I’m sure you’ve heard about Hanifa, Pinky, Ami, and a few others who are black who owned businesses and have had to pivot because of unfortunate circumstances. While reading about all of these people, the one thing I see in common is that black women are resilient. We get down but we always come back up and it takes a lot for us to go down but when we do it’s not that we are weak. Sometimes we just neet to regroup and it’s also ok if we are tired. It’s ok to say we are tired of being everything to everyone and not enough to ourselves. As a black woman who owns a very small business, I wanted to reflect on what I’m learning from these moments with these women about what to do and what not to do for my own business. Here is What Black Women Small Business Owners Can Learn Right Now.
One I don’t ever want to be the face of my brand. I’m only speaking for me. I know people say people buy from people, but when you get involved in the business poeple attack you…I want them to attack the business and not my personal life. People came after Hanifa personally and attacked her. How can you attack someone if you don’t know they own the business? Yes, you can look it up, but sometimes owners are integrated into their small business so much that it’s hard to separate them from their business. Hanifa had a baby and people attacked that a lot. I own She Geechee but I try my best not to associate my personal life into this business. I don’t post any personal pictures of me on this site and I don’t share my personal business out in the open (I have an Instagram that is private and my threads account is bullshat). Do you know who owns God is dope off hand? No, that is how I want to run this business so when (not if becuase owning a business is not perfect) people come after She Geechee, I can mostly stay out of it at least lock my accounts down as much as possible and hire a PR to handle anything else.
I find it odd or funny depends on how you look at it that black men aren’t attacked as much in business. Do they not fail? Or do people not come after them because there are men? Why do black women get the brunt of the online slaughter? Pinky now I’ve had her burger (it wasn’t good), but I didn’t slander her online or tag her. I’ve been to her events (American sesh or something) it was a waste of my time and dollars. I didn’t go online and attack. Will I ever spend money with her again? No, will I ever send people to shop with her? No, but I won’t go online and do an attack campaign either. (This isn’t an attack, this is simply stating MY Experience with her.)
Black small business owners can learn some things from all of these women…
Stop scaling so fast. Scaling up is a blessing, but it requires you to stress-test your operations before the moment of crisis.
Take responsibility publicly while protecting your peace privately. We as black women should say what we did wrong and take accountability for that and then protect our peace by letting someone else handle the outside noise. Hire a PR firm and stay off of social media. As a buyer who doesn’t know Hanifa, I paid for a product, I don’t care if she had a baby and that is simply how a lot of people felt. That’s reality, and as a business owner understand that people don’t care what you have going on in your personal life; they paid for something, they want answers and won’t show you grace about it.
Pausing or filing bankruptcy is not quitting; it’s a strategy. You can flip the narrative here: choosing to slow down is a power move, not a failure. Rest and reflection are part of the business plan. There is no shame in filing bankruptcy like Pinky Cole did to reset white folks do it all the time. Do what you need to do to regroup but please learn from it and learn why you got there in the first place.
Community support is your real currency. Invest in the people who are there for you because as black women we don’t have the luxury of having big corporations to help us. For small Black-owned businesses like myself we need to invest in that relationship consistently, not just in a crisis.
We always want more black women to do this or do that. More representation in fashion, tech, media, medical, etc but when one stumbles, we attack and we show no mercy. Then you wonder why some of us like myself, stay small and are afraid to put more money and time into a business that will be ridiculted anyway. Why would I set myself up to do this when I see what those ahead of me had to put up with? I won’t quit, and I won’t back down but I will learn, and that is what I love about black women we learn, we grow and as my resilient shirt says we get back up.
