Subj: J & J Hair Exclusives
To: askrecy@aol.com
Hello. My name is Shirlonda and I am the owner of J & J Hair Exclusives. I've been in business for 4 months and have had great local success. I need to know how I can build this Internet hair directory where potential clients go online and view styles of a stylist without stepping a foot in a salon. Please check out my site www.jjhairexclusives.com and let me know what I can do to network and get the word out. Also, I'm interested in having a representative in another city. How do I go about that?
Shirlonda
AskRecy Response
I went to your website and actually find your concept to be a pretty good idea, because it is one few major business where almost all the advertising is word-of-mouth. It is not necessarily easy to find a good black hair salon in a strange city or town. My loyal Webmaster had the incapable chore of looking for a hair care braider for son Nick and found that finding specialties like braiding is even more difficult. However to do it properly in your line of business, you really should think big and make an investment.
If you were going to do a database of hair salons across the country, it would be best to list all the (black hair care) salons you can find for free - just a basic listing with name address phone - then have a good slick advertising listing for paying salons, with photos and details. This has been effective for places that do restaurant directories - the good ones start with everything in the yellow pages and then sell special pages with reviews and pix and stuff. If you can get a dozen listings each in 10 major cities, that's a start, at least.
The reason to include as many as you can is this: people on the Internet are hip to empty directories that have next to nothing in them, and just don't mess with them. Also, site reviewers from Snap and Yahoo and so on won't pay them any attention. You have to have something to offer to promote interest and get site visitors - if you have the listings alone, you will have something with value for people to use.
Once you have populated the database and are ready for the site launch, I would recommend buying banners from Net Noir and BlackFamilies.Com to give it a kickoff, as well as listing it everywhere free that you can.
I do not think that you need a representative in other cities if you use the Internet properly to find the information about people to contact and build a network that way.
It is a very good idea for a website because it fills a need!
As to the site design itself; you might do a special hairstyle album where a person can click on one of an array of thumbnails to view a photo of a hairstyle - with "credits" linking to the hairstylist who created it. I also would have several teaser of pictures hairstyles for people to see what you can do before they enter your salon.
From: Wanting to be my own boss
Hi, please help. Are there monies available to start a business that I will not have to repay? I would like to start a beauty supply store, but my funds are very limited. I have estimated that I will need $50,000 to start this business. I have researched and I am finding that most grants are available to persons who are providing a community service (child care, elderly care). If there is not free money out there (grants) for me where can I go or what can I do to get a loan. I have no collateral and my credit is not bad, but it is not great either.
Help!!!
Askrecy also received these two questions that can also benefit from his response to "Wanting to be my own boss":
Subj: Starting a Business
From: Felicia R.
To: Askrecy
Mr Dunn i am interested in starting my own business within the next two years tell me please what steps i would need to take. I would preferbably like to start my own daycare. Can you help me?
Thank You
From: WTY99J
To: ASKRECY
I need to know what is needed in a business plan. Mainly for a hospital shuttle service, that transports people from home to hospital.
Subj: BUSINESS PLAN
From: Blondnurse69
To: ASKRECY
Do you know how i can obtain a business plan for a female minority based business?
Thank you
AskRecy Response to the above three questions:
To "Wanting to be my own boss," - I'm sorry, but you can’t have your cake and ice cream too. There is no such thing as free money. If you are serious about starting a beauty supply store then let’s start with the basics and develop a business plan.
The SBA has a program call The Business Plan - Road Map to Success. It is a tutorial and self-paced activity that can be download or viewed as a text version. You can use this model as a guide when developing your very own business plan for your beauty supply store. You can find it at http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/starting/businessplan.html
Why a business plan? There are funding sources and monies available to entrepreneur with a solid prepared and well-thought business plan. Imagine for a moment that you are that banker, investor, or the key person in a corporation or entity with funds available for lending for economic development. Let’s also assume that you have access to $250,000. Also, let us assume that I came in and asked you to loan me only $50,000 to start a beauty supply store. What deeming factors are you going to make to loan me the money. Would it be on my good looks (smile)? I do not think so.
What about my experience in the business? A small factor.
"Why a business plan and what’s in it?" is the question that potential and existing small business owners should ask, but many times do not even think about. Simply speaking there are five sections - the description of the business, the marketing plan, the financial management plan, the management plan and most importantly the executive summary with supporting documents and financial projections.
After you have successfully completed the business plan, now you are ready to go shopping for monies. First start with you local banker, then SBA, third check out the local Corporation for Economic Development in your area. This is a start, be persistent and someone may point you in the right direction for possible funding.
Two related questions on registering minority business.
Subj: Starting as a minority business
From: JSim1045
To: ASKRECY
I am a woman-owned business set up as an S Corporation, my question is, how do I go about being set up as a minority business? Is there certain paperwork I need to fill out and where can I find them? Your help would be greatly appreciated since I have contacted the minority office and can't seem to get an answer.
Subj: Women owned business
From: ANCOOKC
To: ASKRECY
I am trying to find out if there is somewhere I can register as a minority owned business. I have a chance to land a contract in Tulsa if I can prove that I have a minority owned business. Do you know? Thank You.
