hey. How long have you been in business? What's the name of your business? And tell us what makes you most passionate about this particular business venture. Hi
everyone. I hope everyone is doing well. My name is natoya. My brand name is amazing sophistication. What amazing sophistication is is we are a brand that is currently a footwear brand. So we initiated our start as a footwear brand. The name of the brand is amazing sophistication. And what amazing sophistication means is the initials mzn are the initials of my name and my children's name, and then sophistication is a play on the word sophisticate sophistication. So of course, you know, sophistication means to become cultured. It means to want to, you know, be disillusioned. And the fist in the word is to represent that we are a black, owned brand, and to say what I'm passionate about. I am passionate about so many things. I am passionate about always learning and, you know, I'm passionate about traveling. I love to travel, although with this pandemic, we haven't been able to travel as much as we would like. But I'm passionate about, you know, just supporting myself, supporting my family, supporting my people, and also just making sure that we are educated about what's out there for us.
I know that's right. Can I tell you how much I love that the fist and sophistication, right? Can I tell you creative black people and then that, like, personal aspect that you put into the name, in terms of, like, the the
initials of your children's name and yours? I think that's so beautiful.
Yeah, definitely. You know, as they get older, I want them to know that this is something I want to build it for, something that I can pass on to them. So you definitely want to make sure that, you know, we're building that generational wealth. And I, my goal is to keep them incorporated in the business, so as they get older, they appreciate it, so it's not something that they're going to push off because, you know, they they don't know what it took to get to that point of being a successful business. So me incorporating them in it now, as they get older, they appreciate it. They have something that they're going to hold and hopefully pass on to their children and continue building that generational wealth. Absolutely,
that's legacy, right there? Absolutely legacy building so Joy you're up. Same question for you. So tell us the name of your business. How long have you been in business, and what are you most passionate about? Like, how did you and also, how did you get started in this particular business venture,
actually. So Hey everybody, my name is Joy Pittman. Some of my clients have coined me the Lilia Pope of HR, and my business's name is HR for the culture. And literally, we are HR for the culture. We are HR staffing and consulting an outsourced firm that supports black female entrepreneurs as they're growing our business, as they're growing their businesses. Our passion, my passion, is black women and HR, right? And so that's kind of how we landed at this intersection between a demographic of women that I was extremely, extremely, extremely passionate about the empowerment of, and also a field that I've spent 15 plus years in and really enjoy the work and the people work around it. How I got into this action is that I was pivoting out of my corporate job in HR. I've been doing it for a while, had a little disenchanted with it, a little down, mainly because for me, a lot of the avenues that I was trying to provide the people no one was HR, and for me, so it was no HR. For HR, I had been overlooked for some things that I thought I rightfully should, should have gotten. And then also, I had started doing some executive coaching in one of my last roles before exiting, and I had the privilege of supporting a lot of black female executives who are very feeling very disempowered, even though they had titles and roles and salaries, they weren't really feeling empowered. So it got me thinking about, you know, making an exit. My exit was actually to be around something that I may still do later. Definitely was not HR. And in researching the basically the journey of black women in entrepreneurship, I started identifying some of the struggles around the average black women owned business makes $24,000 a year. We make substantially less than most other groups. And one of the things that struck me in the research was one of the reasons, amongst other reasons, that include sexism, racism, etc, was that black women stay solopreneurs too long, so that immediately put me to thinking about hiring in teams, which I've been doing for 15 plus years, right, helping people do that. And so I realized that I could probably do this to help kind of merge my passion for empowering black women was something I did really well, and really navigate that way. And so this is where we landed.
I love that. So I'm curious, has more people been reaching out to you with, like, white owned businesses connected to like, how to help us with policy, HR, policy, so that we are being socially responsive? Have that? Has that been a thing in this I've had a couple of people
reach out to me on conversations around diversity hiring, and that's what you're talking about from Yeah, stuff like that, yeah. So I have had some organizations reach out to me around the conversation around diversity hiring. I don't know that I'm extremely palatable in that way, because most of my questioning back is really around great that you're going to roll out this policy, or you're going to put together this hiring initiative, but what is the actual, what's the what's the belly of it? Right? Like, what's the actual meat of this thing that you're trying to do is going to make sure that black people are ongoing or successful in an ongoing way, and not just kind of propped up to meet these diversity metrics. And so in some of that pushback, I haven't found a lot of companies. I'm not gonna say there are none, but none of the ones that reached out to me, I felt had alignment and really a heart to make an equitable place for black talent. It was we need to respond to this thing that's happening in news media. And so those are organizations I'm looking to partner with.
