- 6 months ago
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00:00Hi, I'm Tosh Ernest, the Head of Wealth for Advancing Black Pathways at JPMorgan Chase,
00:13a bold initiative aimed at helping the Black community close historical gaps in wealth
00:19creation, educational achievement, and long-term career success. Thank you for joining us here at
00:25East Week today. Black entrepreneurs like you play a pivotal role in the economic health of Black
00:31communities. And as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the U.S. economy, JPMorgan Chase has been
00:39intentional about supporting small Black businesses like your own. To help Black businesses navigate
00:46our uncertain economic environment, we've partnered with four business advocacy groups to launch
00:52Advancing Black Entrepreneurs by Chase for Business. This free resource designed to help
00:58Black entrepreneurs capitalize their businesses in the middle of a global pandemic and position
01:04themselves to thrive during the economic recovery. Here's a little bit more about this exciting new
01:11initiative. Black communities have historically faced discriminatory lending practices that have
01:18impaired their trusted banks and their ability to grow wealth. Through programs like Advancing Black
01:23Entrepreneurs, we're giving owners the tools and advice needed to prepare their businesses. Our curriculum
01:30covers a variety of topics including how to protect your cash flow, reduce expenses, maintain vendor
01:37relationships, and more. We've joined forces with the National Minority Supplier Development Council,
01:43the National Urban League, U.S. Black Chambers, and Black Enterprise to launch this effort to help us
01:49connect with Black businesses nationwide. This initiative is as intentional an effort that I've seen from
01:57many financial services companies to address those long-standing Black American problems of income
02:03inequality and the pervasive persistent racial wealth gap. If you look at the Black community, our opportunity to
02:10grow our economy starts with small businesses. If you ask any business owner their number one concern,
02:16they will say access to capital. But if you ask a Black business owner, they will say their number one,
02:20two, as well as number three concern is access to capital. For us to move forward with Black entrepreneurship,
02:26it's important that we have the necessary resources to make our businesses sustainable and successful over time.
02:31These businesses need to marry themselves with larger entities so that they can have
02:38that foundation of growth and grow to size and scale. But that can only happen if we create
02:44sustainable models for growth so that these larger entities can then in turn beget more businesses.
02:51There's that old African proverb, right? If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far,
02:56you go together. We know that we can only do that with community partnerships.
03:00We are excited that Chase has stepped in the game. They've made a huge commitment to our communities,
03:07our businesses, as well as the organizations that are partnering with them. Most importantly,
03:11I see it's a win for Black businesses across the country.
03:13joining us to lead today's discussion are Lavonda Davis and Kaneo Awazin, business bankers at Chase.
03:32Lavonda has over 24 years of financial services experience. She has a longstanding commitment to
03:40working closely with her clients to understand their business needs and operates to provide them
03:46with the right solutions, adding value to their businesses. Kaneo has over 13 years experience in
03:52financial services and works with his clients, understanding their business in a way that allows
03:57him to provide his unique insights and add value to every interaction. Together, they are experts in areas
04:04such as cash management, credit solutions, and other business services. We are pleased to have
04:10Lavonda and Kaneo alongside three successful women entrepreneurs. Lavonda and Kaneo, I'll turn it
04:18over to you. Thank you, Tosh. My name is Lavonda Davis, and I am a business relationship manager at
04:26JPMorgan Chase. Kaneo and I are excited to be a part of this wonderful event. Hello, everyone. My name is
04:35Kaneo Wiersman. I'm a business relationship manager with JPMorgan Chase. I'm excited to be here today to
04:40present this topic with my colleague and partner, Lavonda Davis. We have three excellent black female
04:46entrepreneurs joining us. We have Pauline, Tyleesha, and Elisha, and I hope everyone's ready to take some
04:52notes and learn today. Hello, everyone. My name is Tyleesha Summers, and I am the co-founder of Spendet.
