Before I moved my business to my new location, I used to be a part of several networking groups. And I had plenty of business relationships with other businesses that helped to keep my business growing and learning new things. I was a heavy advocate for the referral. If you did something for me, and you did it well, I would continue to use you and refer you over and over again. You know the deal if you did bad business…

Recently I returned back to my home town for a short stint to prepare my house for a move-in. While in town, I needed several services done and taken care of so why re-invent the wheel? I was calling the people I knew and trusted and had depended on times before.

I ended up having to call 3 of my old associates for business. Now mind you, this was business I was giving THEM, not the other way around. After meeting with the first guy at the house, we had a great conversation, and chopped it up about how my business was doing since the move, and how his business was doing and how everyone in our old network was doing. It felt great to catch up with an old colleague, who dropped everything he was doing to get over to me and help me out. I gladly wrote him his check and continued on with my week.

The next 2 associates were a little less friendly. And in some way I believe could care less that I was actually calling them for business. There was no smile, no “good to hear from you” cheer, nothing indicative of their desire to want to receive business from me in the first place. Both associates seemed to just not care about my well being even though I asked about theirs, and let’s just say they were less than thrilled to know business has been good since the move.

I was perplexed. Once colleagues I referred business to on a monthly basis, now for some reason or another were just real dismissive in their service. I didn’t quite get it seeing that I was the one writing checks to their businesses, but I recalled the attitude of the first colleague mentioned in this post. Business was going well for him, and so in turn, he was glad to hear business was going well for me. The other two didn’t nessarily give the notion that business was going well for them, so they came across as not caring whether or not business was going well for me.

It’s just a theory. Heck, one of the two associates later mentioned actually asked me if I was getting certain business because I was “black” and was thinking of making his wife 51% owner of his business to get minority breaks. I paused and shook my head because I couldn’t believe this was coming out of his mouth. I gladly told him that I believe I continue to get business because of the integrity I hold and the quality of work we produce.

Needless to say I won’t be sending those 2 colleagues any more business. The first colleage I mentioned has a big project for me scheduled in a few weeks, and I will continue to support his business.

I never understood the logic that just because things aren’t going the way you want them for you, you can’t be happy for others. Especially if they’re soliciting your business.

I try to keep this blog as non-ghetto as possible, but I have to shout out Maino on this one:

I visited a networking function a while back, and met a guy who like most of us was quick to ask what I do so he could get to talking about what he does and hand me his card. I actually thought that we may end up being good referral partners with each other since we were in a similar line of work, but sort of caught a sour note with him from interrupting me talking to someone else to make his presence known in the first place.

No biggie, I accepted his anxious introduction as just a misstep and disregarded any negative feelings, but overhead while I was talking to the original individual I was engaged with before his interruption, his conversation with a young lady in the area about how he does “this and that” so much better than other companies and so on. Since we were in similar businesses I almost took it as a poke to my company, but just sort of brushed it off. Besides, we had just met, could he really be trying to make himself look better to someone who didn’t even know me? I was sort of taken back by the comments.

Sometimes intuition is a good thing. Sometimes we can over react. I’m only human.

I returned to the office and carry on as usual. The guy I was originally talking to, along with the young lady both ended up following up with me. We had great follow-up time and I have referred both of them already for potential business and plan on keeping an ongoing relationship with them. However, I didn’t follow up with “mr. interruptus” and he didn’t follow up with me and it was back to business as usual.

Until I received an email blast about his company and his events and his business. And it wasn’t even addressed to me. It was a mass blast and I had become victim to the old “I-have-your-business-card-and-email-address-so-I-will-add-you-to-my-list” ploy. I was sort of cheesed off by it. It’s not like it was the first time it happened, but the guy had already rubbed me the wrong way, and I wasn’t going to be a victim of solicited spam!

I calmed down quickly and thought, hey, this is harmless. Just unsubscribe and keep it moving. Or, see if he may STILL be a good potential referral partner for you. You never know who knows who.

So I called the young lady from the networking event, because she had met him before then, and asked her about his character and integrity and told her I didn’t want to make any assumptions based on a few interactions. She said it was refreshing to hear someone say when they thought some networking etiquette was a little inappropriate and shared a few things with me about her observations that fell in line with mine.

I unsubscribed from the list.

Sometimes intuition is a good thing. Sometimes we can over react. I’m only human.