No That makes perfect sense to me, and it also I'm not surprised that they would reach out to you, because I feel like they've just been reaching they've just been reaching out to black people in general, for one like, come on, come on, you're black. Come be black over here. Um, that's definitely been a thing. Latoya, tell us a little bit more about amazing sophistication and how you came to this particular business. Uh,
well, on the road of entrepreneurship, as everyone know you you come up with different methods. And you know, there's, there's different things that you know you want to fall into. You know, fashion was always something that I've always been interested in. A couple years ago I did some small time modeling. So, you know, I have some history with that. Everyone loves clothes and shoes. So, you know, this is just one, and it's entity that I wanted to just begin in, because it actually came to me. I have the background in mental health, and I was trying to maneuver into that field. And this, while doing the research, I came up with some I came up with a search on beginning clothing line. So I said, Okay, let me explore it. Let's see what happened. Let's see what comes to and it kind of everything just kind of just fell into place on its own, doing research, reaching out to the manufacturers. And, you know, I'm the type of person like, once I see something kind of moving on its own, I am going to go with it, because this is what's supposed to happen. That's my belief with it. So once I was able to get in contact with the manufacturers, and you know, then we're sending links about designs and you know, how to do sales and stuff, I said, Okay, well maybe this, this might be my start, which might open up the pathway to everything else that I wanted to do. So it was just something that I kind of went with, because it just kind of just flowed on its own, and I just believed in it and had faith in it, and, you know, hope to pursue it and keep pushing it. And, of course, definitely expect that it's going to open up avenues to other entities that I want
to go into. I feel like there's this, there's this aspect of entrepreneurship that definitely seems more attractive and more sexy I feel like, than than what it actually is, and I don't right. So what, what for you to would you say are the differences between hat being an entrepreneur and having a business and having a job? What are some of those differences that you
major differences. Like you said, you know, everybody sees entrepreneurship as something that's sexy. You know, I've only been in business with my shoe brand for four months, and the last four months have this. There's a lot more downs than they are ups. There's a lot more trials than you know, there are, you know, successes. And you have to really push yourself to look beyond that. You know, when you're done with your nine to five, because I do have a nine to five job. I work with children's welfare. I'm in the public health sector. You know, I have a history of substance abuse. So it's different when you're going into someone else's jobs description that's already laid out for you versus you. In the person who is you're building a company, you're building a job description, you're building the HR system. It's so it's harder, because some, a lot of times, you might not have that support to do that. You don't have that blueprint, the template, to say, Okay, well, this is what I need to do. And I think that's what a lot of people don't see. It's definitely something that you're teaching. You're being taught while you are going along the way there, there's really no teacher, because you can speak with someone who is in the same industry, but their work is going to be totally different from yours,
right? Totally Yeah.
Sorry, and just everything that is what you just said, like exclamation points, check marks, all those things. Another thing that really becomes important is that, you know, we generally start businesses. So the difference between having a job, I will say, so if you start with the job aspect, or even being self employed versus building a business, those are three very different things, right? So the employment space I go to work every day. I don't know how the traffic is driven there. I don't know how they find their clients, the customers, whatever my job was, right? All the other pieces to running a business were not my business. I didn't have to think about them. I didn't have to pay for them. They didn't come on my check. They weren't part of anything. So I was on the receiving end of salary benefits, etc, whatever drama I had to deal with in that space, and whatever lack of autonomy I had, there were a bunch of things that went into and building a business that I did not have to concern myself with, right? Those things happen totally separate from me. Self Employment, I think similarly, is that There literally is you presenting yourself as talent forward to somebody that needs what you do. And so you're doing those things, and you're doing those things in a way where your capacity is your capacity. You work nine to five, 910, to 10, whatever that looks like. And at the end, you pack it up, you go home right or you go back in your living room right now, because we moving from pandemic building a business has a whole different set of nuts and bolts. And I I say that because there are while I do the HR thing really well, marketing, funnels, ads, finance, all the things that go with it, building out my services. I even had to think about like somebody else wrote my job description when I had a job. Now I have to literally sit here and write out what do I do, and explain it and identify my market, and how do I then relate to my market? On my job, I did a service that the business already knew that it needed. Now I'm trying to convince you you need what I do very different, right dynamics, and so I definitely think that, like, there is a difference, and then I think there's a point where you have to make a decision that whether you are building yourself another job that relies on you every day, Monday through Friday, the clock and in the business and what you do only brings in money when you do it, versus building a system that eventually is supposed to be able to run in your absence, right? I need you to pause. Imma pause right there. I'm sorry. I need
you to pause and I need you to rewind that and talk about the differences between building another job that's going to need you every day, because you may have to do that at the beginning, right, right, but that's not sustainable, versus building out something with systems. Can you talk a little bit more about why those are two different things and how to avoid that trap of the first one,
right? So literally, what I do every day is try to get people to that trap right and and rehearse it in our minds very early on, I'm going to say this is a very different conversation for black women because of how we're positioned in the world, how we're taught to work hard and to grind and to stay humble. So I found, for me and for a lot of the women that I'm connected to entrepreneurship and what it requires you to do and building a business literally goes directly against everything we're taught about, what it is to be a successful black woman in the world, right, that you get all of your degrees and credentials, that you stay humble and don't, you know, brag too much that you work really hard, that you grind all these hours, that you don't really ask for help, because that's a sign of weakness. You just gotta do all the things. And so now you start thinking about building a business that's sustainable, and you cannot do all the things. You can have it all, but you can't do it all, right, like those two things. So what I tell people very early on, and I'll say for me, and the reason I'm adamant about it is because I also decided that I needed to eat off the plate I was serving. And so we did, or we got to our first six figures with no external money. I think I want a $1,400 grant. I refuse to fully bankrupt myself in doing it. Hiring was the key for me. So early on, we got first $5,000 contract, and I was like, Who can I bring in to help take, buy back some of my time out of doing this work? The one thing that I think that most people do is that they wait until the business is big, right? They're doing all the things they can. They're doing it successfully. The business grows. But guess what happened? And now that you have 10,000 customers, now that you're making a million dollars, when do you have time to slow down and bring anybody else into your mix? Because now you're so busy delivering the service or providing the product, that now bringing in a team actually feels like more vendors than the support, because you still have to deliver all this stuff that you built your machine to deliver, and now you have to actually find time to slow down and train somebody else how to slow down and reach your hand out and pull them on this moving train with and it's not easy. So we end up with frustration because we essentially want people to be hired and come on and immediately start doing stuff that took us seven years to figure out right. So I've watched people, in my opinion, I would say, get your