March 7th Newsletter

Table of Contents

• Black Businesses Need to Start Thinking About June and August

• Drop “LLC” When Creating Marketing & PR Materials

• “I Would Rather…” Is Hurting Your Business

• Free resources for you

BIG MICRO OBSESSION GOALS & INITIATIVE

Juneteenth with Sheen Magazine Online

Towards the end of this month, I will be setting up a meeting to speak with Sheen Magazine to design a consumer guide. This guide will focus on black-owned businesses that can help their viewers refresh various areas of their life before the fall season.

Ideally, I would like to have a roster of 50 black businesses in the fashion, home decor, and beauty industries. If you own or know of a black-owned business that fits this description and would like to be featured in the consumer guide, please reach out to me as soon as possible. Your participation would greatly contribute to highlighting the diversity and excellence within the Black community.

Ai prompts dropping soon
AI prompts to assist with product descriptions and business inception stories will be available on March 15th exclusively for members. More AI prompts will be released over the next 45 days to ensure the process of getting you set up on e-commerce sites is quick and flawless.

The goal of the initiative is to present businesses that are prepared for marketing opportunities to our media partners.

Membership Discount
One year ‘Basic’ membership will be available for $250 to meet our goal to present more businesses at meetings with media outlets. This offer is only valid between March 8th- March 12th.

The Conversation

Black Businesses Need to Start Thinking About June and August

June is the month when Black businesses have more opportunities to be discovered by those looking to support black-owned ventures. March is the month to plan your sales campaigns, graphics, keywords, and featured products.

If you are using an e-commerce platform, the best time to post pro-Black-owned products is in April. This will give you two months to rank before others begin mid-May.

August is another monumental month for the culture as it is Black Business Month. Planning sections of your store that are dedicated to cultural holidays is always a great idea.

This doesn't only pertain to Black business positive days or months. This tactic works well for all cultural and group observances. Understand what you identify with to begin creating specific sections in your store ready for annual observances.

I have personally noticed Black businesses lagging in marketing and PR activities. Most of this is due to being overwhelmed by marketing activities that require high effort on a daily basis. If you take the time to prepare annual observance marketing activities ahead of time, every year after is just about maintenance.

Preparing your marketing on e-commerce platforms is all about search engine research. Don't let that overwhelm you! I will be dropping a video inside the membership to help you learn how to do this in under an hour. Once you have this process down, it's just rinse and repeat.

Drop “LLC” When Creating Marketing & PR Materials

I've spent a significant amount of time advocating for business owners to drop "LLC" from their marketing and PR assets. During my consultancy work, I often encountered resistance from businesses adamant about retaining the "LLC" in their name mentions.

This insistence often led to challenges when pitching stories to journalists, with many rejecting the inclusion of "LLC" due to its unnecessary repetition and amateurish appearance in marketing materials.

It's important to trust that if your business name and entity structure have been approved by the state, you're good to use your name without the additional entity structure attached.

The only circumstance where "LLC" should be included in your marketing materials is if it's part of your official business name. Otherwise, it's merely a business structure that primarily concerns the IRS.

If concerns about legal protection or potential lawsuits regarding your business name arise, exploring trademarking options is advisable. Trademarking provides stronger legal rights to use your business name without the need to emphasize entity structure status. Small business lawyers can help you explore this option best.

“I Would Rather…” Is Hurting Your Business

Earlier this week, there was a post on Treads that read, “I would rather have 50 loyal customers, rather than 500 likes.”

I often emphasize the importance of moving away from reliance on social media, but if you opt to maintain a presence there, it's crucial to understand how it fits into your overall strategy.

You don't have to make a binary choice between cultivating loyal customers and amassing high social vanity numbers—both are interconnected and serve the same ultimate goal: expanding your audience to showcase your brand and products.

In a previous post, I discussed leveraging engagement as a means to attract potential new customers. However, it's essential to recognize that without an existing audience, your content won't reach anyone.

Social media platforms can play a pivotal role in building this initial audience, especially when starting your marketing efforts from scratch.

The outdated mindset of viewing social media as solely a platform for selling products or gaining empty likes/followers for a confidence boost needs to be reframed.

Instead, see it as a tool to earn leads. As a product-based business, your actions for leads may be different from those who offer services. Your process is more manual in interactions to convert that like/follower into a subscriber of your business. Social media gives you the opportunity to talk to 100+ people per day without restriction. Those likes and follows can lead to loyal customers in the pipeline.

Once you adopt this perspective, the idea of having to choose between engagement and customer acquisition becomes obsolete.

That said, don't feel pressured by me to abandon social media hastily. If your strategy involves prioritizing the growth of your follower count, stick to your plan and commit to it for a timeline of 6 months to a year. This duration allows ample time to assess whether your efforts are translating into business growth beyond social media.

Always remember that social media's worth to your business lies in its ability to generate profit. If you find that your social media efforts aren't effectively converting followers into engaged audiences interested in your offerings, it may be worthwhile to explore alternative avenues for capturing attention.