AskRecy Response
There are several ways to register yourself as a minority owned business. One source is The National Minority Business Council, Inc. (NMBC) has been helping small, minority- and women-owned businesses succeed for over a quarter century. Go to their website http://www.nmbc.org/ to get the contact information, address and phone numbers. Second, There should be local assistance in your city. Call the City Purchasing department and ask for the WMBE or Women Minority-Owned Business Enterprise department. Alternatively, there should be Minority Owned Business Council listed in the White Pages.
There are also two other organizations that can help you; one is called the Women's Business Enterprise National Council. The Certification from this organization is one of the requirements for Minority and Women Owned Business to do business with Wal-Mart. Their website address is http://orgs.womenconnect.com/wbenc.
The other organization that should help you is the National Association of Women Business Owners. They are in your Chicago area and can be found at http://www.nawbonet.org
Subj: Mailing list
From: Renatta F.
If you have a mailing list, I would like to join....
I am a young black woman entrepreneur, the company that I started is an artist management company. Finding funding etc is a concern of mine... I don't know where to even start to look. I just passed through your site looking for information about Design Access databases with VB code.
The Lord is good.... Praise HIM.
Thank you
AskRecy Response:
Artist management can be means several things, however, there are some government funds available for grants to individual performing artists and organizations that have been invited to participate in international festivals around the world. The fund also aims to support the creative and professional development of U.S. artist through the presentation of their work at significant international festivals worldwide. The applicant eligibility requirements are that the artist(s) must be creative, interpretive, or traditional performing artists working at a professional level.
Go to http://www.cfda.gov/query/query.htm and type in the word "artists." You may be surprised at the funding sources available.
Subj: the role of Minority business in the 21st century
From: SCamp92172
To: ASKRECY
What is the role of minority business in the 21st century?
AskRecy Response:
Excellent, if minorities, especially African-Americans take advantage of the tools and resources available. Despite impressive gains by black Americans in the past several years, it is discouraging as we enter into the new millennium; we still have a significant problem with race and education being the significant primary determination of who has access to technology. Access for all Americans is increasing, but it is increasing at a slower pace for blacks. Statistics still reflect that whites have more access to personal computers and Internet use than African-Americans do.
Let me tell you a little story to illustrate a point. Fifteen years, I worked for an international company that was and still is the world leader in their field of providing goods and services. Annually the company selected a diverse group of their top thirty-five business managers to attend a ten-day course on learning what it took in skills, knowledge and awareness to be the best and retain the number one status in the industry.
The thirty-five men, (women later were trained) were divided into seven teams of five members, which then formed a company, selected officers and chose one area from four different product lines to market their services. They also went to see the "banker" that "loaned" each team $7 million dollars. Each team was given no instructions on the allocation of monies between marketing, administration, research and development expenses. However, during the first four hours of each day, a top executive from leading industries would speak and try to educate the teams on the concept of what it takes to survive in the market place. For example, an executive for Volvo discussed what made Volvo unique in the car industry. In all, seven top officials from diverse industries discussed and created dialogue with the teams on subjects ranging from consumer taste, competition awareness, understanding market conditions, consumer sensitively to price, factors affecting bringing a product to market and even the dealing with the government, i.e., Federal Trade Commission.
During the next four hours, the teams departed into their separate rooms, created computer simulations and decisions on how to spend the $7 million dollars in their respective businesses. The key to our decisions was that the results had to be turned in before the Stock Market closed for the day. The end result was that there would be one company that survived. The other teams would go bankrupt, because either they made bad decisions and went to the "banker" too often or they would be consumed by one of the other teams. The teams that lost early in the process had to sit back and observe their colleagues working to become number one in their field.
The authors of this game made sure that although there were seven teams, each one had a product line or provided a service that one of the other teams needed to survive.
The company leaders were serious in their training techniques and considered how you fared in this "cut throat" process in your next key assignment.
What is the point in this story and what does it has to do with your original question, which was what is the role of minority business in the 21st century? The room where each team did their strategic planning was filled with daily Wall Street Journals,
Forbes, Money magazines, business magazines in each of the 7 specialties that were chosen. We read each to stay abreast of the competition, market conditions, what we thought affected our business and what we felt had nothing to do with the business.
Some of the occupations that will experience the fastest growth in the new millennium will be database administrators, computer support specialists, computer engineers and systems analysts. Six of the top-ten fastest-growing professions are health-care and physical therapy. The medical industry is now pursuing Tele-medicine. The tenth-fastest-growing profession is another computer-related one: desktop publishing.
The role of minority-owned companies, blacks, Latinos, and Native American businesses in the 21st century will require entrepreneurs to be aware that the demographics are changing and there are more opportunities to be had. There is an increasing need for minority business owners to create more wealth within the minority communities and translate that wealth into jobs and opportunities for others of the same ethic background. The minority entrepreneur should also serve as experts in building and helping their own establish new businesses. Most importantly, they should provide advice and play a role in educating others of the tools needed to be successful. That is the role of minority-owned companies in the new millennium.