This guide is a primer in how to navigate small business growth as a Black entrepreneur. We’ll also share helpful insights from experienced business owner Adrian M. White.
Black entrepreneurs have more resources than ever today to start and grow a successful small business.
But the journey can be challenging.
The entrepreneurial road is often filled with obstacles, from finding the right business idea to accessing enough capital and resources.
Fortunately, with the right strategies, Black entrepreneurs can take control of their future, creating sustainable businesses that positively help their communities.
This article offers practical information from Adrian M. White, a business owner who shares what worked for her in entrepreneurship.
Table of Contents:
- About Adrian White, Founder of Brand With AMW
- The Entrepreneurial Roadmap: 10 Steps For Success
- Finals Thoughts On Black Entrepreneurship And Growing Your Business
About Adrian M. White, Founder of Brand With AMW
We were fortunate to have a sit-down interview with Adrian M. White, Founder of Brand With AMW.
Adrian is a brand strategist, web designer, and marketing professional based in Silver Spring, MD. Her story shows the power of passion, perseverance, and a step-by-step plan.
Adrian sharpened her website design know-how in college as a marketing major. She eventually began charging for her work after getting her MBA and finishing grad school.
After 10 years in corporate America, she focused on growing Brand With AMW. What was once a side gig for her became her full-time job as client demand increased.
Thanks to her expertise in logo design, color schemes, brand story-telling, and more, she’s been able to help businesses more effectively market themselves in the digital space.
Adrian is now scaling up her team and has a podcast that helps Black entrepreneurs find their ideal market.
Today we’ll share quotes from our sitdown interview with Adrian as she gives the insights that helped her start and scale her business.
Now let’s shift gear to the steps for small business success.
The Entrepreneurial Roadmap: 10 Steps For Success
1. Identifying Your Passions and a Business Idea
Adrian emphasizes to, “Really explore the things you enjoy doing. Work in an area you feel passionate about.”
The first step to launching a successful business is finding your passions.
Knowing the activities that excite you sets the groundwork for a successful business.
This is what Adrian did — web design was just her hobby in high school. But it then turned into a passion as the years went on.
In a survey, entrepreneurs identified a desire to follow their passion as the second biggest reason for beginning their business.
Passionate entrepreneurs often develop the greatest expertise in a subject, as their passion drives them to learn more and more.
Now, think about your skills and interests. Consider how you can use them to create a business.
Here are questions you can ask to find your passions:
- What are your favorite hobbies, and why?
- What are your natural talents?
- What activities do you do consistently, and why?
- What causes/principles do you stand for, and why?
- What could you imagine yourself doing for the rest of your life?
Once you have identified a passion, brainstorm ways to turn your passion into a business.
Your research will be an important step in creating a path to sustainable success.
2. Research The Landscape
Research helps you assess the feasibility of your business idea.
The last thing you want is a business you’re passionate about, but that doesn’t solve a need that people have.
Research also makes creating your business plan easier.
Research to find:
- Potential customers
- Market demand
- Competition already in the space
- Amount of capital needed to launch and maintain your business
- Industry legalities
3. Develop A Business Plan
A business plan is a roadmap that outlines the goals and objectives of your business. It also details your business model from a practical standpoint.
It’s the foundation for figuring out how viable your business is.
Your business plan should also have:
- Basic information about your business
- Your target market
- Marketing strategy
- Financial projections
- Ideal hires
- Runway (Estimated time to make a profit before running out of capital)
- Product or service and its description
Your competitive analysis is a key part of your business plan.
Adrian states that, “Businesses in their first 3 years should figure out what makes them unique. Doing competitor research helps businesses figure out what makes them different.”
By finding a unique differentiator, businesses can offer something new or better to the market. This increases the chances of shifting customer demand and earning more revenue early on.
Adrian adds, “[For market research], I recommend making a list of 20-30 local competitors. Create a spreadsheet of them and their products, services, and pricing. Have as many details as you can. Based on that information, you can figure out what to offer that is different. You can then come in with pricing that is on par with the market.”
In other words, your market research gives you a realistic view of the price customers are willing to pay for a product or service.
Then by offering a new solution to their problem you can more easily attract attention.
Here are areas where you can differentiate your product or service:
- Quality
- Customization
- Reliability
- Speed
- After-sale support
- Quantity
- Niche-specific availability (only for a specific demographic in your market)
- Limited availability
4. Access Capital And Resources
Accessing capital and helpful resources is critical for your business’s start (and longevity).
Understanding how your business gets funding helps each month become more predictable.
Here are different ways to access growth capital for your business:
- Business Credit
- Government Contracts And grants
- Crowd/community funding
- Friends And Family
- Venture Capital
- Angel Investors
- Bank/Credit Union Business Loans
- Bootstrapping
- Public Equity (IPO)
Remember, some funding strategies may work better for you than others.
You can always combine various methods for funding your business.
Adrian did this with her branding and web design business. She went about funding by intelligently using business credit and applying for grants.
In addition to accessing capital, consider the resources and infrastructure needed to grow your business.
This can mean:
- Technology
- Equipment
- Insurance
- Office/workspaces
- Staff and team members (contractors or employees)
5. Get Noticed: Build Your Brand And Network
On community funding, Adrian adds, “There’s a large community of Black entrepreneurs that want to support other Black entrepreneurs.”