But this time, speaking my mind helped me realize that who you truly are in the world shows up, whether you like it or not. Doing good business is key!

I was having dinner at a conference this week and was discussing some of the things I do as a camera operator for national speakers when filming them either performing keynotes or holding a workshop, and one of my clients happened to be at the table to give some excellent feedback on how I’m able to keep them calm before the filming begins and how much that really meant to them as they were preparing to to give their presentations. Another speaker who had worked with me before chimed in and agreed that she too had observed the same type of treatment when I was working with her and it really spoke to the others at the table who had never worked with me before, and were now interested.

This story is important to me because I’ve spent a lot of my time as a black business owner having to compete with my non-minority competitors who’ve had bigger budgets, better equipment, a bigger staff, and in the end we’d all put out the same quality product. As I’ve started to develop a more personal relationship with my clients over the past year, I don’t worry as much about competition as I used to, because all the money in the world couldn’t buy the type of testimonial I received at the table that night. That person that helped these speakers prepare and give their best performances for the camera was authentically who I am. And I wonder how many times in the past that I’ve put the authentic being aside to appear to be someone that I’m not. I can’t call it, and I don’t focus on the past too much, I just know that moving forward my best service I can give is one that my competition can’t. Even with all of the shiny toys and the big crews and the hefty investments behind some of them, my best marketing ploy has been just to be my authentic self. You can’t really put a price on that.

Enjoy some shots from the conference:

As part of a video production company, we have a wedding videography division that does a number of wedding videos throughout the year. I personally love doing them for the complete workout of the skill set of the video professional. It’s like some people who like to workout love to go swimming because it works every muscle in your body, doing wedding videos for us works every video skill in our head from start to completion. So by the end you feel well accomplished and look back over the project fulfilled that something indeed was achieved.

By the way, my company doesn’t do those el cheapo cookie cutter bag-and-tag wedding videos. We create productions that last. So that’s why we get a full skill set workout.

But I digress. We did a pain-staking wedding last year. The bride was a bridezilla, the mom was a momzilla, and the grandmother was a grandzilla. So we were on ice all night! But oh such the fun of the job. We did it with all smiles. Besides, I generally can deal with a little stress if you’re the one cutting the check.

But at this particular wedding rehearsal, it wasn’t the check cutters who were being rude, it was the chapel owner. As I walked through the door for the rehearsal (Yes we do attend rehearsals. Call us to book now. *smile*), with my clipboard in hand, I was met at the entryway by a rather stern woman with an attitude from here to Tanzania asking me in the most irritated voice, “can I help you?”. To which I asked, “was this the wedding rehearsal for ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’?”. She said yes. But still looked at me as if I was there to rob everyone. I was waiting for security to come out of the back or something. I told her I was one of the videographers and was there for the rehearsal. She started rambling on and on about everything we “can’t” do in the chapel to which I took notes and then wondered was she ever going to actually let me into the rehearsal…

Let me pause for a minute, I know that weddings are stressful and people do stressful induced things based on levels of stress. So for the most part, I let the behavior slide although it should be of no surprise I was the only “chip in the cookie”.

I get through the rehearsal and think that maybe tomorrow the chapel owner won’t be as stressed. Besides she’s not the one who has to walk down this spiral staircase in a big wedding dress all while remembering to look fabulous.

However.

The next day was the same ol’ attitude. And it probably pissed her off even more that the other videographer that came with me happened to be a “chip” as well. But whatever, we deal with the attitude and the telling us where we can and cannot be and all of these rules and make it through a long grueling filming. By the time the DVD is finished I’ve forgotten all about her sour attitude. Until this year when another couple books a wedding at that same chapel. That feeling instantly returned.

But I thought it would be better, she can’t possibly be upset about the same thing. She’ll recognize me from last year and know I’m there for the rehearsal to scope things out and things will go so much better. Wishful thinking.

Same lady. Same attitude. Same experience. Wow.

But we weren’t the only “chips” at this wedding so we all got a piece of that attitude.

So we get through the day, DVDs finished, we’re on to marketing for next year. We’re at a bridal show where we’re showing samples of our work and hundreds, yes, HUNDREDS, of brides are stopping by our booth inquiring about our services. Some even asking questions like where were some of the weddings shot at, and looking at the screen for ideas.