04:59Spendet is a financial technology company helping people pay off debt and everyday bills with every swipe of
05:06their debit card or banking transaction. As a consumer spends, a predefined amount is automatically
05:12deducted with every transaction they make. I am so excited that I am here today. I look forward to
05:18learning all the nuggets in order to help take Spendet to the next level. Hi, everyone. My name is
05:24Pauline Edoha. I'm the founder of Mocktail Club. Mocktail Club is a line of premium crafted non-alcoholic
05:31cocktails. I came up with the idea when I was pregnant and wanted something sophisticated,
05:36healthy, and I wanted to feel included. So I started a company. We're sold at Whole Foods,
05:43online, Amazon, and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you,
05:48Essence C-Suite and JPMorgan Chase for inviting me. Hi, I'm Alicia Scott. I'm the CEO and founder of
05:55Range Beauty. Clean beauty for the forgotten shades, utilizing botanicals and makeups specially formulated for
06:01eczema and acne prone skin. I started this line after dealing with my own eczema and acne and finding
06:06it difficult to have brands that cater to my skin type and to my skin tone. We're currently sold in
06:12Target and have been featured by Beyonce.com, Cosmopolitan, and Allure to name a few. I am so
06:18excited to be here and learn all that I can from Chase regarding my finances. What I like to do is find
06:25out from you how COVID-19 has impacted your business. And I would also like to know, we would like to know
06:32what is it you would like to get from out of this session? So for our company, it actually magnified
06:39the problem in terms of consumer debt that we are trying to solve from the beginning. But more
06:45specifically, it helped us extend our focus to helping businesses. Because not only were we just
06:54focused on individual customers, the COVID pandemic helped magnify the issue that businesses are
07:03struggling to receive payments from their customers. And so we went to businesses directly and started
07:09targeting them. Part of the challenges we faced during COVID was really growing in the local brick
07:17and mortar stores, as well as other restaurants, food services. Prior to COVID, we had these great
07:26projections of how many stores, real stores we would actually grow in and, you know, how many restaurants
07:34we would grow into. But the restaurant industry has been hit dramatically, as people do not want to
07:42eat in restaurants, and the capacity in terms of how many people are in restaurants has declined. So the
07:50turnovers reduced from that perspective. I think what has been interesting and actually,
07:57I guess, beneficial in a way, is it's forced us to work on our e-commerce business.
08:04And so you've essentially pivoted from being a brick and mortar store to more of an e-commerce player.
08:12And it's really forced us to really appreciate social media, SEO, and really harness the internet
08:21to grow. And that's actually been great from a strategy standpoint. I think prior to COVID,
08:27we focused more on the brick and mortar and the typical brokers to get us into stores.
08:33And now it's really pivoted into more of an e-commerce play. And so that, I would say,
08:41is part of the key things that we've had to adjust to. And interesting, as well, has been virtual parties,
08:47virtual baby showers, virtual corporate happy hours. And we realized we started getting businesses from places
08:55from places we didn't even realize existed. So it's been interesting to sort of change the business
09:01model during COVID to survive. And we've been able to do that. So that's the positive from that
09:07standpoint. But it was definitely an adjustment in terms of where you saw yourself five years from now,
09:14versus sort of living by the moment and really pivoting immediately to the changes in demand and
09:22really how people shop nowadays. It's changed dramatically. And in terms of what I would like
09:27to get from this session would be really growing in the midst of COVID and appreciating how you could still
09:36fundraise and try to build a business despite being in this environment.
09:42So for us, our biggest challenge was having to pivot from in-person pop ups and brand activations to solely
09:50e-commerce. We had an e-commerce presence, but it was balanced with us being able to do
09:56kind of like events and in-person gatherings that people could actually try to make up in person. It's a bit
10:02difficult when you're only able to see the shades online and not sample them. So we just made sure to make our
10:08site even easier to use for our guests, making sure that we had more images for shades, allowing them to
10:15participate in our sample program. And then along with that came the difficulty of actually keeping up
10:22with the amount of e-commerce sales we saw during COVID. There were a lot of people shopping online and
10:27cosmetics saw a huge increase. And so trying to keep up with the inventory on hand, keep up with our demand
10:33was another issue for us. And out of this program, I just hope to learn more about focusing in on our
10:41finances. Now that we've seen such a large increase, we've gone from smaller sales to a lot larger and
10:49significant sales. So just figuring out how to balance that area.