mindset early around which one you're doing if you are want to be a solopreneur, if you just want to control your own earnings and build sustainable income for yourself. I'm not knocking that. Do that, but be clear that that's what you're doing if you are building a business as early as you can if it's $5 on Fiverr, wrap your mind around the fact that every bit of money that comes into your business, there's a portion of it. If it's 10% 5% $2.80 cent, whatever it is, you are immediately looking for how you can leverage other people's time to give you room to do the things that you thrive in. And I know that ideally, that's not an easy conversation for most people, but the one thing that tell people do first is remember that after you leave their job, your business income is not a paycheck. If you're building a business that business income, that client money, that is not a paycheck, that isn't a business investment. So carve out what you need to live that does not include your Louboutins. Maybe that doesn't include that other stuff, right? What do you need to live and then immediately start investing it back into the business. So you don't get comfortable living on that number, because it ain't all yours, right? And think about early on, even if it's somebody to clean your house, do your laundry, What time can you hire out what things can you give away to someone else so that you can claim more of your time and focus it on your main thing? It's not easy, but we can all do it, if we just start thinking about it. Very early, joy, you
are taking us to business church, right? Yes, definitely. I definitely agree with everything that joy is saying. You know, one of the things that I've learned within the last couple months is not not only having someone to assist you with making sure that person is in alignment with what you are trying to do, because you can definitely get someone's help, and it's not beneficial to you, it's not beneficial to your business, and it's just another time wasted or another, you Know, dollar wasted on something that you could have reinvested somewhere else into your business that would propel the business a little bit more joy. Mentioned Fiverr, that's one of the services that I have been using these last couple months. And you know what I've been doing? Of course, I make sure I am, I try to look for, you know, mostly African American businesses. So I'm also assisting someone else you know in the culture, and making sure I'm pulling someone else up, because, you know, their expertise is definitely helping me in the long run. And I try to make sure that I'm assistant as much as I can in that aspect, but finding someone who's in alignment and who's not looking at you as a friend, and you know, it's just saying, Well, you know, I'm just going to do this for you because, you know, we're people, but because I am a business owner and I want my business to be successful and taken seriously, is another difficult aspect of entrepreneurship. Absolutely.
Natoya, can you talk a little bit more about some of the things that you wish you would have known a little bit earlier that you're kind of like, you've learned some lessons from it. It was a hard lesson, but, man, I wish I would have really known that. I
would, I honestly say, within the last four months, everything, everything about entrepreneurship, I wish I knew ahead of time. I am the type of person like I would I like to research things before I jump into it. And, you know, when I, when I started researching my business, I actually did a business plan about 10 years ago for fashion, a fashion brand that I wanted to start. And I went to the Small Business Association. I went to the small commerce Association. You know, I did a small business course that was about maybe three or four months. And even starts, even after having done all of that starts in the business, I still was looking for resources. I was still, I kind of felt like I was just spinning. Even after having that foundation and knowing the basics, it still wasn't enough for me. So it is difficult. You're always learning. Like I said, it's not easy at all. It's very difficult. And even now with the pandemic, which was one of the hardest things for me as a small business, because a lot of things that I had in place that I wanted to do in terms of marketing, and a lot of a lot of those stuffs were in person events I could not do. I had to push back. So then I had to rethink, how am I still going to launch this business? And. Hopefully put it on a platform where it's it has a good foundation, and I don't have to go back and do it again after the pandemic.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I mean, I think that's so real, and I find that that's really interesting to you. I feel like you're seeing a lot with that in that you had a business plan, you went to the SBA, and still in the process, they're still like, it's still on job training as you're going through the process. What some of the what are some of the experience you had joy in terms of things that you wish you would have known that now it's like, like that you know now that you wish you would have known earlier.
So one, I knew nothing about marketing and marketing and sales and marketing. The other thing is that I encountered a lot of and this is not to be disparaging, but I just I encountered a lot of mean girls when I first started business, because I was used to a different free flow of information. And it sounds like every time I ask somebody a question, they sent me a link to an invoice. Every time I didn't even know what I needed or what to ask, and it was immediately linked to an invoice. I understand it now. I don't still do it, but I understand it now. So what I wish I also had known is about the power of networks and communities and masterminds and circles and things like that, because the membership in those things gives you a different access to them. Now you're not an outsider trying to pick our brains. Now you're a member of the community that we're sharing information with. And I did not know that, so I was very off, put early on, and was confused as to like, how this was to work, because I was like, hey, black girl, I see you. How did you do such and such? And they were like, great. I'll be more than happy to help you. Here's my inbox, here's my link, and I would click on this link and it'd be like, $8,000 and I'm like, wait, I'm not even making money yet. So I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't know the politics. What I also realized, and I'm say this, and this is going to probably offend some people, but as I found that the people who make the real money sometimes understand the value of a free conversation. Yeah. So I also realized that a lot of people, what we had started doing, I think, in our community, what I try not to do is because nobody else is paying us, we were making each other pay each other for every little thing, as opposed of helping each other and figuring out how to get other folks to pay us. So I had to learn how to find the balance between, yes, some things you should be able to generally ask, but also, know what it's like when people are like, hey, I need to hire somebody. Can you just tell me? Well, no, that's actually what I do for a living in this paid space. I can give you a nugget or two, but that was something I wish I'd understood, like the entrepreneurial culture, a little bit differently, and understood sales and marketing. So because I think I was offended by something that really had a reason to it, people had just been exploited, and I didn't know what that meant. So I kind of went back in my bubble until I understood, like, you know what? You're not really a part of this person's networking community. You don't really have the right to pick their brain, but no one explained that, so I just was getting hit with these links and invoices and didn't know what
was happening. I think that's so invaluable to just understand the culture of entrepreneurship and the culture of exchange, because as a person who's an entrepreneur, if you are constantly getting requests for free information that you worked hard for. Um, it could feel draining. It could it could even feel parasitic, you know, in a way. So I definitely understand that, and I definitely have found that, I guess you could say, in some of those networks, definitely masterminds invaluable, and even on clubhouse, like I've gotten really, just being able to be a fly on the wall, and a lot of conversations in that space have been, has been really, really amazing for me. Latoya, tell us what are some of the like, biggest misconceptions that you feel like are out there about being entrepreneurship? I know we mentioned one earlier about, like, how it's a lot more sexier. I will tell you. One of the ones that I realized is like, I feel like people go into conversation. They're like, I'm the CEO of blah, blah, blah, right? And that's real sexy, but they're also the CEO, the intern, right? You know what I mean? They, they all of them. That was one of the things that was a misconception for me that you being the CEO means you're the boss of your boss. You're not just owner of a company, but you're a bossing you have. You're a boss of other people, right?
