Business Ownership for Wealth Building

Introduction

Welcome back to another episode of Black Girl black. I'm your girl Tenisha Nicole.

And I'm Shana Dixon.

And today we're gonna talk about, we're gonna get into the nitty gritty of business. Oh, oh, we actually don't talk a ton about business on the podcast. But as you all know, we believe that business ownership is one of the key levers to wealth. And so if you if it's not something that you're currently doing or interested in, I think that's okay. But for folks who may have an interest in or just not doing your right now, I would encourage you to, you know, explore learn elbaite about it, because there are tons of advantages, you know, to being a business owner.

Business Owner Stats

Well, not only that, but there was actually a study that showed that the average business owner has a higher net worth net worth than the average employee.

Yeah, I could definitely see that happening. And I recently randomly and recently have been looking at some data on on entrepreneurship and their revenue by race, and gender. And so what do you find? So the average Yeah, no, I'm not the quotes that person that is shouted at so forgive me in advance if I butcher this, but so they said, the average black woman entrepreneur makes about 20,000 annually in their business, which you guys is not in the business world, that's not a high number. And it's not a number that you can really sustain living or a business on. So that's why that that figure is so important, because they compare that to businesses run by other races, and other genders, races, ethnicities, and other genders. And then so the next category, not the next category, but when you compare the salary or the income revenue, let's say revenue, just to keep it simple. When you compare the revenue of white women against black women, you see now something very different happening. The average revenue for a white woman owned business is 218,000. What and you compare that to the 24,000? And you see why we need to have a conversation about this. Yeah. Well, that was at least the stat that I looked at. And I'm gonna find the source for you. But, but that's crazy, right? I had no idea. Yeah, it's super crazy. And, you know, there's a lot of data also around what a woman doing it, too. But that's not even on the high end, right? So how did it compare to all the other like the men and all those, let me I'm gonna pull up the stack, because I don't want to be telling you all this information. But I think either white or Asian men were like, on the higher end of the spectrum, I'm gonna pull it up, because I want to be spread no lies. So just tell us about your reflections on that while I pull this up.

I mean, I was totally not expecting something like that. And it makes me wonder, like more things about stats, like, is it a mentality? Is it that black women are doing this on the side? So it's, it's a gig? And it's not like to some employment? And and then what does that mean about the other people? Are they are they really just sold out to their employers? And they only go into business, if they're really gonna, you know, do a big business, if that makes sense. So I think those are the first questions that I really have about it. But those numbers are staggering. Like, yeah, I don't even have words to express what that means. Like because the the implement, implement the implications of those numbers, just carry so much more with it. And that's talking about like, feeding your family or being, you know, available, like if they're actually if more black women are doing gigs plus a full time job, then how much time do they have left for their family? Right. So I just think there's so many different things that you could get from that information. Anyway, it goes it's it's interesting.

It's crazy. It's crazy. All right. So when I heard this that, you know, I thought about a lot of things I thought you just mentioned kind of where that comes from. Right. And so I think we can't deny the fact of systemic racism right is certain only been a barrier for I hate the word minority, but I'm gonna just say underserved populations, you know, like, women actually being a category, and also different race ethnicities beyond that. Yeah, I was gonna say though, like,

Racism in Business

I did hear something that says that black people only do business with black people like like that no other race is willing to just actively go out and do business with black people. Whereas, which is really sad, because the contrary of that is that black people will do business with anybody. And so while so like, so only so many dollars come into the black community. That means that only so many of those dollars are spent in black business with black entrepreneurs. Whereas even though Black people earn more money, they, we spend a portion of our money with people who are not black. So it comes out of the black community, even though we earned it, and then nothing else comes into the black community. So I do think that that could be a huge component of really the difference in numbers.

What's Holding you Back

That's crazy. Yeah, that we've definitely talked about that before. And I wonder too, right, we know, the black dollar does not circulate in our community for a long time. I wonder, just the education around business? You know, if it's not in your family, how do you really learn about business? I don't know the answer to that, like, Are people learning about business in college, when they're getting MBAs or studying in their business administration degree? Yeah, like you

learn the basics about like, the basics around accounting. And I mean, you know, a business plan and the strategy and the vision and a value system and all those things. But it's so funny, because what I'm thinking is, it doesn't teach you about the grid, or the work effort or the commitment that you make, to business, it only teach you about the structural components of how to put one together and how to run one or maintain one, which is highly important. And let us not say that, but I do think there's what I've learned, in my own experience, is there's a certain amount of tenacity that you need in order to be successful. And that is accurately taught.

