The conference will provide entrepreneurs and aspiring proprietors with key information on how to establish and sustain successful businesses. It will feature nationally renowned speakers and successful business owners including: life coach and star of “The Secret” Lisa Nichols; Bishop Eddie L. Long of mega-church New Birth Missionary Baptist; Magnus Greaves, CEO of TheCASHFLOW; and David Hinson, the national director of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
With corporate partners such as host sponsor ExxonMobil as well as CNN, Marriott, Georgia Power, Buick, FedEx, Southern Company, Pepsico, Wells Fargo and Wendy’s, the Black Enterprise conference offers fertile ground for cultivating business interaction for hundreds of deal makers from across the country.
Earl “Butch” Graves Jr., the president and CEO of Earl. G. Graves Publishing Company and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, outlined the three main ways African American and minority business will benefit by attending the one-of-a-kind conference and expo:
1. “African American businesses are going to have access to corporate America and those folks who are sponsors and supporters of the conference who want to do business with minority businesses. And they will participate in our expo and be able to communicate directly with businesses who are looking to do business with minority-owned businesses.
2. “The networking that these minority businesses will be able to have amongst each other [and] all across the country is unique because you are going to be with like-minded people who are in business for themselves and want to do business [between] themselves. And they will be able to connect with folks where they couldn’t before …
3. “The third thing, and which is probably most important, we are going to educate folks [about] what it is to be successful entrepreneurs. We are going to teach them finance, in order to finance a business. We are going to teach them marketing plans and business plans for those who are entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. And that’s the foundation for an entrepreneur’s conference — to provide information. It’s not just to get black folks together and have a nice time. We give very strict, detailed information on how to move themselves forward.” –terry shropshire
