Check out this great article from Joyce Watkins

http://www.mbaonline.com/leveling-the-c-suite-seesaw-the-rise-of-women-mbas/

A.Wayne Gill's Business Classic has been re-released and now called "This Business of Supplier Diversity

  I am pleased to announce that my classic business fable, "Tales My Grandma Told Me" has been updated and re-released. The new title is now, "This Business of Supplier Diversity".

  What happens when you take a classic work and improve upon it? The outcome is This Business of Supplier Diversity; the revised edition of A.Wayne Gill’s 2007 standard-bearer, Tales My Grandma Told Me – A Business Diversity Fable. In this edition, Gill continues to explore the challenges of leveling the playing field for minority business owners, with wit, keen insight and entertaining twists. Filled with stories from his personal entrepreneurial journey and his long tenure at the supplier diversity table, This Business of Supplier Diversity is no ordinary business tome. It will make you laugh, it will make you think, and it will inspire you to action!

Small, women-owned, and minority-owned businesses are the backbone of the American economy. Recent history has taught us that our national prosperity depends on how well we work together to expand opportunities for this vital business sector. This book is for anyone serious about making that potential a reality.

  My book is now available on Amazon for $9.95. 

   Also in concurrence with its release, I have partnered with Goodreads for a month long giveaway of "This Business of Supplier Diversity". Five people will win signed copies of my re-released business classic. To enter click on the link below.

www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/48572-this-business-of-supplier-diversity---a-business-diversity-fable

A.Wayne Gill to Speak at Carolinas Minority Devolpment Council

A. Wayne Gill will be speaking on March 27th at the Supplier Diversity Pro Forum in Salisbury, North Carolina.


Forum, sponsored by Food Lion, is from 8am-4pm and will cover the topic of “Maintaining a Powerful Supplier Diversity Program.”

A.Wayne Gill Moderates the Billion Dollar CEO Forum

Mr. Wayne Gill will be moderating the Billion Dollar CEO Forum at the 28th Annual Business Expo on Supplier Diversity.  The Business Expo workshops focus on how to achieve company growth, doing business with local, state and federal government, purchasing trends, growth industries and best practices in Supplier Diversity.

Workshops feature leading industry professionals of Minority Business Companies that are either doing or on the verge of doing 1 billion in annual revenues this year.  The SFMSDC also sponsors a Youth Entrepreneur Workshop designed to take the mystery out of finances and encourage young people to consider entrepreneurship.

The Top Five Minority Business Mistakes And How To Avoid Them (Part I - Continued)

Mistake Number One: Failure to Focus (Continued)

The Robert Frost poem, The Road Less Traveled says “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Everything changed when I stopped and assessed the roads before me. On the one hand, I could continue on the path of “networking” at multiple events and driving myself batty with little result or I could take the road less traveled – the road of reflection.

On the road of reflection, a business owner must cease from his efforts, reflect on his purpose, direction, strategies and results to see if it is working. If it is, then wonderful! That business owner should just continue to build on that solid foundation. But if not, as it was in my case, the business owner has to have the courage to make needed changes.

When I realized the dead end of involving myself in multiple organizations with little result – that is, spreading myself too thin – I made two key decisions that you should also consider. I immediately cut the ten or so organizations that I was involved in to two organizations that I would focus upon for business-building. Second, I decided that I would put in meaningful time, financial resources and service with those organizations in order to build relationships and to serve others.

Thus, I went cold-turkey on all of the evening business mixers, luncheons, match-making events and others and began to focus on the two organizations that I felt I could best build upon, substituting quantity for quality. As the quote from the Frost poem above states, this made all of the difference. In a short period of time, I had built significant relationships within each organization and I leveraged those relationships into a business that went up like a rocket.

Sometimes our business relationships are a mile wide but an inch deep. I would suggest narrowing your focus to your best prospects and deepening those relationships. A few quality relationships will yield a much greater harvest than several superficial ones. Ultimately, you are the benefactor of this strategy on many levels.

You will develop business relationships that last a lifetime – the kind that keeps on giving – year in and year out. You will cut down on your “busy time” and increase your quality time; and you will develop actual business much faster because you will build rapport and trust with your targets. People like to do business with people they know and trust.