10:52Okay, ladies, thank you for joining us. I look forward to covering the material we have here
11:08today. So ultimately, why are we here? We're here because of COVID-19. As I'm sure many of you know,
11:14COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the Black community over the past, I believe,
11:20while we are now close to 10 months. 40% of Black business owners have been shut down permanently
11:28as of February. As we all know, COVID is not just something that, you know, affects your business,
11:33it affects you personally as well. I'm sure everyone here knows or has personally had some kind of deal
11:40with COVID and could speak to a story of how they've been affected. So that's the reason we're here.
11:47So we do have some good news, right? Ultimately, I think the country is starting to wake up to the
11:51fact that Black America hasn't been treated, you know, the best, you know, historically over the
11:57years, right? So there is a momentum building towards having a more inclusive economy, right,
12:04where we could just have more equal paths, not just Black individuals, but Black business owners.
12:09And that's what we're here to do today. JP Morgan definitely sees the challenges out here. And
12:14we're here with our program Advancing Black Entrepreneurs to provide resources, right? So
12:19provide resources, information, education, advice, guidance, to help Black business owners like
12:25yourself kind of go back out there and rebuild or build the Black entrepreneur or the Black business
12:32environment. First, let me say that you women business owners are not alone. And what I like
12:41to do is share some statistics or share what businesses and non-for-profits all over the country,
12:49some examples of how they have shown their creativity and how they have persevered during this global
12:57pandemic that we're facing. So I like to talk about Harlem School of Arts. Harlem School of Arts,
13:04you know, had class sessions in line. And when you have, if anyone is familiar with Harlem School
13:10of Arts, you're coming in, you know, it's an art school. So it requires to have the physical,
13:18you know, discussion and contact. And what they managed to do within weeks after the pandemic hit
13:25is get online, establish a virtual online school program, where over 200 students were able to
13:33get online, they were able to connect immediately. And not only were they able to connect, they were
13:39able to connect after their classes to have discussions like these. So it's possible. It's all
13:46about going virtual. It's all about changing and being creative as it relates to your business
13:52and knowing that there are other businesses out there that are like that, that are facing your
13:57example and your situation. I also like to talk about Melba's and talked about the restaurant,
14:02Pauline. Melba's found a new way to support their employees. Now, obviously, during that time,
14:10several employees were laid off. She managed to create a GoFund to allow people to fund their
14:19employees to establish a fund to fund their employees. And not only did she do that,
14:27she managed to be creative within how she set up her restaurant, you know, having outside dining
14:33within social distances. So again, she was able to be creative in allowing customers to still dine at her
14:44restaurant and at the same time, support her employees. I can go on and on and talk about many
14:52others. Harlem Candle Company was very creative. I would look up their business if you want to know
14:59more about how she was able to bring the Harlem Renaissance online and establish e-commerce, attracting
15:06more businesses such as you, the example that you mentioned, Alicia. And we also have Sudsy Water Laundry
15:14and Dry Cleaners. That service, a retail laundry service, now they offer the service to pick up at no cost
15:24to seniors and just be more creative to make it more easy for the consumer where they don't have to come in to
15:32drop off their laundry, but they can go, they'll have someone go to their home, pick up their service
15:39and deliver it back to them. So it's more of a no contact. And also, I just want to point out Brownsville
15:45Multi-Service Family Health Center. What they managed to do was, this is a non-for-profit, they increased
15:53ways for people to get access to food and delivery services, and they made it available possibility for
16:00seniors and for other individuals to have information accessible to them so that they can know where,
16:08where can I go if I want to get food? Where can I go if I need to get help for Medicare? Where can I go
16:14if I need resources for my own personal situation? And by doing such, they created awareness in the community.
16:23I just wanted to point out those things because not only has this helped the businesses to continue to
16:29function, it has helped them to also sustain and to continue to run well during this time.