Adrian emphasizes that Black business communities can give you funding opportunities. All it takes is networking and contacting people in these organizations.
Sometimes showing and emphasizing a “Black-owned status” can help these communities find you through the web. Adrian says, “Be more authentic to who you are” as a way for Black businesses and communities to find you.
Here are different ways to build your brand and network:
- Posting content on social media (Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Joining a Black chamber of commerce
- Listing your business on the MoCo Black Business Database
- Attending business events
- Creating a customer referral program for your business
- Collaborating with other small businesses
- Joining virtual and in-person industry groups
6. Expand Your Marketing
Expanding your marketing to multiple channels helps more people find your brand.
Adrian mainly markets her business using social media and her podcast. (Remember that the best type of marketing for your business will depend on your industry).
Adrian emphasizes the importance of knowing your customer as well as possible. When first starting, Adrian focused on fellow female business owners as her target market. (There was a lot of commonality and shared experience there.)
This made it easier for her to present her service confidently in the beginning.
Here’s a short list of different ways to market your business using organic, paid, online, and offline methods.
Organic marketing:
- Blogs
- Long-form Video content
- Short-form video content (Instagram reels, Tiktok, YouTube Shorts)
- Text and image social media posts
- Email marketing
- Webinars
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- SMS marketing
Paid Marketing:
- Google pay-per-click (PPC)
- YouTube ads
- Facebook Ads
- TikTok Ads
- Twitter Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Influencer marketing
Offline Marketing
- Offline events
- Signage and flyers
- Direct mail
- Billboards
- Radio
Believe it or not, sometimes you shouldn’t just market your main product or service. Instead, consider offering something that takes less investment or even something free.
This is called a “lead magnet.”
A lead magnet helps you attract more potential customers by giving value first, before you ask for a big investment.
A lead magnet increases the odds of the prospect becoming a customer. (After all, not everyone can be a high-paying customer the second they notice you. But your lead magnet opens the door for them to become one in the future.)
Here are some examples of lead magnets:
- Free eBooks
- Free training
- Discounted products or services
- Free or inexpensive workshops and webinars
- A free evaluation or assessment tool
- A free case study
7. Hiring, Training, And Management
As an entrepreneur, you’ll stay busy with many tasks and projects. Building a team is crucial because it helps you get more done and serve more people.
Finding the right hires can be a challenge in and of itself — on top of that, team members have to be trained and managed.
In our article on hiring the right talent, we highlighted multiple ways to find talented people to join your team:
- Job boards
- Your network
- Social media
- Staffing agencies and recruiters
- Networking events
Consider if you want to hire employees or contractors. Again, depending on your goals for your business, either route or a mixture of the two makes sense.
Adrian advises to “Hire professionals for things you’re not as great at.”
Hiring a contractor with more expertise in an area of your business goes a long way.
They can perform that particular task better while helping you avoid mistakes. If learning a specific skill will take longer than you’d like, hiring someone for it may be the best route.
8. Improve Your Product
As you get customers and demand grows, you’ll begin to get feedback.
Your customers will start to tell you how your product is helping them and how it isn’t. Make sure to note this since it can help you improve your product or service in the future.
Think about:
- What reviews are customers leaving?
- How long are customers using my product or service?
- What percentage of my customers are coming back?
- What are my competitors doing better?
- What are my customers saying about my competitors?
Simply asking your customers how they enjoy your product or service is a good start.
As you make changes and improvements, a boost in customer satisfaction can lead to more referrals and retention (Did you know that referred customers have a 16% higher lifetime value)
9. Growing and Scaling Your Business
As your revenue grows, it’ll be the perfect opportunity to reinvest back into your business.
This starts with adding more capital to what’s working. For instance, if you’re using paid ads to market, you can increase your budget for more leads and customers.
If you use short-form content to get new business, consider putting out even more short-form content. With offline marketing, maybe you hire an employee responsible for marketing your business in person.
Remember that you’ll need things to support all the new activities as you scale.
For example, if you’re getting more customers quickly, perhaps you’ll need more help with customer service. It’s important to forecast how you expect your business to grow as you scale.
Knowing who to hire for the most critical tasks will make growing your business easier to manage.
10. Finding Ongoing Mentorship And Support
Finding mentors and support can’t be ignored.
Mentors provide guidance and advice, helping you navigate the things you don’t know.
When asked about business coaching, Adrian says:
“I’ve hired 3 different business coaches. What I learned from a business coach in 1 to 3 months could have taken me 9 months. One of the reasons was able to raise my prices was thanks to advice from business coaches.”
Business coaches can help you learn things faster and save you time. They can also guide you toward the right resources for your success.
Sometimes you can find valuable mentors in Black business organizations and through networking. As Adrian mentioned earlier, many Black entrepreneurs want to help other Black entrepreneurs.
Here are other ways to find mentors:
- Business courses
- Mentorship platforms
- Social Media
Finals Thoughts On Black Entrepreneurship And Growing Your Business
The right information, skills, strategies, and people are what you need to grow a sustainable business. By applying what you’ve learned from Adrian and the other insights in this guide, you can positively impact your community.
The MoCo Black Business Database helps Black businesses get discovered when they list their company in our directory. Our platform makes it simple to find and connect with certified Black-owned businesses in Montgomery County.
If you haven’t listed your business yet, add it today by going to our homepage and clicking “Add My Business.”
