Understand the indicators and environment of what’s about to go down. We are seeing a paradigm shift with digital transformation with mobile-first transactions, scanning QR codes for the menu at the Cheesecake Factory. We looking at new ways to fund Black-owned companies. We looking at supply chain innovation to get goods to spaces. We are looking at commercial spaces losing long-term leases and the need for new tenants and flexible leases. We looking at cleaner energy initiatives with the upcoming infrastructure bill and we looking at tax credit investing by big companies looking to find ways to lower their tax liabilities.

Whenever things go down like how 2020 did us, there is new opportunity to build up big the next following years. Almost every major economic board around the world is indicating there will be a major economic expansion due to restoring the economy and making things more efficient and the trade lines starts running again. It going to take a new league of agents, market makers, brokers, consultants and exchanges to get everything connected to start running – that’s where you come in.

Look, if they got you working from home, stay at home – who cares about your co-workers because most of them wasn’t sh*t anyway, over there judging you and talking behind your back. Most important, keep that job because you need the health benefits which is very expensive and a lifesaver. What you going to do is do your day work but setup your own side hustle to start connecting the pieces necessary to make things happen. You become an agent, a broker, a market maker, run an exchange or be a consultant and let’s talk how to get it going.

Understand the Sectors

Let’s go over the sectors you should looking at. It’s important to specialize in a core and don’t be trying to do everything just to end up good at nothing. Think about something that exciting to you.

Digital Transformation. There is a need for consultants and experts to create digital transformation plans for large and small businesses. Help migrate their work process to the cloud, show them how to use event sourcing to capture events and use an event store to retrieve data into useful metrics.

Professional Location Service. This is not a travel guide; we need location experts that know how to help people setup in Atlanta or Seoul or Croydon or Johannesburg. They help setup offices, apartments, recruiting staffs, vendors and suppliers in that local market, connecting the right people.

Data Management. We need consultants and integrators that know how to help businesses move their data to be hosted in data centers to backup data, encrypt data at rest, create Active Directory for their employees and partners and establish graphQL techniques for their data warehouse.

Space Making. These are agents and brokers who can connect people with spaces that reflect their ambitions and lifestyle. They work to setup public parks to hold food truck festivals, connect Black entrepreneurs to Black-orientated co-working spaces in Philly or Atlanta and find the best pop-up shop space or space conference space for our people.

Supply Chain. These are brokers, agents and consultants who help get products made and shipped to shelves. They find independent sales rep to visit establishments to carry the brand, they work with manufactures and trucking/shipping/rail firms to push the product from a Black-own entrepreneur mind into the actual store shelves and e-commerce sites to purchase from.

Payment Industry. These are experts who know how Black folks pay for stuff and help setup merchants with accepting everything from WIC, prepaid cards and get them the right machines and right process to queue people to purchase or use mobile checkout like the Apple store or Nike store.

Marketing and Communication. The digital age has new paradigms, we need brokers and consultants to help Black businesses learn how to create marketing assets for both digital and physical touchpoints. Also need to create storytelling and incorporate it into the marketing and communication through newsletters and other content spaces.

Tax Credit Swaps. This is an emerging opportunity. These are consultants and brokers who help create tax credit havens in Black communities just to sell/transfer tax credits to big companies so the big companies can lower their tax liabilities.

Paralegal Recommendations. You recommend lawyers and legal resources for businesses and people and their situation. Black businesses need contracts to review before signing or need defending against a lawsuit or engage in a discrimination lawsuit.  You know the lawyers, the good ones and the crappy ones which will save a lot of people lives and business’s ability to stay in business.

Insurance Consultant. Just like the legal, you help identify the best insurance plans for a business like an agent. A lot of small business insurance like Hiscox and Birken are around and you want to make sure Black folks got the right coverage that match the reality of doing business while Black.

Detective/Sleuth. You work as a consultant that research the background of people for dating or employment. We got a lot of faking folks in the Black community claiming they something – your job is to find out who checks out and who do not check out.

Decide How You Will Operate

The number one thing everyone should do in terms of starting a business is decide how they want to get paid. When you operate as an agent, broker or consultant, you need to realize you can be giving someone information and when it’s time to get paid, they got what they want and run out on you. You want to avoid that. Here are options you can consider in the modern age.