16:43Right now, the top challenge for most business owners is cashflow, right? Because like you mentioned,
16:48we have vendors who are either not getting paid in time or clients who are slow paying, which is causing
16:55you know, clients to lose funds or actually lose clients because they can't afford to cover certain
16:59expenses. So the first part of this is protecting your cash. And how do you do this is by reducing
17:06expenses. So I'm going to ask, Pauline, I'll come back to you. Since the pandemic hit, have you done
17:12anything to kind of reduce your expenses? I would say I've been focused more on contract work. So whether it's
17:20accounting, etc, I'm just keeping an eye on overhead costs by doing that. And then just doing a lot of
17:28fault buys in terms of like packaging, etc, to kind of reduce my cost of production and cost of eCommerce.
17:36Yeah, so definitely for us, we had contracted a marketing agency for several months to help us put
17:44together our organic and paid marketing strategies. And we could have continued on with them to actually
17:52help implement like blogs and keep up with social media. But looking at our finances, we decided to
17:58actually stop that contract. And now we actually have a marketing intern, which is doing a great job, but at a
18:06less, a lesser amount, I guess.
18:09Having an understanding of your books and your expenses is real key. Because right now,
18:14this is not necessarily the time for frivolous expenses. Another way in terms of improving cash
18:20flow is to speak with your vendors, right? So at this point in time, if you have inventory that's
18:27not moving quite as fast, speak with your vendors and talk about the terms, the terms that they offer
18:33for you, right? So if your business has slowed down and your vendors typically, you know,
18:39they bill you 30 days or if you just cash on delivery, speak with them about the possibility
18:45of extending terms to you or renegotiating terms, right? Because that buys you more time to collect
18:51on your end and then pay them as well. Because last thing your vendor wants is for you to go out
18:55of business because you're a client of theirs and they should want to help you.
18:58So the third part we want to talk about in terms of kind of protecting showing up your business and
19:07protecting cash flow is improving your collection, right? So just like, you know, business owners are
19:12having trouble, your clients having problems as well. So you want to find ways to make it easy for
19:17people to get you money, you know, faster, right? So possibly, I think most of you are pretty,
19:24you mentioned your, a lot of e-commerce here. So a lot of digital payment solutions might be
19:29something you might want to, you know, make sure you have in place where you're getting paid via,
19:33you know, wires, ACH, credit cards, just ways to collect funds faster, as opposed to the,
19:39you know, I'm not sure people still write checks, but you'd be surprised
19:42in terms of businesses still cutting checks out there.
19:47I like to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about how do you manage your inventory
19:52and your assets? So you have this cash coming in, you have sales that are coming in with the sales,
19:58with the inflow of cash that is coming into your business. What do you do with that cash? And
20:06is there a period of time as you grow and you need to purchase more inventory to make more sales
20:13that you find yourself needing more money to purchase that inventory so that your sales can increase?
20:23So for us, we're kind of in a unique situation because with our inventory in the beginning,
20:30we only made inventory as it was ordered when we started off really small. As we, as our business
20:36grew, that's when we started making sure we had inventory on hand, ready to prepare orders, etc.
20:42This past spring was our biggest challenge because we sold through four months of inventory in one
20:48month. And so that rush that we received, we immediately put it back into the business to
20:54make sure that we weren't out of stock for too long so that we could keep up with the demand that was
20:58coming in. But on top of that, I'm also someone who participates in a lot of grant and pitch
21:03competitions. So in addition to the cash flow that we had coming in, I was also doing things on the side
21:09to make sure we had extra cushion through grants and basically free money so that I didn't have to
21:15dip into taking a loan or go into debt through credit cards or any other forum. So just trying
21:22to see what works with the inventory and making sure that we didn't order too much, but making sure we
21:28had enough for fulfilling these orders that were coming in and making sure that we weren't out of
21:35stock for too long. So what did you do with the excess cash that you get as a result of the sales?
21:40So the excess cash we just hold on to, put into basically our like savings fund, rainy day fund.
21:46That was something that I had to dip into. We moved into one space initially out of my apartment.
21:53That space eventually became too small very quickly. We had to move into another space very quickly.