And I love you the you're the boss and you are the employee. You're everybody, right? You're the janitor, you're secretary, you're the person who's wanting to get lunch, yeah, I mean, and I also one of the biggest things like you, you probably won't make a sale when you launch within the first couple months. Usually, it probably takes businesses, what about two years to actually stabilize. So you have to have that mindset that like for me, what I when I tell people that, yes, I do own a business. However, you know my goal for the next year and a half, two years, is to build, build my community, to build my support, to build rapport within the business world, to to make sure that, you know, I might be ahead of some people, but I am. I am also mentoring, as I'm also seeking a mentor, because I don't know everything, and I know that you know everything that I don't know. Like you said, I go on clubhouse and I search them out. I go and I speak with people who who are offering you know, I will give you 10 minutes, 30 minutes of my time, and you can ask me four or five questions. I will seek those people out because they are offering something to me. Reading books is something I also do all the time to make sure that I'm gaining some knowledge of something that I don't know. And when I do have those conversations with people who are open to sit down and have a 30 minute conversation with me, I make sure that I'm making sure that their time is not wasted. I'm not asking how much your money you're making. I'm not asking you you know what you're buying. I want to know, okay, this is where I am. I want to move from point A, and I want to move to from to point B. What tips can you give me to get to that point? And within that 30 minutes, I make sure that I can then go, after the 30 minutes conversation, I can then go back to them and say, Listen, this is what I did. If you want to assist me moving forward, I have no issue paying you for that, because I know you are giving me something that's going to help me and move me along. And also you have to, you have to check your ego at the door a lot of times. You have to know that your support is not going to come from people that you know. It's going to come from people that you don't know. And you don't take that personally, don't feel that you are begging for their support or their companionship. And just know that, I say that, you know, if the immediate people who are around me cannot support me, there are 7.8 billion people on the face of this earth, right? Whether that's you running ads, whether that's you going to someone who is good with marketing, whether that's good with someone who's good with SEO, seek those people out and wherever you feel a void? Fill that void with expertise?
I love it. I there was something that you said that really resonated with me, and it sounded something similar to what Joy said when you were saying about building community and the significance of building community and entrepreneurial community and joy, you mentioned it when you were talking about networking and mastermind like having a collective, having a more communal approach to this thing called entrepreneurship. I feel like we are better with that. I think the thing that you highlighted just now, natoya, with seeking out community, is that your community may not be your cousin, right, your your it may not be your mom and them. It may not be like, don't get Don't be getting mad at your cousin, because
that's right, it's okay if they choose not to support you. And when I say support you, I mean, it's okay if they're not buying from you, right? They can support you spiritually. They can uplift you. You know, they take post your photos and share your contact. That's fine. What I'm saying is, if you are selling and they're not buying, do not take that personally, because you don't know what you especially now, within the last two years, we don't know what people are facing. So give individuals some grace, and just keep, keep looking for other options for sales, and some of those sales might come. Like you said, clubhouse is a is a perfect example of networking. And you know, entrepreneurship is like a fraternity. You once you are in that group, you are bound to find someone who's going to assist you where you need help. You just have to kind of just keep looking for that opportunity, and that's on social media and off social media. Mm,
hmm. Thank you for that. I think that's so true, and you're going to need that support when you come up which come up against challenges, joy in your process. What has been one of the biggest entrepreneurial challenges for your business? HR, for the culture? ECC, dream, then, thanks, computer.
