The Black Business Conundrum
Yeeeeeessssss or Yaaaasssss as someone would say (*cough lady g* cough). I love to support Black Businesses. Let me reiterate:
I love SUPPORTING Black businesses. From fashions, to tapestries, to food, to natural oils. I’ve been spending like crazy. However, spending as a Black consumer sometimes leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. Hmmmm What do you mean, Tareau?
This……
You as a business owner, are in the business of making money. Nothing is wrong with that. Putting your blood, sweat and tears into a business and watching it thrive is a blessing, am I right? I do not know that much on economics nor businesses so I am just telling you my perspectives on changes I feel that need to be made. However I have a bone to pick with my Black Business Owners. This post will talk about my personal experiences and possible solutions dealing with commerce within the Black community.
#1. PRESENTATION
Look the part. If you work in health and beauty, you should look clean and neat. That’s simple. Clean and neat is well groomed. Dress for the job. If you are selling me a time share, please don’t come to my crib looking like Young Thug or Gucci Mane.
Hahahahhaha. Moving on, lets do a scenario shall we? Imagine you find out that someone close to you, or a friend of a friend is opening a business and they would like your support. You ask for the details about an event they are hosting or participating in, only to get shunned off. You get the information last minute. The potential business owner tells you that their event starts at 3pm. You get to the event at 245pm only to find that there is no signage or banner or someone to greet you. You are lost. You are thinking, “I have a pocket full of cash and I don’t feel safe looking for a potential sale.” You finally find the place and it’s now 315pm and the person who you are supporting tells you “Why are you late?” Annoyed, you ask them if you could see the merchandise. They tell you that they are not done setting up yet. They also insinuates that you should help them. LMFAO. Come on Black People, show of hands if you know someone who has done this to you? How can you as a consumer be asked to help with a the Business when you are not reaping any profits? Why wasn’t there any flyers or cards to detail the event in a timely manner? Why should I as a customer feel obligated to help you set up when you invited me as a potential client? If I need a loan, will you give me one because I’ve “HELPED” you?
#2. BUSINESS ACUMEN
Please Black Owners, treat me as an individual. When I walk into a Black Owned Barbershop, please don’t greet me with “What’s up Nigga? Who you here foe?” (Yes not for but foe).
A potential client or customer deserves to know The Who’s, The What’s, The When’s, The Where’s, and The Why’s. I am no way asking for you as an owner to do anything out of your power as a business owner, but just provide me with transparent information when asked. No attitude, no subliminal messages about me being “snooty.” One rule of business is that word of mouth is big, it’s tremendous for your bottom line. I am no means a douche or one of those pretentious yelpers, but when you come off threatening when asked simple questions, I will take my business elsewhere. You can’t get mad for someone inquiring about your products. A little please and thank you, goes along way. If you do not have a product please let us know when it will be in stock again. Offer alternatives, provide receipts, provide IMMEDIATE shipping info, and have a great attitude when dealing with customers on the phone. No one is asking you to bend over backwards. This is the job or career you’ve chose.
Example:
I’m a bus driver so if you are on my bus and you ask me a question about the route, or about destination times, I can’t be mad at you. It is in the Job Description. Every career has Pros and Cons. You deal with it. I deal with Traffic, rain, traffic officers, ride share vehicles, buses, trains, pedestrians, cyclists, and construction. If you are a passenger on my bus, those elements I just named, is not your problem. That is what you are paying my company for.
#3 FAIR PRICING
Like I stated, I love supporting Black Owned Businesses but if you are charging me an outrageous price for your product, I can’t do it. I am already on a tight budget, as most African Americans are. I am not asking for a hook up either. I want to pay a “FAIR” price for your goods and services. I want to help, but I don’t want to be in debt. If you are selling a tapestry for $250 and I go on Amazon.com, and they have it for $75, what do you think I am going to do? I have a solution, offer another tapestry to sell me. Maybe $100 for another tapestry. Maybe instead of $250 we could agree to $200. Maybe a payment plan or layaway. Once again I want to support you but if I wave a monthly entertainment budget of $150, You are asking me to spend that while spending another $50 from my grocery budget. You are trying to sell your goods to a community of people who have limited income. You can’t have a Capitalist mentality, when people can barely get by. Cmon now. Help us help you.
