Soul Food: 52 Principles of Black Entrepreneurial Success by Robert L. Wallace is a motivational book designed to help today’s business owners succeed in this dog-eat-dog world of commercial exchange. Each chapter offers advice to entrepreneurs looking to build a profitable enterprise. This particular excerpt is from the chapter titled “Week 1: Leveraging the Gratitude Principle.” For aspiring entrepreneurs, Wallace recommends expressing your gratitude to people. It’s called good old-fashion customer service, and if you have it, you’re off to a great start.
The writing is fairly straightforward and brief, its message simple: Treating people with respect and showing your gratitude is as valuable to an entrepreneur as having an excellent product or service. In this case, we follow Karen, a young woman who ended a failed marriage and an unfulfilling career as a secretary to start a graphic design company.
Despite getting her business off to a slow start, Karen remained grateful, cheerful, and positive. Her story teaches us all that kindness and a positive attitude are assets we should value more than our business’ bottom line. Karen used her reputation to leverage a business opportunity, and it ultimately paid off.
–The Editors
Most women in the neighborhood looked up to Karen. Although many of them were either unwed mothers or substance abusers, Karen exuded a sense of hope that was important to them, and she provided a role model. In [a] neighborhood of rat-infested dwellings; drug-dealing corners; and nervous, trigger-happy police officers[where she was raised], someone like Karen was indeed a breath of fresh air.
Although it didn’t show in Karen’s outlook and appearance, she emerged from rough beginnings. After graduating at the top of her class from academically advanced Eastern High School, she had her choice of college scholarships. [And although Karen had the choice of any Ivy League school, she chose to bypass her college education and marry her high school sweetheart. She enrolled in the local community college to take courses during the evening while she worked as a secretary with the city Department of Social Services. Soon after, she gave birth to her first child. When her marriage ended, Karen reinvented her life.]
Starting her life afresh in a new city, Karen assessed her skills to see what kind of work she could pursue. Although she was a fine secretary, she felt it was not her true calling. But art interested her. She remembered that teachers had often remarked on how gifted she was in graphic design. She did it very well and truly enjoyed it. Consequently, she found a job at a small graphic design shop in the downtown area and launched her new career.
While working for this firm during the day, she quietly started her own graphics design business on the side. Karen had the entrepreneurial spirit. She soon generated enough clients to leave her full-time job to cultivate her business.
One reason Karen was able to launch her business so quickly was that she had earned a reputation for appreciating even the smallest things people did for her. If customers turned her down, she would smile and graciously thank them for giving her an opportunity to bid on their business. Despite living in the toughest part of town, she was always cheerful, quick to pass on an encouraging word, and appreciative of the fact that she had a roof over her head, heat in the winter, food to eat, and good health.
Soon, Karen’s customers began to notice her positive attitude and unwavering spirit. Although they hadn’t given her a lot of business early on, they enjoyed her company because of her gracious spirit.
Karen hoped to build her business so that someday she could hire additional staff, move to a nicer office, and send her son to a private school. But she understood that she had to build upon her current achievements in order to make it to the next level.
About this time one of Karen’s prospects called her at home late at night. “Karen, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we’re going to be listing a major contract for graphic design services. I think you can do this work, and the word around the office is that you’d be a great vendor to work with. Although I can’t make any promises, I, and others here, would sure like to see you win. I suggest that you watch the newspaper for the announcement of the bid and put your best proposal forward. Good luck!”
“Thank you so much for the tip, and God bless you,” Karen responded.
Karen kept a lookout for the official Request for Proposal. Two weeks later, the RFP finally hit the street. Karen responded with a well-researched and documented proposal. Although she had minimal resources, she worked overtime and used her special design talent to construct a strong, competitive proposal.
After a long wait and a series of starts and stops, Karen received word that she had been awarded the contract. Soon, she was able to hire five new employees; move to a bright, new office; and buy top-of-the-line computer equipment.
Karen used her positive reputation as leverage when the opportunity arose. Even in the face of hardship, she remained undauntedly gracious to those around her. Kindness and a positive outlook were clearly defined assets that Karen valued more than her financial statement.