21:59And so the cash reserves helped with that. There was also with us talking to retailers,
22:06something that came up about our packaging. So our packaging for e-commerce is very different from
22:12packaging that you would see on the shelf. So that was an expense we weren't exactly considering
22:16to do like a redesign. So knowing that we had the extra cash reserve to do that. So it's really just
22:22putting it to the side for the expenses that we, the miscellaneous expenses that we aren't exactly
22:28expecting every month. Tyleesha, let's hear from you. Yes. So of course we don't have inventory,
22:36as you mentioned earlier. However, as a bootstrap company, similar to Alicia's story,
22:42all of our funding has come from pitch competitions mainly and accelerator programs that we've participated in.
22:49And over the four year time period, we've, we've not raised, right? But we've won, if you will,
23:00close to $275,000. And so people may say, well, that's a lot on one hand, but some may say, no,
23:06that's not. And if you're getting it sprinkled in, you know, a little bit at a time, it's really not.
23:12But what it taught us is that we have to be very strategic in how we spend the cash that comes in.
23:17And for us being a financial technology company, our tech is the most important thing. If the tech
23:23doesn't work, right, you're dealing with people's money. If that doesn't work, then you lose their
23:28trust and you could never get it back. So most of our cash that has come in has been to support the
23:34development of our technology and also to support the dev team that supports our technology. And so
23:41the cash that we get that, I guess, if you consider it excess, we pretty much like hold on to it because
23:48we know that something's going to come up. We want to roll out a new feature. We're looking at hiring
23:54sales and marketing full time. But right now we're kind of doing it ourselves and managing
24:00as best as we can. And so we we need need to bring someone on full time and until we get the capital
24:07to bring someone on full time. Just like we go to our favorite store and buy our favorite dress when
24:13it's on sale. One of the things you can always consider if you have inventory that you see you might
24:19know no longer need because you want to gear towards something else, you can sell it at a discount. As you
24:24all mentioned, you have assets, right? What are you doing? Are you using those funds to put them back
24:31into the business? So now that you have those assets into your business, into a savings account or
24:37another, you know, account vehicle for business purposes, now you want to just make sure that
24:45where's my next step? What does this mean for me today? You know, where do I see my business
24:51business a year from now? I also like to just point out some accounting methods, methods around
24:58clean accounting. I don't know if any of you received the government funding, the paycheck protection
25:04program, or if you have that extra cash, just making sure you know what's coming in to my business,
25:12the income and what's going out. With me investing a little bit more in someone that would give me a higher
25:18return and get me where I need to be will make a difference and will help my business. That's
25:24something that you might want to consider. Do you have a business relationship with a banker at the
25:33at your local branch? And and one of the things, if you go into a bank and that person don't know the
25:40answer, know that there is always someone that does. And it's just a matter of getting to the
25:47right person that you can have a relationship with a business banker where you can be transparent.
25:53Things are going great. Here's what's happening. These are my concerns as we grow. I want to position
26:00myself to take my company to the next level. Or I'm a little concerned that, you know, things are
26:06looking good now, but I'm not sure about what's going to happen five months from now, three months
26:11from now. But having that conversation, that one on one conversation as it relates to your business.
26:19How many of you have a business plan?
26:24So a business plan is a living document, right? So it's something that talks about your business
26:29and explains what your business does, right? So you want to be able to say, you know, what you do,
26:34you know, how you do it, why you do it, and why it's going to be successful, right? So this is
26:38something to review on a pretty frequent basis, especially, again, going back to the time period
26:44where you have this pandemic, you know, you started a business two years ago, you know, I'm sure no one
26:50envisioned 2020 lockdowns and, you know, all the challenges we faced, that's not that wasn't part of
26:55your business plan, right? So I'm quite sure we all had anticipated growth every year. But 2020 showed us
27:00that that's not the reality. So now's a good time to look at your business plan and see where you can
27:06make adjustments. Another part in terms of the business plan is understanding, you know,
27:10your competition, understanding your market, right? So we're bankers. So we hear a lot of,
27:14you know, it's not a pitch competition, but when you, I'm sure when you pitch, you have to show people
27:18that you know what you're referring to and you understand the market that you're trying to jump into.