#4. SHOW PROOF OF YOUR REINVESTMENT INTO THE COMMUNITY
I’m sorry, I need to see proof. You cant say for me to support your business when your goal is to get Jordans for your whole family. Or some dumb shit like that. You want me to buy your merchandise, not to send your kids to college but to go to the club? Riiiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhhhhtttttttt!! You say you want and need the support of the Black community, then I need to see a small percentage of your profits reinvested, inside the community. Not for trivial things. Not for vanity. Not for Imagery. I get it, work hard, play hard, but If we are buying your products and you are walking around in Gucci and expensive jewelry while are all bummy looking, I can’t fuck with you. Don’t hustle your own people. Be real. I actually had to cut a few friends off due to the “HUSTLER MENTALITY.”
#5 KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR PRODUCT.
As I mentioned about this “HUSTLER MENTALITY”, Please be knowledgeable about your product. Even if you don’t like, use, or consume it, please let your clients or customers know about feedback. I myself am allergic to strawberries, so if I had a strawberry farm, I would get feedback about my product. Plain and simple. Don’t sell me a dream. If you use the rhetoric that we are all brothas and the White man is responsible for our misfortunes, are you not contradicting yourself? Aren’t you trying to take my money for bettering yourself? Don’t try to relate to me on a racial level, but try to swindle me. Please DON’T do that.
Well there you have my tirade, on Black Owned Businesses. Please note that WE have to do 1000 times better, if we truly want change. Please like, comment, subscribe, share, etc. I would love to hear your take and experiences with Black Owned Businesses. Did I miss something? Did I say too much? By all means please share.
Take the mic away, it is your cue
👏
Thanx Dave! 
Love this post. Good observation
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Right on brotha Eddie. What would you add in your experiences?
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We have to deal with a little inconvenience, in order to make it better. Other races will deal with mediocre service in order to keep that local market in business, no matter how janky it is, but blacks will not. Its nothing wrong with expecting quality service from black businesses, hell, I would even tell a black businessman/businesswoman why they won’t see me return back to their business. Black businesses need to step up if they are not professional. That much is true.
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Excellent point. But I have to look at pre segregation where black businesses were proud to give exceptional services. We don’t allow for a business to be mediocre.
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I have been to several mediocre non-black businesses, so I don’t feel like they should all be magnificent. However, there should be a bottom line standard of professionalism.
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Excellent post as always. The third point you made about overcharging prices was very interesting to me and I’ve done some research on it in the past. During this reasearch I’ve found several reasons why black businesses owners have to charge more than their counterparts.
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Thank you for reading. What did you find out? Is it because of a lack of support?
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Various reasons but mainly because for those businesses who sell products such as hair, makeup, clothes or food have trouble getting fair prices from suppliers when getting their product. Unlike bigger corporations or businesses with more money get better deals when it comes to buying product, because they buy their product in bulk & more often because they have more customers. The supplier is more likely to get more of a profit from these compaines i.e. Wal-mart for an example. This is one of the main reasons why black stores or products are usually more expensive than their counterparts stores.
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Excellent that’s why I left it for an open ended dialogue. I would never support wal mart. I’m happy that you educated me on that aspect of Black Businesses. Hearing this however does not change my original feeling. So now I have to feel bad from my bretheren when shopping?? (Not asking you but a general sentiment)
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That is true I have pondered that question a lot over the past several months especially with all the discussions about people only want to support black businesses in light of what’s been going on in the US in recent news. This might be problematic for many people who have to look at their situation when shopping on a tight budget. So to answer the question should feel bad no but I do believe we should try to work to find a solution for black businesses and consumers.