Perhaps you are making Mistake Number one right now. You are spread too thin, looking for leads and business in too many places. This may be your time to stop and assess your business and your strategy. If you have fallen victim to this deadly mistake, then you can reverse your direction right now. Take a few hours aside and think this through. It will make all the difference!

Top Five Minority Business Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) Part I

Hello Friends: It's been a while. I'm glad to back after a long hiatus. What is amazing is that many of you have found the information in this Blog really helpful as we receive constant feedback and our analytics tells us that you are making use of our pages. I thought I'd resume the dialogue with an excerpt from one of your favorite pieces: The Top Five Minority Business Mistakes And How To Avoid Them.

Just avoiding one of these mistakes can make a world of difference in your business. For example, many years ago I decided that I would stop making Mistake Number One below, and that sole decision transformed my business. The current national business environment is challenging and that creates pressure to push harder, sometimes spinning your wheels in order to make something happen. A wiser approach is to slow down and think clearly through your business and objectives. Once you’ve given it some thought and created a plan of action, it is time to execute!

Mistake Number One - Failure to Focus

In 1997 I started a solo legal practice. Going against conventional wisdom, I started my firm with no capital, partners or resources. I literally had a rolodex of a few colleagues, a dream and a lot of faith. The business gurus will tell you this is not the recommended approach and, in a perfect world, starting a business on those terms is not advisable. However, we all know that life rarely hands you the luxury of perfect timing or resources. Sometimes you have to just grab the ball and run with it and that is what I did.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen,” and that’s exactly what happened in my case. Once I grabbed the ball and started running, I was able to obtain client referrals, an office to work out of and even an assistant to help me get started. Within three years I went from an initial retainer of $250 dollars on my first case, to over one million dollars in annual revenue. In that roughly three year period I learned numerous lessons that serve me to this day and will serve your business as well, if acted upon. That is the great thing about principles – they work the same way all of the time and they have predictable results. What worked for me will work for you – principles are no respecter of persons.

In the early part of my venture I didn’t know very much about timeless principles. I simply got out my rolodex and started to “hustle” – to call upon everyone I knew to let them know I was open for business. I also began to join networking groups, trade associations, lawyer groups, small business groups, trade-fairs, multiple chambers of commerce, multiple professional connection groups and the like – if there was an event, I was there with business cards in hand. Within a few months I realized that I was wearing myself out!

On top of that, I became aware that I was obtaining mixed results from all of the associations and events that I was attending or participating in. Particularly because I am a lawyer, many small businesses wanted free or very close to free advice and several groups wanted my involvement on committees or other time commitments from me with little return on investment. I further discovered that from a business-building standpoint, even the legal trade associations were a waste of time because who attended those meetings? You guessed it – other lawyers! Thus, I would always be just one of several other similarly situated professionals in the room and that was getting me nowhere very fast.

When this reality came home to me, I admit that I was tempted to “keep plugging away” hoping that if I just kept networking, eventually being involved in all of these groups and associations would somehow pay off – one day my ship would come in. There is something about the human mind – once you’ve mentally committed to a course of action, your tendency is to cling to that course even if it clearly fails to yield results. It is somehow difficult to put down even a failing strategy and to move in a different direction. Yet this is exactly what you must do (and often) to succeed in business – there are no sacred cows. You have to discern when a strategy is not working and then to go about making the needed changes.

Find out the changes I made and how those changes positively affected my business in "Top Five Minority Business Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) Part II," coming soon!

Best regards, Coach

Despite Recession, U.S. Entrepreneurial Activity Rises in 2009 to Highest Rate in 14 Years, Kauffman Study Shows

Hey Friends: Take a look at this new study by the Kauffman Foundation for entrepreneurial studies. The study shows that business start-ups among African Americans are significantly on the rise. There is some thought out there that the gains are, in part, "involuntary" because it's a reaction to the Great Recession experienced by our nation and not borne out of proactive choices. There may be some truth to that, but I believe that taking control of your destiny by starting a business is one of most positive steps you can take and it is a proven avenue of wealth creation - something desperately needed in the African American community. Thus, I applaud the rise of start up businesses in the Black community and will continue to educate, inform and mentor as many as possible so that together, we can build prosperity for generations to come. Click on the link below to access the report:

Despite Recession, U.S. Entrepreneurial Activity Rises in 2009 to Highest Rate in 14 Years, Kauffman Study Shows