27:23So your business plan should take into account the market that you're dealing with and also
27:27understanding, you know, your clientele, right? So understanding who you're selling to or who you're
27:32providing the service for, understanding who out there is providing a similar service
27:37and what makes you and what makes you different.
27:42What adjustments did you make, you know, due to COVID from when your initial plan was first created?
27:48Can you just kind of give us some pointers on that?
27:50Pre 2020, the assumption is you grow in all the retail stores. So let's use Whole Foods,
27:58number of other natural stores, and you just continue to grow in terms of how the business plan
28:03and projection models look like. And now it's different. It's a lot more weighted towards
28:11e-commerce versus previously. So that's, that's been the sort of difference in the model. But what
28:202020 has shown is that it's very, that is a very profitable model as well. So the business has actually
28:29grown significantly from the standpoint that it's actually weighted on e-commerce and doing really
28:34well in that sector. But I do think 2022 or half or a quarter of 2021 will come back. And so what the
28:46model and where I believe that the future will be is that as much as the e-commerce will be a platform
28:54as well, there will be that continued growth eventually in a year or so in the standard restaurant
29:00bars. And in terms of people's needs, people do want better options than just drinking alcohol all
29:08the time. And people do care about health and wellness. And my drinks have apple cider vinegar,
29:15which has prebiotics. So if you look at kombucha and you look at what is in with the millennials today,
29:24it is health and wellness. It is probiotics, prebiotics, drinks that have some wellness benefit to that.
29:32That's a trillion dollar industry. So what makes me different is I'm struggling between sort of
29:39a non-alcoholic option, but also health. And that's why I do well in the natural food industry and the
29:48whole foods and the natural stores, because I'm catering not only to a nice drink, but something
29:54that actually does something for you. It's functional. And then one percent of my sales goes to clean water
30:00access globally. So it's a brand that cares about doing things. I only use clean ingredients and organic
30:09juices. It does follow on the themes of the future, which is sustainability in terms of packaging,
30:16clean ingredients, functionality that's good for you. And less drinking. Even the seltzer waters that
30:23you're seeing or seltzer drinks that you're seeing from the big guys, Budweiser, are all low to no
30:30alcoholic drinks that are happening. So these are the trends of the future. They won't go away.
30:35They're actually just going to grow. And the e-commerce is showing that that business is growing
30:42irrespective of 2020. You would think people were drinking. I mean, that's pretty miserable.
30:47But I've seen a spike in terms of e-commerce. So I don't know why people are staying sober.
30:55So it shows the model works and I can see the growth. And I see the future being a hybrid of
31:01e-commerce and retail stores. And the benefit of having a distributor is that I'm actually still
31:08growing in retail stores today during the pandemic, which is interesting because I'm actually
31:15getting, you know, 20 to 30 more stores on a monthly basis. So it's great to actually grow both ways.
31:21So it's a balanced presentation, I guess, that I would say.
31:27That was excellent. And I can't stop smiling because just hearing you speak from a banker's perspective
31:33it's lovely when you hear someone who truly understands their business, right?
31:38Again, if I was going to invest, you know, your company, hearing that you've done your homework,
31:43you've done your research, you understand what you do, you have a mission. You talked about
31:47the Clean Water Initiative. You understand that, you know, with the newer generation, health is
31:52important, right? Maybe in the 1950s, this product might not have worked, but, you know, 2020, people are
31:58more, you know, more informed by the importance of health. So all that information you put in that
32:03right there, it shows that you know exactly what you're talking about and you have a very strong
32:08understanding of why your business is going to do what your business is going to do, even with challenges.
32:14So, you know, the company summary, kind of understanding what, you know, what the company does,
32:19why you do it, how you do it, your products, the products you provide in terms of,
32:24you know, exactly what it is you're selling or offering, you know, a market analysis,
32:29understanding the market, you know, like you mentioned, in terms of people drinking more,
32:34but not necessarily alcoholic beverages or non-alcoholic option is something that market
32:38research shows that is in high demand in terms of having a mission, right? So especially in this
32:45day and age, people want to support a cause, right? So if your company is supporting a cause,
32:48they know by supporting you, they're supporting a cause as well, but that definitely helps.