I think so. I think generally it has been one. There's a negative stigma. So most people that I'm working with have interacted with HR in their jobs and they did not have a positive so they are not running over to, like, jump on these services the same way, right? So oftentimes I have to walk them through things and comments. I have to, you know, reverse engineer comments that people make, like, you know, HR is only there for the employer. When are you the employer? Right? Like, those are things that like we do. I think the other part has been, there's also a sea of consultants, and a lot of people call themselves consultants, and don't really help do the work. So I also often had to also undo bad work, right? People that said, Well, I worked with an HR person before, and they didn't really, I didn't get the outcome, the results. And without, like, shading, those people kind of walk through and say, Okay, well, you know, here's some things that they may have overlooked, or here's some things that I can assist them with. So that was some things, I think, for me, also HR folks talk in HR, and so it was really about, you. Rethinking and refining how to understand, not selling clients HR services, but identifying what transformation they were looking for, and how what we did brought them that transformation. So sometimes we're imma help you get compliant. They don't care about compliance, like nobody they know has been audited. It's not an immediate right? So it's those things where you start going in and using language. I literally had to learn how to say what I'm trying to say in the ways that, in that people are not what I think. I think appliance is important, but that's not the immediate need for their business. That part has been urgent too. And then I think the other thing was mindset stuff. One of the biggest things that I had was that oftentimes, and I talked, we had a bigger conversation about this. Earlier today, black folks told me that putting my business for only black folks would not allow me to have a flourishing business. Wow, fight against a lot, and I know people meant well, but it was around, you know, say people of color say women say women own this. They minority owned like me. Saying Black was problematic for more actually, I think more black people than non black people, because the truth of the matter is, you know, the other the other folks weren't letting me down anyway, right? I think there was something about it. And so I think that I spent a lot of time trying to literally just figure out what I was going to say until I literally just said, Nope, I'll fail at it first before I pivoted right and I didn't fail. So the other thing that I will say is, and it definitely supports, you know, the point that was shared earlier about natoya is that that, I think how you look at, I think her conversation around expecting your family to buy or, you know, things around a lot of stuff, also points back to mindset, right? Like, how we go into this stuff, looking at it and expecting what we assume support looks like, right? Unfortunately, none of my close friends and family members have businesses yet that need HR, right? So I already knew that was off the table. But even expecting people to share your flyer, promote stuff like, there's this expectation, and I had to learn now that I'm in business, like, hey, some of the stuff that people do I love and support them, but their stuff doesn't align with what I want on my timeline. So I've now been challenged by my own commentary about what support looks like. Or I love your hair products, but 12 of y'all sell hair products, and I really can't use 12 different products on five strands. And, yeah, like, I can't, right? So, like, how do we what does support look like in a different way? And one thing that my mother told me very early is, like, you know, if you building a business that your friends and family have to pay for, then you shouldn't build that business. Are your family and friends, you haven't done enough market research, you're not clear about who your target is, like, you're not clear about any of those things, so a lot of those things, but that's been my hardest struggle. I think once, I think, what I will say is that I was blessed early, early, early, that I made an investment in joining the mastermind before I even had clients like, I took some of my exit money and immediately jumped into a mastermind very early. I think what it did was it gave me clarity about who I serve, who I could serve, because it's a black mastermind. So now all the people you told me didn't exist exist, right, right, doing it. I think the other part that it did is that it saved me to figure it out self time and so unlike a lot of businesses, we literally went from like nothing to six figures in our first year and really in the last six months of the year. But it was around that clarity thought also want to push back a little bit on the idea that we have to struggle and pay our dues for 20 and 30 years before we can have successful businesses. Everybody's trajectory is different. So some people is year five. Some people is day five, right? This stuff takes off immediately. Get in your lane, turn off everybody else's progress, right? Stop looking at people's Facebook posts because they want it half the time they're only sharing you wins. They're telling you that they got a million dollars in revenue, but they're not telling you their profit margins are 1% and they're not making no money. They're not giving you the whole story, and most of us can't give the whole story, because nobody would buy our stuff if they didn't think we will hydrate. So you do have to be a little creative in the narrative that you share, right from a public perspective, but stop looking at everybody else's stuff. Don't get discouraged when somebody else calls a win. You don't know what it took to get there. You don't even know what they tell them the truth. Stay focused on what you're trying to build. Get crystal clear about what you're doing, what you do before, right? And that will alleviate some of the drama, because we spend a lot of time trying to serve everybody, and the person that wants us to serve them is like, I'm right here. And we so busy looking for everybody else, and we miss them up in the process, right?
Oh my gosh, you keep taking us to church. Okay? So reroute us back. This is the counter narrative show, not entrepreneur church, but it feels like it kind of narrow. Know You're fine. It's great. Uh, counter dare to show you watching live. We have we are joined by joy. HR, for the culture and natoya Amazing sophistication in this episode of minding her business, black women entrepreneurs, I want to say hello to everyone who is some folks are typing in comments. Uh, Tanika says it's a whole new world. It's like a whole new world was was revealed. Crystal Taylor says revenue does not equal profit. Tanika also said out so true. Someone else earlier posted, some people don't know how to support. I think you really said something in terms of like, yeah, sometimes support is sharing my content, letting a making a referral, sharing my affiliate link, those sort of things. But I think there is also this balance of your brand identity and one not not promoting anything that conflicts with your brand identity. And in addition to that, also you don't want to spam all of the people on your page. You don't want to constantly just be adding, you know, sending ads. And you don't want to pollute your marketing situation. So if I have seven friends and they all selling something, I cannot like, be posting this stuff all, you know, all of the time. So I think that all of that is, like, so relevant, so absolutely spot on what I
found, if I can just mention, yeah, powerful way that I found the support. And I hope somebody's listening this and takes tip from it. One thing that I did, and I got this from a group of other folks, the person actually writes a mini or wrote a mini narrative of what she does, including the links on how to connect, and sent it out to her community. And it was basically like, Hey, if you know anybody, if you're on a post, if you're in a group and somebody says, I need a toenail clipper, I click toenails. Here's my little summary. Here my links, so that when you tag me, you can also share my information, because people do a lot of tag and walk away, and then you come back trying to figure out why people tagged you. So one thing I would say is empower your community to share and support you. If you have a little mini narrative of what you do, and here's the link to the best way to go to my lead magnet, or whatever that gives people what they need. So they're not just random tagging you or trying to tell your service for you to other people, give them the tool. Think the other part is just being in a space where we center and take time to learn about what each other does. So I've literally started this month intentionally just connected with people and saying, let's have virtual tea. I just need to understand your business, right, and know you well enough so that when I'm in rooms, I can be your advocate in a room. I may not ever share your stuff or buy it, but I know you do it, so somebody's saying, hey. So this week, I was able to share someone I know know that trains on Excel pivot tables, someone had a training listed. I was able to share. She's now working with them to do a whole certification series, because they worked out well. All I did was share email complaints, right? I've never bought from her directly, but I've seen her results. I've seen what she does. So I think we have to also, rather than putting it on people to be our marketing teams, give them the tools that they need to help market for us effectively. So we can stop being in our bag, right? Like, just get off your back, stop being offended, and give people information and resources, right?