Then several brides happened to ask us about the chapel (the one we mentioned earlier). Asking about the layout, how it looked, checking it out on the screen, seeming very satisfied with what they had seen. Then some brides after viewing our videos decided they were definitely booking the chapel for their wedding. Others were excited to see the chapel in the video because they were going to visit the chapel’s booth at the bridal show. Heck, I was cool as long and they liked our work and had our information, if we could provide them with another resource as well, more power to everybody.

As the show kept on…I noticed a familiar face headed towards our booth. It was the owner of the chapel. Wow, I thought she was coming to our booth to say thanks for sending her some brides or for complimenting her chapel and I could erase those bad memories I had of her from the past. Wishful thinking.

She stopped short of talking to us, and began watching the screen of videos we had on display. She then mumbled something about “some brides had said they seen my chapel on the video so I came down here to see”. No acknowledgement, no hey how are you, no thanks for sending good comments my way, nothing.

I told her politely the video they were referring to had played earlier. She paused, then walked away.

I sat there thinking to myself just how ironic that situation was. Here it was obvious that she could have given a damn about me and my company, showed extremely rude behavior on two occasions of working with her, and here I was in a situation where I’ve sent her potential business and I didn’t even get a thank you you sorry black negro.

Sure I could have bad mouthed her and said “don’t deal with her, she had an attitude!”, because if the tables were turned, that’s exactly what would have happened to us, but I stay focused on the positive. Indeed the chapel is a gorgeous place to get married. And since that’s what people were asking about, that’s the impression that remained. But I’ll be damn if I don’t feel just a little salty that she ends up getting business off of something we did. Maybe she’ll remember us one day and send us a referral as well…wishful thinking.

I was up today pondering on a new business idea, and was wondering on whether or not it would fly and began to do some more research on it. One of my colleagues had invited me to “tame” it down a bit by hiring a white co-presenter of the idea. Being black in business, we’ve all had to deal with the idea of whether to show our face, or one more “friendly”. And although I could appreciate their suggestion, I decided against it and thought to myself it’s nothing wrong with owning this new idea all the way through.

I thought of the history of Garrett Morgan and how he would give some of his inventions’ credit to white inventors to make the idea more “marketable”. I then remembered laying in bed at night wondering would my business be more successful if it wasn’t black owned.

My stomach knots up.

I get back to researching on the internet and became overwhelmed by the amount of racism that is so easily viewable in today’s media outlets. You think that the stereotypical image of women grabbing their purses when blacks are around, or the ever so quick sound of locking car doors when “nigrahs” are within a viewable radius is bad, just visit any website or blog out here in cyberspace that has just an “ounce” of blackness to it. The racism is enough to make you sick.

As a black man I’ve seen and felt the effects of the everyday smile in your face racism. And on one hand while I understand whites and other non-minorities who want to believe “it’s not that bad”, it really IS that bad.

I often wonder just how different the world would be if African-American slavery had never happened. Notice I didn’t say “slavery” in general, because all races have had some type of slavery. It’s the black slavery in America that generations seem to still be dealing with the repercussions of their tragedy.

I wonder if the tables had been turned how different would our world be? What if whites Europeans had been enslaved by Africans who stole the Americas from the natives? Would blacks be going around telling white people to “get over it, it’s not that bad”?

I digress. And I’m sitting and waiting for the ignorant reader to leave a response about “Africans couldn’t have ever have done that because they were stupid” so I can just delete his ignorance, but the point I’m trying to make is a valid one. How can I be a positive influence in my community when I’m surrounded by so much negativity?

I’ve read several blogs on the empowerment of black economy, business, and community, and most of them have these tirades about spending black dollars on black businesses. I agree mostly with the theory, but not necessarily with the practice. And what I usually find (9/10) is a whole slew of racist comments on the sites from non-blacks saying that the site is racist and they aren’t selling to blacks anymore and blah blah blah blah blah. More negativity.

My stomach tightens up.

The fact that we’re a minority obviously means we wouldn’t survive long only spending our money on black owned businesses. There just aren’t enough of us. And who wants to live a life of not being free to purchase whatever you want, regardless of the color of the owner? I don’t believe that the point of “only” spending money on black businesses is the message that’s being conveyed on these sites. I think that it’s important to support when you can and give back to help uplift other black businesses and black consumers and that’s what I think these sites try to put out there to their black viewers.

I often wonder the last black owned business the racist comment poster visited after reading their post on “well I guess this means you’re going to stop driving Escalades because they aren’t black owned”.

