Kenny Rogers once said “Know when to hold ’em, Know when to fold ’em.” But what he didn’t talk about was knowing when to restructure and ask for help.
One of the hardest things in the world is to learn how to balance your passion with running your actual business. When our President and CEO started Substantial Magazine he had one mission: to show the world just how phenomenal our community is. He wanted to normalize images of black and brown people who led phenomenal lives and left a phenomenal impact. And the content we have created has reflected just that.
In order for anything to become phenomenal, it has to be good, and it has to grow. We knew that in order to reach more people in an impactful way, we needed to have a seat at an impactful table. We needed to have a seat at a table that allowed us to see how to turn our passion into real sustainable growth. We spent hours on end researching the industry, learning new and improved sales and marketing techniques, and using the combined knowledge from our team to create a Substantial product for our community.
Fast forward a year from our relaunch, our Substantial team is now using our experiences to show others just how ‘Substantial’ their businesses can be when they use the right processes for developing their brand. This past month, we wrapped up the first of many educational cohorts with President Greg Hedgepeth and Editor in Chief Evelyne Del. During our ‘Cutting the Fluff’ six week cohort with the Women’s Business Center of Charlotte our team broke down essential elements for business owners to apply to the growth and sustainability of their businesses. Students across a wide variety of industries were able to take an introspective look at finding the gaps in the way they communicated their unique value proposition. They also learned ways to collaborate with one another on some exciting new projects.
We couldn’t be more proud of this inaugural class. Their passion and energy proved to be just one of the positive elements of their growing brands. In the spirit of continuing to tell the stories of influential minorities in our community, we want you to get to know these amazing individuals.
In the coming weeks we’ll be featuring several students who will be given the opportunity to share their business info, their experiences with the cohort, and the tips they’ve implemented to help them grow over the past six weeks. We can’t wait for you to get to know these dynamic individuals as we work towards creating a community of Substantial business leaders.
‘We are Substantial, and so is our purpose.”