There's something I wanted to add to what Joyce said in terms of, you know, learning, learning a new way how to network. You know, she said that she she does her virtual tea. One of the things that I had to also reconsider is, you know, everyone have this saying that you know, no new friends. Forget that you want new friends because you want to make sure that you know, a lot of times when you meet, what I find out with networking, and I am in so many more new friends and new friends who has mentioned my name in different rooms, new friends who are providing different resources that I need to become successful. New friends who are, you know, providing me a connection with someone else, who could help me somewhere else in my business. So don't get into the mindset that you only need to stick with who you know, open up your resources, open up your networks, open up your friendships. And it doesn't mean that you are forgetting who you started with. What it means is you are fine. You're putting yourself on another level, that if you get on this level and you can support and bring someone else up that you knew in your lifetime, that's the way you have to think about it. Don't think about it. And you're going to switch up. You're going to change up. You need to be in different circles. You need to you need to have and and learn different things that way, that you can elevate and then also elevate who you know.
Natori on that tell me more about in terms of, like, networking, being in different rooms, knowing different people, and then, even more specifically, because we talked a bit about family interaction, we talked about community masterminds in these different spaces, or even just for yourself, does it mean something different? Does it mean something particular to you to be a black business owner? And if so, what does that. You.
I mean, I don't think that it means anything different. I just see it as you know, I'm a new business. I'm a black woman who started a new business, and I'm looking for resources and assistance. One of the things that I've done within the last couple months is I did, I am a moderator on Clubhouse. I'm a part of a clubhouse group that is for small businesses and freelancers, and within that group, every week, you know, we have different guests and different people who come in, and we are sharing resources. So when I'm in that space, I don't feel any different from anyone else in that room, because I know that we're on a same road, that we're helping each other. So to me, it really doesn't mean any difference whether I mean, you know, when I go into a room where it's like, you know how to make a million dollars in six days. In those rooms, I only feel different because sometimes I feel like I'm being talked at and not really being engaged in a conversation. So whenever I feel that way, I remove myself from those spaces. I remove myself from those rooms, and I would find a room where I actually feel like I'm engaging and I'm having a conversation, and I'm building a relationship with someone, you know, I'm adding value to what they're doing, and they're adding value to what I'm trying to do. And I feel that's how I as a business owner, that's how I I'm building my rapport.
Mm, thank you for sharing that. Um, Joy. Your business title is for the culture, you know the HR for the culture. So I feel like I know the answer. I might be assuming, um, but I want to ask you the question still, and ask you, what does it mean to you? I in either way, if it does mean something to specifically to be a black a black owned business.
So, yes, so I think one, it means a lot to me, on an individual level, right, that I was able to create this thing. I was able to take this arena and create a positive experience in it for people who normally don't navigate it positively, right? So, yes, that is a thing. I think, you know, we start thinking about generational wealth and legacy building, etc. I think that's important. I think, honestly, I also find a lot of joy in the reaction I get when people say the name of my business, like I literally. So originally, my business was named JVP legacy. It was named after my parents, so journal and Vivian Pittman's legacy. Everybody thinks it was my my initials, but it's my parents name. And as we were going through this, I realized I was spending so much time you say, you know, Hi, I'm the CEO. I'm the founder of JVP legacy, and they gotta explain all this stuff. Like it doesn't beg a question. No one wants to know what it is. It's like, I need a name that speaks more. And so what initially, one of the things that is important to me and what we do is culture work, also helping build cultures that people can work in and thrive in, especially people of color, right? So that was the thing. So the for the culture kind of was a spin on, not only am I doing this for black women, but we also are HR that focuses on culture creation, right, and building the type of environments that people don't just do roles or do jobs, but they really become embedded in what it is, right that the organization is trying to accomplish. So I think, you know, I don't carry business ownership, and I'll say this, I don't carry it really as a badge of honor because of the work that goes in it. I don't throw around CEO. I generally say founder of because I don't even know if I'm CEO status yet. I'm still doing administrative things to feel qualified to say Chief Executive Officer. What I also think is that I'm proud of the representation of it in that and I'm proud of the representation in connection with success because of the narrative around our businesses, and that what black women in business? I think people appreciate black people acknowledge black women in a way that's real tricky, because people always want us on their teams. They really want to Co Op, but we do, but no one wants to give us voice and value. Yeah, right. So we're necessary part of this thing, but we're not often handed right? All the things that come with it. And so I think it's important for me to be able to say that I can take a lead on something like this and empower people in the process, and being able to do it and make money and flourish and inspire other people and pay other folks rent, right in the process, I think feels really good, but I think I'm less enamored with the idea of ceoing or business ownership, and more I'm becoming falling more in love with not only what we empower our clients to do, but what I'm trying to position our business to empower our community to do period, right? And so I look at and I've been thinking more about this, like, how do we leverage entrepreneurship from the standpoint of community and generational wealth building? And I hear a lot of commentary around generational wealth building. I'm going to build this business, and then I take my empire pivot over here, and I'm. To buy this and pivot all these nine streams of income. And I think that's powerful. Think it's even more powerful that while I'm doing that, I'm also providing employment and benefits, and, you know, sustainable income for another person in my community that looks like me, right? So maybe their role is entrepreneurship, but they're black talent, and they're more than a diversity measure, and I'm able to give them that right by helping them connect with my clients. And also, I need talent, right? So I think that has become, I've become more passionate about that than throwing up my face on stuff and being like CEO comments. You know, like that part matters, I guess, representationally, but impact wise, it's really what we get to do through this vehicle of entrepreneurship.