Then wonder how many racists were out protesting and deliberately sabatoging the opening of a new Jewish business in the community.

And wonder how many racists were out trying to stop the start of an Asian-American group on campus.

Satire. Breathe for a minute. You’ll get it.

But as soon as anything black or African-American related comes up, it’s racist!…my stomach churns again.

Now I know we get ignorant sometimes. Gold grills, big wheels, helicopter hair, hood drama….damn, I guess we can show up as not being serious. And when the racist people post their comments on these sites, they constantly remind the “nigrahs” of our buffoonery, but never acknowledge our accomplishments.

And although I don’t like making excuses, I look at the hand we were dealt. The hand that continues to get re-shuffled down through the generations. When you get a bad start like that, it’s tough to emerge from it unscarred. Don’t tell me to get over until you’re ready to help make a change.

This isn’t about trying to end racism, because I personally think it won’t ever end. I just want to be able to exist without being surrounded by so much negativity. Instead of poking fun at the woman over there on welfare with her dirty looking kids waiting for the bus, think about how things could have been different if she was dealt a different hand. Oh, and by the way, the woman in my vision wasn’t black. She didn’t have a color. And she shouldn’t in your vision either. Racism and ignorance is everywhere.

You’d be an angry black man too if the world hated you as much as a Google search of “black people” will prove.

My stomach feels a little bit better. But has a long way to go.

In this day and age it so important to have the right support team. I went away for about a month on a project, and my two guys I have working with me were able to work on projects back in the studio and still keep the natural flow of the business running. I was appreciative of it at the time it was happening, but it really didn’t hit me how much I appreciated it until I returned home.

I think of some of our referral partners and how we’ve sent business their way and how those good relationships work. Then I think of some of the referral relationships that don’t work. Where we seem to be always doing and doing for others, but the favors are never returned.

As I pondered back over the project I worked on for that month this summer, I thought of the importance of having the right support team in place. Whether it’s personal or business. I’ve thought of how much the business has grown since I’ve taken the time to really harvest the good and healthy relationships that have supported me and this business. I feel that this is crucial to survival in business, and even more detrimental to the survival of black business. And too many times we keep people around just to have them around, or because we feel obligated to. Or the unfortunate move of thinking that eventually someone will finally come through if you just keep supporting them and their cause.

I’ve taken the necessary time over the past year to rid our support network of those who really don’t have our best interest in mind. You can’t have a healthy garden if it’s full of weeds.

I recently recorded a wedding and throughout the whole day felt as if we weren’t wanted there. The stares from the guests were soul-searing, and even the bride & groom seemed not to be excited we were there working on their behalf. I was kind of appalled when a special dance routine broke out that I assumed was planned due to the extensive choreography, but none of my team was alerted that it was going to happen. I would have like to have been prepared for it, but quickly had to get in place to continue doing a good job filming. It was as if we weren’t important enough to know what was going on. If I were ever to get married and have a videographer, I would let them know about special things that might happen to be sure it’s captured on tape. Especially if I want to watch it back later…

I couldn’t understand why I was feeling unwanted or even worse like I was intruding on their wedding. Besides, we were hired and paid to be there. We were professionally dressed, and were working according to our normal high standards. I struggled with the feeling through dinner and all the way home that night. The next day I couldn’t really wrap my head around it, but I started to think that maybe we weren’t hired because we were who the couple originally wanted to hire, but just so happened to be the cheapest. Then I thought of other opportunities we had to serve where I’ve had the same feeling.

It was kind of a bad feeling to have. All of our clients that choose us to provide them a service we are always more than happy to do so, but amazing how we don’t always get that excitement in return, almost as if the client has the right to treat us any way they want to since they’re paying. I know some people that will agree with that, but not me. I don’t expect any special treatment, but it’s at least nice to know that you are appreciated so that you can continue to do a good job.

I’m not so sure the same thing would have happened to a non-black videography company. Sure, that’s a pretty generalized thing to say, but when you’re black in business, paying attention to the little details is what helps you stay ahead. After all, there’s a reason we were hired in the first place, but it doesn’t always mean because you receive a check, you can be treated with no respect. Give it (respect) and demand it in return. I feel bad that I didn’t say anything about it that night, but I have a feeling that the couple and I will talk again before I hand over the final video. The biggest advantage of being in business is the fact that you teach your clients how to treat you. And class is always in session.