Yeah, I think that tenacity, and I think even the courage to even step out and do that they write, like, oh, we talked about this recently, but the the fear or a feeling that your own company is less secure, then you go into work for someone else, which makes no sense at all.

But it's, but it's real. I tell you, if we do a poll, guys, so we have figured out how to do this with you guys. But if we did a poll of black people, I can guarantee you, a large majority of that population will say that they think it's more secure to work for an employer than it is to work for themselves.

And you think that's because of the competence, the lack of maybe exposure to education, culture is a huge

thing. I mean, think about, you know, after we got you know, Barak in office, everybody was like, Oh, my God, now my kid can see that they can be president, and now we got justice, good times.

But the reason that's so important, is because you need representation to say that something was feasible for you, you need to understand that people who look like you who came from where you came from, who do the things that you do, can be the things you've never seen before. Right. Right. And that includes I think, being a business owner being self employed. And if you haven't seen that, or if what you saw was a struggle. Why would you do it again?

Why would you do it again? I mean, at a certain point, it just becomes like, almost crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So do it if you know, I mean, especially if people are discouraging you. So I'm having I'm having a hard time finding the data, which I think is actually a problem in and of itself. I've done a couple Google searches. And nothing is showing. But I know I looked at this data, but I know it was on a particular website. And I think it might have been in one of their reports. So I'm going to find that data for you all and I'll get it back to you.

Back to Stats

But at the the data that I did find that could be helpful to our conversation is they talk about the basically the distribution of business owners by race and gender, okay. And so, white men own 2,000,933 and 198 firms. So that's almost 3 million firms. Okay, Black women, on the other hand, own about 38,000 Oh, wow, about 40,000 firms versus 3 million firms. Right. And then they're also there's also data, which I wasn't able to find at the moment, like the revenue of those businesses is highly driven by the number of employees that those businesses have. Right. And so if you're not employing people, your business is likely capped at a certain revenue point, right. And so, if you're not employing people, then you're limiting the growth of your business.

So just to put that number into perspective, though, that's 1%. It's a little bit more than 1%. Like, Wow, 3%. Wow. I don't even know what to say to that in that's just the number of firms. Right, it's not talking about the performance of those firms. Like, it doesn't even tell you know, if there's our full time or, you know, like that data,

I think that I know, 40,000 people. I mean, in my life, I've passed by 40,000 people. And I just can't imagine that in this entire

the entire world, United States, the United States and the entire United States.

Compared to 3 million, 3 million.

Wow. And so that was just that was just a data point we're using. So I feel

like we have to come back and talk about like, the true benefits of business.

Yeah, we haven't really been talking a lot about it. Yeah, so I love that. I love that you're taking us there. Because this is a gap. This is a gap. And I think I feel like because I'm immersed in that world, and I have always like, even with the DC scene, entrepreneurship is so sexy. Like, I just felt like, everybody was new. So So I was gonna say this, though, I think that a lot of people are dabbling. Does that make sense? I think that it's sexy. And so they kind of do it. Yeah. Right. But But But where's the infrastructure? Where's the the teachings of of how to get it done? Or how you have to live through it? Or the Silikal cycles? That is business? Right, exactly. You don't make any money for the first X years. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I am just so floored by those. She is I'm like, I'm looking at the data, I get it again. Okay. So let me disclaimer, this is a 2012 statistic. So that is come up, hopefully, hopefully, we come up a little bit covered up from

1% to 5%. I mean, it's, it's pretty relative. I'm gonna say it's pretty relative.

So I'm even lost as to what we're, this episode was about.

Takeaways

So I think we were just talking about benefits of business ownership. And we got a little sidetracked because realizing how how few people may actually own businesses, or feel like they are business owners. I know that was a personal struggle that I've had, over the last three years in business is just like, feeling like, this is a business and not just a gig or a side hustle. And so I say we're gonna delve into a lot more topics about business, maybe in the next season. That's something we can focus on a bit more. But I'd ask for y'all to submit some questions. Are there any topics that you all want to cover? Tell

us about your experience? I mean, do these numbers hold true to you, you know, are you out here trying to establish a business and don't understand everything you need or don't have the resources, or you can't get people to spend dollars with you? So yeah, just tell us about your experiences. And we'll we'll go from there.

Yeah. So until next time, folks, I'm your girl. Tenisha Nicole, and I'm Shana Dixon and we are black girl fly.