small-business-management

Stop Doing This if You want to grow Your Business  In this decade of AI Fast Development

I interact with a lot of small business owners or hustlers as South Africans like to call it and a sizeable chunk of these have a devastating psychological bug that is destined to keep them small and failing. It is so amazing how many businesses are stuck on the idea that there is not enough support, especially black small business owners who talk about this a lot in their social media feeds.

It is baffling to me and I hope this article might convince you to stop doing this if you want your business to grow in 2023. Probably you also have seen a lot of similar questions or comments like this “Black people do not want to see you prosper”, others will go like “Blacks will not support another black business like they will a white-owned business” There are different variations of this and it began to concern me and the biggest question in my head was:

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO OBSESSED WITH SUPPORT?

Why do you need support if you are in business?

why do you have to claim that black people do not support your business if you are an entrepreneur?

This is a confusing topic for me. Are not entrepreneurs supposed to figure things out, and come out with new ways of doing things? are they not supposed to build businesses on ideas instead of what people choose to do or not to do?

Are you in Business or Self Employed?

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Or is it that so-called “business people” are just self-employed complainers who just started a business because it was just something to make money fast? Not judging them at all but I really have taken a position on this matter and it goes completely against this sentiment that someone has to support you based on the fact that you are a black business owner.

Some of these comments preclude the idea of great service, they are completely vague on business standards and somehow try to vindicate shoddy customer orientation in some businesses. I believe we need to find a way to stop this if you want to grow your business in this decade of AI fast developments.

I mean, is it not that the purpose of building a business is to solve problems? So, if you see this “lack of Support” as a problem why can’t you start your own niche solving that problem instead of generalizing that “BLACK PEOPLE DO NOT SUPPORT EACH OTHER”?

I am asking this question knowing that many will come back and give me all kinds of reasons, but for me, this is a great observation but it depends on what you do once you realize it.

Because if you decide to just post on social media about it-then you have taken a position as a helpless willing victim of this circumstance and you are reaching out to other victims so that you can create a victim chorus vindicating your lack of creativity and innovation to solve the situation.

I understand very well the roots of this victim mentality come from the historic imbalances of this world which in itself robs us of a quality engagement in issues such as this.

I mention this because the moment you take a victim mentality you have already defeated your argument. The best you can do is seek vindication from like-minded victims and swim in your victimhood closing down or talking down on anyone with a discerning idea about the same challenge. It is my opinion that small businesses or entrepreneurs will need to somehow stop doing this if they really want to grow their businesses in this fast AI Developing decade.

How Did China Become A Global Giant within 50 Years?

I am going to end this article by using a global giant that is now the biggest developing economy in the world. CHINA!!

At some point China was a very poor country, with millions of people struggling to live, it was a laughing stock of its neighbors, to the point that the Russian soldiers at the border post used to mock the less equipped Chinese soldiers and spit on their faces knowing that there was nothing they were going to do.

The same meager military equipment they had was an inferior hoard from the Soviet war machinery so the Chinese could not raise their heads to the mighty Russians.

After world war 2 China was under Japanese rule and after their liberation they were left with no industry, and no infrastructure to sustain such a big population.

China immediately fell into civil war which meant there were no development plans to talk about until the communists triumphed over nationalists who opted to settle in Taiwan.

Since 1979 when China began to open up and reform its economy, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year, and more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. There have also been significant improvements in access to health, education, and other services over the same period.

Today many Chinese live in big cities and Chinese cities are pretty big with some of the world’s most developed infrastructure and they did that in a century.

How did they do this?

Chinese decided to open their economy to foreign investors instead of foreign donors, which means since then Chinese infrastructure began to grow through foreign investments together with the grit and grind of the Chinese population until they had all the skills, technology, infrastructure, and capital to build it the way they want.

Obviously, I am grossly fusing here, the nitty gritty details will show a lot of twists and turns in policy and political maneuvering which may paint a not-so-simplistic image if peeled one by one. Mine is just to make a point based on what the world sees today and how it came to be China the superpower of the world.

How is this relevant to this article?

Black people in South Africa were oppressed as we know the history. Freedom came yet black people are still held under the invisible oppression which is kept in place by a multitude of forces some external but the most dangerous are the ones internal.

Customer Scanning QR Code

By that, I mean that black man largely still feels the inferiority complex that forces them to constantly draw these comparisons against how other races do things or get ahead.

This also has its own deep details not to dwell on for this article. The point I am trying to make is that black man has to find a point of shifting their mindset from willing victim to slogans and political diarrhea that has become a huge factor in how people think of themselves at a larger scale.

Black small businesses need to outgrow the need or demand for “black people to support” their businesses just for the sake of being black. this is a flawed argument that creates a number of comfort zones for the business owner which lull and numbs the creative thinking capacity of the black small business start-up.

One of those obvious comfort zones is the silent expectation that people must support your business because of your color which creates a blind spot for service excellence. This has created a horrifying sense of entitlement in many instances where people expect support because they are black and are in business. This is hugely unfair to the business owner as it is to the customer or to the black person expected to support.

The other comfort zone created is that customer is expected to support despite shocking service, sub-standard product finishing, non-existent customer care, and lack of progressive business management protocols.

This quickly builds up into a victim mentality that vindicates the business owner from their lack of lateral thinking, innovation, and using their resources to build for the future. Small businesses end up stuck with the label which stifles their growth planning by a huge margin. There is no way this sentiment can build sustainable business mindsets, this is a cancer in our black small business society and you have to stop doing this if you want to grow your business in this decade of fast-developing AI.

Conclusion

This is one of those blanket statements that one can’t argue if they are true or false, What I always ask the person enquiring is: ” Do you support black businesses?” I ask this because for me the fact that we are so consumed with the color of the business person is problematic.

I rather focus on quality of service, power of engagement, how the business solves my problems, or what is it that I see as a value from that business. Before you jump down my throat, I do the same with big business, I never go back to a business that has proven to me that it does not care for my money.

So as much as I understand the “black business support” sentiment-I simply won’t support a business simply because the owner is black., if the owner is obnoxious, dishonest, disrespects basic customer protocols, does not understand the importance of packaging and branding, or does not appeal to my taste. It does not matter how black the business owner is I will not support such a business, the same goes for any colored business person.

But again, I support black business people to the hilt if I like their concept, their business model, and their product seem to add value not just to me but to other people that I care for, I certainly support such businesses without a flinch.

I actually in the past three months have spent a lot of currency in helping other small businesses realize their growth which means I gave away a lot of services that I sell for FREE to small businesses because I believe in what they stand for, or in their mission or product or business model. So question for you.: WHY DO YOU SUPPORT BLACK BUSINESSES?

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