Subscription Access. They have a card on file and pay-per-month as a retainer fee through a payment platform like PayPal or Stripe. You send newsletters and updates to them as content subscription for the retainer fee but when it’s time to work with you, you use that same card on file to charge full fee and only refund what is needed afterward.

Invoice a Security Deposit. This is for consultants where you request a security deposit and you invoice against that deposit like how lawyers operate.  You can do the work knowing the money is there and upfront to work against. Agencies also work in this matter as well when working on a big contract project.

Notice what was done here – you required a retainer deposit or you used a subscription service to create engagement. These things are done for your security to know you going to get paid. Black folks be creating web sites for people then they start acting funny and won’t pay them for the work done. No, you make sure you have the funds secured by the customer to handle your work and your customers just get what they got from you.

Now that you got the payment out the way here are the ways to make middleman moves:

Agent. These are people who represent an entity for an industry. They run an agency and can place models for a photoshoot, recruit employment talent for a job.

Broker. These are people who brings people together for a deal that favors both. A broker brings a manufacturer to a supplier, a musician to a streaming platform, a single person to a dating pool.

Consultant. These are experts who have white papers, methods and practices to accomplish a task. Consultants do things like prepare a wedding plan, provide layouts for a pop-up shop or drop culture event or get everything ready for a food truck festival.

Exchanges. These are platform owners who create the space to bring people together. Create an wholesale to retail exchange like a Merchandise Mart to showcase products for merchants to sign contracts to distribute in their shop. Create a web site that allow people to bid on contracts such as who will clean the parking lot or provide security of a strip mall in the Black community.

Get Your Game On

To get started, you need to know the right people to bring to the people who need them. The best way to get this going is a market maker has to be involved. They create network meetings at the bars or they have something like a Facebook group called the Black Professional Network – oh wait a minute, I just realize I have a Facebook group like that – we going to transform that Facebook group to meet this purpose for this upcoming Black economic explosion.

Your end, you need the essential components – web site, virtual phone number with voicemail, social media connections, laptop and mobile phone and a contact database using Office 365 or free Office Suite.

You also going to need prepared contracts that you created and payment accounts on PayPal or use checks and a bank account. You also going to need business insurance as well to protect from liability. You going to need business formation as well.

But most important – you going to need to charm and attract. That means you dress professional – they been selling good professional clothes for cheap all 2020 since no one goes to the office, you better grab some at the discounts. I bought $800 stuff for $75 after discounts at Macys and Dillard’s  - what you been doing all this time?

Now you got all those basics out the way, what sector do you want to pursue? Look at your damn job you working right now. Think about it, even if you were flipping burgers, you know enough to help another Black entrepreneur startup a burger restaurant. If you are working in sectors, you know your industry enough to start coming up with ways to help those businesses setup in your community as well.

The Possibilities

To make opportunities possible, you need to make a name out of yourself where it matters. Too many people want to broadcast and advertise and this is a waste of time because this is now how you reach folks. To reach folks, our community need networking events like business trade shows and conferences.

People need to be real – can’t do things over the Internet. People have to give real presentations, we need to see the car they driving, we need to see real-work they can show us. Like I said, a lot of phonies are over the Internet and they can simply log off on you when you start questioning their work or credentials. We are going to implement our social credit system and deal with fools like that who think they can stare in a webcam and tell me and you they an expert at something then get offended and mad when you start questioning their Everest college degree.

If you going to do things online, you create pre-made videos showing the work you do and how you create solutions for people. You do interviews on podcast and Clubhouse and we will be setting these up to create a network where you can choose where to go be a guest on a speaker show somewhere – we need a broker or agent to hook these connections up as well. We are also going to take over public access broadcasting on Cable TV and do infomercials and interviews as well to get the word out and promote people – ecosystem building.

Get Things Going

You should realize how awesome all this shit about to go down in the Black community. We about to have mini-talk shows on podcasts and videos with entrepreneurs speaking to a host where the host make money off topic-related advertisements and subscriptions. We need agents, consultants and brokers to connect the people in this scenario.

We going to have entrepreneurs create a product that they want in all the stores around the world. We need brokers, agents and exchanges pushing that product around and in front of interested merchants to do a distribution deal.

We going to start creating spaces from pop-up shops, conference spaces, co-working spaces and need brokers to tell us how to get the proper government licenses and meeting experts who know how to get things into reality and working properly for us.

Now you see how important you are if you working a job and realize you can do your side hustle part and get paid helping create the sparks that going to make the Black Economic explosion happen.