32:54An executive summary, kind of knowing whose roles and what, and a lot of this stuff kind of ties back
32:59to protecting your business and kind of understanding your business cashflow.
33:06Our next topic is talking about how do we reimagine our business? And I know many of you have made changes
33:15as a result of everything that we have faced in 2020. I want you to share
33:20steps that you have thought about taking to get your company to the vision that you had envisioned
33:28moving forward. Pretty deep question. But nevertheless, from the beginning, so my husband and I co-founded this
33:39company. We found ourselves in over $100,000 worth of consumer debt. And after becoming debt-free,
33:45we realized there were so many people suffering from the same thing caught in this never-ending
33:50debt spiral. And so we knew that whether in debt or not, people are going to continue spending money.
33:55And so spend debt was created to help people help themselves. And so from the beginning,
34:00we were always about breaking generational curses and turning those into generational wealth.
34:06And so our focus today is to help people get out of debt, avoid financial fatalities every time they
34:14swipe or have a banking transaction. But long-term, we want to take people to wealth creation. And so
34:23leveraging the same principles that spend debt is built upon, but then allowing them to move the
34:29additional money towards investment savings. It could be nonprofit, et cetera. But ultimately,
34:36that's the goal. And that's what we're working on behind the scenes.
34:39All three of you have businesses that have a social aspect to it, right? And all three of you being
34:46Black women, I think it's also very important to kind of touch on that as well, to kind of understand
34:50the importance of having to be successful. I'm not trying to put pressure on you, but
34:54you know, Tyleesha, you're talking about helping people come out of debt. We know the Black community,
34:59you know, debt is something that we carry and we're not really good at managing historically. So
35:02that's a great asset. You know, Alicia, in terms of your skincare product that's geared towards,
35:09you know, women of color, which again, I'm not well versed in the skincare market, but I can imagine
35:16there's a huge amount of product line out there to kind of, you know, address, you know, those
35:23challenges and Pauline in terms of understanding the social pressures of, you know, drinking when
35:30you don't want to drink, right? So being able to be in an adult crowd and have an adult beverage,
35:33but you know, you don't want to drink, right? So not to deal with those pressures and also being
35:37health conscious and also being environmentally conscious. These are things that are important
35:42and why we need, you know, Black women who own businesses as yourself to, you know, go out there
35:47and be successful because you're not just, you know, obviously doing your best to make money for
35:51yourselves, but you're, you're improving the world, especially for, you know, for Black people,
35:55Black women, but I mean, also for the whole world. But, you know, as Black people, I think we have
35:59to keep that in mind as well. The importance of what it is we do and why we do those things.
36:07It's important to have a digital online presence because that's where the world is right now,
36:11right? I haven't left this apartment and I don't know how many days I do is through online,
36:16right? So, you know, you can't survive if I can't just Google you and see what you do and,
36:21okay, you know, I want to order from there. So Pauline, for example, you know, your beverages,
36:26if I want to order it, I mean, I know you now, so I'm sure you hooked me up, but if I want to order it,
36:30you know, I go online, I could Google it, you know, get feedback. So it's important to really
36:35understand your online presence and what people are saying about you, right? So really being aware
36:41of the importance of online presence, know that most of people's transactions happen online
36:48and being on top of that, where you're not caught in a situation where, you know, someone is giving
36:54your business a bad review and you have no idea because you don't go online, right? So as the world
36:59grows, online banking and online business management is very important because it's key to your business.
37:07Now, with that being said, also, you know, getting payments online, you want to make it easy for
37:12people to pay you, right? So if you have some kind of online platform, you know, there's nothing I
37:16hate more when I go to buy something online, I can't figure out how to check out, right? It's like,
37:22I'm on this website, I want to buy this good and I can't for the life of me find out where to buy it.