Wisdom to take away
Average individuals, if asked for an honest personal assessment, would agree that they are not completely content with what they have and where they are in life. Most of us desire bigger and more — a bigger home, a nicer car, a better-paying job, more recognition, enhanced prestige, and power. “Constructive discontent” can be good, and indeed it is necessary if entrepreneurs are to push the envelope of opportunity. But if that attitude is allowed to get out of hand, entrepreneurs will lose sight of the wonderful assets they already possess.
Despite the difficulties of life, all of us are endowed with three types of assets: time, talent, and treasure. All of us are provided with 24 hours in each day to embrace and utilize these assets. All of us have been given certain talents that, when used appropriately, can take us to the top of our particular field or profession. And all of us have more treasures than we realize. These treasures are the “stuff in life.” They include not only the things we own, such as our homes, automobiles, bank accounts, stock portfolio, jobs, and businesses, but also our personal relationships.
To ascend to your next level of success and accomplishment, you
must depend upon the assets you possess. In other words, you must first recognize and then leverage your assets effectively. However, you cannot leverage that which you don’t value. Consequently, you must value your assets first, then you will be positioned to use them as a stepping-stone to reach greater heights.Maintaining a true appreciation of everything you have also makes the journey to entrepreneurial success less stressful and more enjoyable.
A Conversation with author Robert L. Wallace
In the introduction of his book , Soul Food: 52 Principles For Black Entrepreneurial Success, Robert L. Wallace tells the story of a U.S. Navy captain’s near collision with a lighthouse during a routine military exercise off the Atlantic Coast in the midst of a major winter storm. The lesson, it seems, is less about the captain’s misadventures and more about the role of a lighthouse. From Wallace’s perspective, a lighthouse is used to guide ships into safe waters and away from the treacherous surf-battered shores.
Wallace, chairman and CEO of the M
aryland-based BiTH Technologies Inc., wrote Soul Food (Perseus Publishing; $24) to be a lighthouse for business owners. His mission, he says, is to help provide today’s entrepreneur with safe passage through the tight straits of our national economy. Yet, he is very quick to point out that being a lighthouse aloneisn’t enough. The captains of business have to be capable of making his or her business sail profitably.
“At the end of the day, the only true asset that we have as entrepreneur is our word,” Wallace recently told BLACK ENTERPRISE. “It’s our personal substance. Even though you may acquire the money, the equipment, and the furniture, business is still a person-to-person transaction. So who you are, what you believe in, and how you live your life and treat people become the most important assets that an entrepreneur can have. Those are the things that no one can take from you.”
It’s this sense of integrity, says Wallace, that is the pillar of building wealth and success in business. Karen, a subject in Wallace’s book, was truly grateful to people around her. She always had a positive attitude and a gracious spirit, and it gave her a positive reputation. When opportunities came around, people wanted to help her succeed because she understood that she was her business’ most important asset and she was appreciative to people with whom she interacted.
“Gratitude says, ‘Look, I may not be where I want to be or at the level that I am going to be. I may not even be enjoying the fruits of my labor, but I’m certainly better off than I used to be,'” Wallace explains. “There are certain things that we have that are of value, and we must learn to appreciate those things. If we don’t, we will never be able to leverage them [toward our success]. Many of us have assets, but because we don’t appreciate them, we lose the power to leverage them.”
What makes being an entrepreneur successful is understanding the gift that makes him or her special. “What is it that you bring to society and to humanity that is so valuable that society is willing to pay you money to offer that service and gift? Every single one of us has that gift; the problem is that most folks don’t know what that gift is, nor are they searching for it.”
Wallace says having this sense of gratitude and understanding of how you fit into the universe helps you navigate your business through the dry seasons and manage it during the fruitful ones.
“After all, business is a cycle,” he says. “Business has its ups and its downs. You’re successful; you’re a failure. You make money; you lose money. Business is a cycle. The challenge is managing yourself and your business through the cycles, so that when you’re riding high — or riding low — your perspective and your management approach to your business remains the same.”
So while many of our captains have set sail aboard their businesses, Wallace hopes the lighthouse within his book will keep them from getting caught in the powerful riptides and undercurrents of our nation’s economy.
–Kenneth Meeks
From Soul Food: 52 Principles for Black Entrepreneurial Success by Robert L. Wallace (Perseus Publishing). © 2000 by Robert L. Wallace. Reprinted by permission of the writer.