Mm, love it. Thank you for sharing that. NATO, I'm curious with all of these pivots and things, and you're a new, relatively new business owner. You started your business in the middle of a pandemic. Yes, can you talk a little bit more about that. How were you thinking about this way, before the pandemic? Did the pandemic have any impact on like, revving you up or like, what exactly was that the impact of the pandemic when you starting your business?
Definitely the pandemic had a lot to do with it, and a lot to do with it. Because, like I said, you know, I have written a business plan 10 years ago, but I never took the steps to actually start the business, meaning, you know, reaching out to the state and getting my registry, my organizations and registration done and my LLC done. I did that in November of 2020, and, you know, after several months of the pandemic, I just kind of was just like, You know what I was I was at home, so I had the time to actually focus more on building a better foundation, versus pre pandemic, when I wasn't really home as much and I was coming home. I guess I work in children's welfare. So my schedule is not technically a nine to five schedule. My schedule could be a nine to 9am schedule or nine to 11pm schedule. So being that I was home more, I said, you know, let me take this time so at least put down the foundation. And at least if I know that the foundation is down, I can always continue building on it around my day job, with a lot of people losing their jobs during the pandemic. You know, that was also a concern for me. I didn't want to be in a space where I didn't have another stream of income, or I didn't have something else to fall back on. So the pandemic definitely was a catalyst for starting the business, a very hard one, because, like I said, I wasn't able to do the in person marketing that I wanted to do, you know, I wanted to have a preview party where people could actually see the product and touch the product and hopefully get it, have a conversation with people. They can ask me, you know, what was the process with this? You know, what? What material that you use, and you can touch the material. So I couldn't do that and but it also was a blessing in disguise, because it also made me focus on the little things that I missed, the details that I wasn't thinking about, that I had to go back and say, Okay, well, maybe if I do this after the pandemic, I know how I can set this up better. I was able to meet more people over social media and through different resources who I can say, okay, post pandemic, I know you can assist me with marketing. I know you can assist me with photo shoots. I know you can assist me with getting in contact with stylists. So it was a blessings in disguise. Um, still a trial, but I'm grateful for it.
Thank you for sharing that joy. How have you been impacted? Um, by the by the pandemic.
Um, so I've actually not struggled through the pandemic. So I actually started I ll seed, and did all the paperwork for a business in 2017 and then still had a job. So I just kind of had it. There wasn't really do anything. So I actually exited my job November of 2019 November 30, 2019 and then pandemic February. So right, when I decided I'm gonna give it all I got, here came, I refuse to say pandemic. So I'm gonna say here came Panama bread. They walked in, and just literally, it scared me a lot, because my fear was I was trying to start something when the world was shutting down, what I was able to do which? And I think it happened. And then I realized it was happening, and I moved with it is that the businesses that I started getting traction with were e commerce businesses. Because while the world shut down, e commerce, businesses that were already building, people were still buying stuff, right? Folks were having big days, right? Because you couldn't go to the store, right? The world of E commerce was flourishing, and I so happened to have snuck in and started connecting with business owners that were actually seeing more revenue through the pandemic. The problem was they were not fully prepared, all of them, for the influx and orders and production. You, which is a hiring problem. So here I go, right perfectly positioned to kind of slide in and secure these And so essentially, we really started doing and, like dove in and focused JVP legacy now HR culture. We really focus it in on HR work. I was kind of doing general strategy stuff, like, it wasn't really focused. So we honed in really around August and September got, like, our first major contract, and it just kept growing from there. So when I say like we had six figures, it was really between heavily I might have been at 18,000 in the business at July, and we closed out as a six figure business in December, because the traction just went right. And so I was actually now say I was, I'm not gonna say I was blessed by the pandemic, because I also realized that's a privileged comment to make, because so many people took so many losses. What I'll say is that I was able to identify a need, and enough people had that need where I was able to thrive in the pandemic, and we've been able to move that traction forward, but it really was not going to call it luck. I definitely know it's blessing and positioning, and I think it was just the time and work and work definitely work. But I also know that a lot of people are working hard and just not in the right space. Things came together in a really, really great way for what we were trying to do. And I think, you know, even in that, and I'll say I had to listen to who was coming for me, because it was the black women that were coming for me. And I literally had to go through, I literally did, I did, think I did a Facebook Live, but one of the big conversations that I said was, you know, I had to reject the lie. And when I walked into the this business space, and I'm hoping that this also helps, kind of this journey for someone, the lie in my mind was that black women would not support this business, that I that I did believe what people said, that if I called it out, and I only said black women, I was going to struggle and want to pay and then, and I kind of absorbed also, even some of the competitiveness that I had experienced with black women corporate, because they only have a seat at the table. We was all fighting for it, right? So I did not understand that this did not have to look like this. And black women kept showing up. And so at some point, it also gave me the courage to say, How did I not speak back to the people that's speaking to me, and keep trying to say everybody else when they're clearly letting me know that they're here, right? So even that that that changing of the name was a literal planting the flag in the sand and saying, we here for y'all right? And I'm not this is not something that we're doing because something tragic happened to a black man, and so now black alignment is popular. This is something that we're doing intentionally, and we're going to continue to do it. And so I think those kind of things, I think, have come of it. But it was the pandemic, I think, created a dynamic that we were able, I believe, to grow faster, and people were looking for us differently because of all of those things that occurred. And so, yeah, I used to not say it because so many people were struggling, and I didn't want to say it out loud. But I'm comfortable saying that, you know, it did position us for success.