37:27You know, I'm going to sign off, I'll find it somewhere else. So you want to make it easy for
37:32people to be able to pay you in terms of for the services you provide. So make your online website or your
37:37online presence, you know, easy to follow, easy to use, easy to navigate. And then another very
37:42important part of this, probably the most important part is foreign protection. So you want to make
37:47sure you're protecting your clients from foreign. And Talisha, this is more geared towards you because
37:51your platform is all digital, right? And you're, you're dealing with funds, you're dealing with
37:55people's money. And once that's somehow compromised, you know, it's going to be hard to bounce back from
38:00that. So understanding that there's been a 424% increase in online fraud over the past few years.
38:06So really doing your best to make sure that your online presence is secure, your service is secure.
38:12You're not only protecting yourself or protecting your clients, because once your clients are made
38:16vulnerable to fraud due to your platform, it's going to be very hard to bounce, bounce back from that.
38:23And Talisha, I'm going to focus on you with this, just because of the nature of your business,
38:36what you've done to kind of help with not only your online presence, but you know, your fraud security.
38:41So for our online presence, as I mentioned earlier, we actually had contracted a marketing
38:48agency to kind of help with that organic and paid marketing strategy. Because we tried to do it in
38:54the beginning. It's just, we're just not marketing experts, right? So sometimes you just got to recognize
38:59your strengths and your weaknesses and seek help appropriately. So from that perspective,
39:05they helped us get blogs out there. And like I said, really amp up our social media presence. And
39:10even now, um, continue on through our marketing intern, um, taking advantage there also with Google
39:17analytics and just, I mean, cause it's one thing to, you know, put things out there, but you have to
39:22review what you put out there, see what it's telling you and then, um, make adjustments. And that's an
39:28ongoing process, um, on a regular basis. And so that's important as well to learn from the information
39:35that you're putting out there, um, in terms of like fraud and protection and all of that. So
39:41fortunately for us, we have a great group of advisors, um, all with banking and cybersecurity
39:47experience that have helped us early on, um, in the beginning, we are not a payment processor
39:54ourselves. And then also as a part of the backend operations, we use, um, companies that, um, service
40:02PayPal and the Amazons of the world. So if you're comfortable with purchasing something from Amazon,
40:08you should be definitely comfortable with using our platform. So we are proud of that, right. And
40:13stand strong on that because we understand that when you're dealing with people's finances, as I
40:17mentioned, you only get one shot. Um, and I mean, we, we were our first customers. So we know
40:24if we're trying to help people become debt-free or move to wealth creation, like we want to do
40:29everything we can to protect their personal information, their finances, et cetera. So
40:34that's one of our top focus areas, especially when we're talking to our advisors, um, on a regular
40:39basis too, to ensure that security, our checks, all of those things are in place and up to date.
40:45Tying back into what this whole program is about, which is surviving COVID and making your business
40:51thrive as you come out, come out of it. So we're going to talk about just, you know,
40:56business resiliency and a contingency plan, right? So we never hope for hope for the worst,
41:01right? But things do happen as 2020 has shown us. So you want to have plans, you know, around that.
41:08Lavonda, Kaneo and ladies, thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights with us.
41:17I'd like to close out today's session by mentioning some of the research our JPMorgan Chase Institute has
41:23conducted around black entrepreneurship. From February to April of this year alone,
41:29we've lost over 400,000 black owned businesses. These losses are alarming and they represent
41:37thousands of lost jobs and millions of dollars in worker income. And many black owned businesses
41:44entered this crisis under capitalized to begin with, which is what compelled us to launch Advancing
41:50Black Entrepreneurs by Chase for Business, a collective effort in partnership with many
41:56minority organizations. Through this program, we've developed an educational curriculum to help
42:02black business owners address immediate financial needs and build resiliency in this difficult economic
42:08environment. Our goal is to help you survive this pandemic and position you to thrive when this crisis
42:15ends. If you would like to learn more about Advancing Black Pathways and our initiatives, please visit us
42:24at jpmorganchase.com backslash a b p. Thank you and take care.
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