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There is definitely a middle ground and I feel that as consumers we are slacking on supporting businesses. Even great Black Owned business do not get support that they need within the community. I see it everyday. You don’t want to buy a book that a black owned author wrote for black children, because u say that you are broke, but go around and buy a gold chain?? That mentality right there. So like I stated enough, I love supporting the black owned businesses but enough is enough.
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We spoke about this a bit on another thread. I think there needs to be a radical change in the way we think about economics. When we think about economics, we think about “profit” going to an “owner” who competes with other owners.
Can we imagine a world where the profit went to everyone, instead of just one person?
Can we imagine a world where the land, factories, and resources were owned by everyone, instead of just one person?
Can we imagine a world where we cooperated with each other, instead of competing with each other?
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To be honest the majority of black owned businesses are hair salons, and beauty industry work, so they aren’t employing people. That’s a bigger issue than actually finding a business to support to begin with. Also, You made several valid points from many different angles, only thing I can really add to the discussion is, no one in business is to be coddled. If you want to survive and work for yourself, one needs to adapt to his/her surroundings. So if you’re over-charging, you won’t get customers, thus no profit. No business acumen, same scenario. This has to be repeated until people get their heads straight that customers are key to survival. So treat the people right!
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Ok Tareau got jokes! “What you here foe!” LOL!!!
YAAASSSS!
Naw….just kidding! Thanks for the shout out cuz!
Excellent post!
Boy you went in! I hate to say it but I do agree with you quite a bit.
I was reading Dave’s response and I couldn’t help thinking about how, in my experience, SOME black hair stylists tend to have trouble figuring out the appointment system. Meaning they overbook by underestimating how much time they need for each client.
That can be frustrating as hell.
Don’t get me started about the ones that sit down to eat breakfast and lunch while their clients are waiting; no respect for the client’s time.
Sometimes they don’t have enough product and have to borrow from other hair stylists.
Worse, they need a ride! LOL!!!
I’m natural so I don’t even fool with ’em.
Enough with the venting!
Anyway, what I’d like to see is successful black business professionals teaching and mentoring younger or less experienced entrepreneurs.
But it is also up to black business owners to seek out those opportunities for mentorship and for continuing education opportunities.
Don’t think that Imma buy from you JUST because you are black 🙂
Especially if you are not on point.
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Lmfao. Yes as you can see what brotha Jay Colby said, sometimes Black Businesses have a hard time getting wholesale prices and products compared to a larger corporation. I totally get that. What I’m strictly talking about is acumen, customer service, and the OBLIGATION to support just because we are the same skin color. Comment decency is lost and I’m not gonna swallow my pride to help a person who doesn’t value that. That’s where I’m coming from. I am no way saying for someone to roll out the red carpet, but when I ask a question about something I don’t expect sass nor attitude. I’ll give another example: I don’t do alot of shopping in stores due to terrible customer service. I order alot online. Because I don’t have to deal with attitude.
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Very well said. I sooo agree with you about the whole attitude thing 🙂 We can do better. We got to!
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I was going to say what Jay Colby said. The black-owned hair store that I used to visit was so drastically overpriced, that I chose to go back to the Asian store, plus he had half the products. Now I understand, but in this day and age, people literally can’t afford to support a black business sometimes.
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I love this open dialogue here on WordPress, it’s amazing.
@K E Garland, I’ve had a similar experience dealing with the black barbershops. I honestly save a ton of money shaving my own head now (due to my LeBron hairline hahahahahah) but honestly 90% of Black Owned Businesses are vanity, entertainment, and clothing. I would love to see more black grocery stores, credit unions, workshops etc that is not hella expensive.
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Exactly! And shout out to the hairline lol
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This is great love to find creative like minded indiviuals and black owned business. Thanks
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