Yeah. I mean, it's a reality. It's a reality that it had different impact on different people's real life, lived experiences, and your you know one person's live experience, experience does not invalidate another person lived experience. So both of those are both could be true. We are getting down to the bottom of the hour. I can talk to y'all so much more about so much more. But before I let you go, I want to let people know how to get in contact with you. I'm gonna start with you. Natoya, tell people, how can they stalk you on social media? Please.
Did I stalk me on social media? You? You won't be happy this, but, um, definitely you can get in contact with me. Um, Instagram is the best bet right now to get in contact with me. Um, my IG name is amazing, sophisticate. Um, you can find me on there. Um, also our website is, I can give it a I'll post the website so you can see our website. We can see our shoes, but you could go on. I like to send people on Instagram because it has all of our photos of, you know, all of our products. And I know some people like to see before they email or going to go on the site, website, and it's kind of fun, and you can get in direct contact with me on Instagram. You know, I'm one of those persons that I do answer my DMs because, you know, I like building a relationship with people. I like long term relationships and keeping those connections. So please check me out on Instagram. Amazing. Sophisticate. Just type it in and we'll pop up. Awesome.
Gotta ask you, is this alive shoes.com? You, I'm sorry. Can you say that again? Are you alive shoes.com?
You can go to the IG page and it'll show you the link to that shoes after the show. Yeah,
because I'm on a site that I see a bomb shoe on, and I may have to click on it. So I was
like, Okay. Y'all the
right person, because I'm a shoe person. I'm like, wait, these are cute. These red pumps I've seen on here with this print
on, I am, yeah, I am all about a good boot or a good booty, honey. Listen, it changes everything. I feel like I get a whole different attitude when I put it on a nice pump, a nice Yes, I definitely agree, honey. I'm a different person.
I'm like, you gotta talk different.
I need you to, I need you to lower your voice a little bit when you talk. When I got on these shoes,
with the shoes on
absolutely and I think that that's, that's something that's invaluable to you. Natoya, in terms of, like, it's not just a shoe, it's sometimes for people, it's a it's an entire transformation. I have built entire outfits around the show. Yes,
definitely, definitely, I definitely agree. Yeah.
Also joy. How can we find you on the internet, on the interwebs, I won't say stock, but how can we find you? Talk me. Okay,
so everywhere I exist as either Olivia, Pope of HR or HR for the culture. So we have both a personal page and business page, they start to look alike at some point, because then you get real particular about what you want your personal page. So I'm either the Olivia Pope of HR on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all those platforms, and then also HR for the culture. You can find them on those platforms as well. The easiest way to connect is I have two ways I'm going to share. One is the direct connection to my mighty network. So it's called community.hr for the culture.com it's a free, open network and community. We're actually transitioning away from Facebook because Facebook hates Facebook does crazy stuff with algorithms and hides and stuff, all kinds of stuff. So you can definitely go right there and join the community, and we'll let you write in. And if you want to talk to me, you want to chitchat with me, I don't say DM because sometimes the DMS get hidden, they get lost, and I really can't answer you, but you can feel free to text me so I have a separate text number, and you I'm going to drop that also in the comments. You can literally text Hey, Hey girl, hey. So, 732-307-6444, I get all those messages to my phone I will answer, but it's just easier for me than DMS, because I found private things that the things sent to private message that I hadn't seen for three months at a time. So the easiest way is through those two areas. So join the community, join the conversation. We share nuggets and all other kinds of stuff. You can learn more about me and our services there. If you want to move into a actual relationship of hiring as a business owner, you can do all that starting there, or you can just text me directly. Hey at 73233076444,
awesome. Y'all were great, fantastic. Um, first I'm going to thank my guests. Thank you so much for sharing your time and attention on this Saturday night. This is a Saturday night with fantastic weather, so I do not take lightly that you are sitting somewhere inside not enjoying the weather. I mean, it's getting low now, but but you are still inside talking to me and talking to this audience and sharing your information. So thank you so much for for sharing your time. Thank you for inviting
us. I don't I also, in turn, don't take it lightly when people share their audience. I think that there's something to be it's like bringing us in your house, right? There's some so I absolutely appreciate you sharing, allowing me to share my story and about my business and my voice with your community as well. And if I can ever return the favor, please let me know.
Oh gosh, I gotta have y'all both back. I gotta y'all both back. And I want to say thank you also to the counter narrative. Thank you computer. I want to say also thank you to the counter narrative audience. Thank you for engaging, writing your comments, giving your eyeballs to the to it, doing engagement, sharing where you share. And if you are watching this on YouTube, please click and subscribe. Also feel free to write a comment, and the information from both folks will be inside the description. So if you want to follow up with joy, or you want to follow up with natoya, you'll be able to do that. Um, with this video, thank you so much for your time. It's been the counter narrative show. Have a good night.
Good night, everyone. Thank you.
I need to know everything. Who in the what in the where I need everything. Trust me, I hear what you're saying, but I like this. Know what you're telling me. I'm curious. George, I happen to pause for five and a horse. I'm ready for war. I'm coming for throws eternal ghosts. I need to know everything you.