Nicole's Commentary 3 April 2009

This is the beginning of our 3rd year in business and today, we have alot to celebrate! It is official, Nicole Newman has found a group of individuals who have put ego's aside to work as a TEAM - TEAM work makes the DREAM work! Network marketing taught me that it takes at least 5 individuals/businesses who were willing to lock arms to make the dream work. Dreamer #1 - Nicole Newman is a lady with a vision who was busy marketing (marketing comes before any product is sold) and found Dreamer #2 - JeterActive who could turn the vision into a concrete product (at the right price of course!). After almost a year searching on the internet building an e-mail distribution list, we found Dreamer #3 -Tara Colquitt, the Credit Woman by her response to a newsletter. She is my right hand woman, sometime editor-in-chief and founder of her own networking group, Motivating Monday along with fellow DiversePhilly business, Abundant Home Inspection! One of the businesses that signed up from an on-line conversation on the Urban Philly Professional Network was Dreamer #4 - Williams Accounting and Tax Service. After a few one-on-one appointments, Newman Networks became a client of Williams Accounting and Tax. I can't forget Universal Concept, they played an integral role with the logo design. See, I was using DiversePhilly to build my own company.

Facebook is becoming a new favorite website and alot of people tell me they don't like facebook because strangers can find them. That is the point! New clients are the lifeblood of your business. Facebook proves that we are all connected. Just going through the contacts shows the overlap in mutual acquintances. I was out and about on facebook looking at the profile of Sherman Toppin (we meet people through people - in this case through a profile) when I saw a group, Keep Arts in School on their profile and found Dreamer #5 - Malik Boyd. After corresponding for a while, we found out that we were both alumni of Masterman school. So now we had a common connection, just like each of you do by listing your business on DiversePhilly.. Based on this one little detail, we decided to turn on-line conversation into off-line business meeting.

Network marketing taught me that businesses only make money in 2 ways - selling products/services and recruiting talent. I was so busy recruiting him that before I could blink he had recruited me! Partnerships can be a little scary because you are no longer in control but the benefits far outweigh the risks. Not every business can partner with another business. What makes a partnership/relationship/marriage stong is having compatible value systems. If one partner does not value the work the other partner is doing then the relationship will not work. As we were looking at the possibility, we had to know that we valued each other's ideas and businesses. Our values translate into the mission statement of the company and now we can strategize to reach targeted goals. We have a goal to triple the membership base allowing more relationships to happen (common connector) by enhancing DiversePhilly and with working with and recruiting more people. Recruiting people is how you get exponential (not linear growth) to create leverage. Come meet your TEAM and learn Premiere Brand Marketing 's plan on making 2009 a great year for all the businesses who are apart of the DiversePhilly network on April 28th, 2009 from 7:30 am - 10 am!

Nicole's Commentary August 27th, 2007

Just the other day, I sat with my business advisor, who is one of the businesses on the http://www.diversephilly.com/ website. We were talking about ways to improve and market the website. She said that when she sent out an e-mail to her distribution list telling her she can be found on DiversePhilly, some of responses came back telling her that she was too professional to be associated with the businesses on the website. I started rubbing my eyebrows in frustration and I kindly said “It’s that exact attitude that got us here in the first place” Those businesses that you think are not professional enough need your skills to become successful. If we say that our business is too good to be listed with other businesses, then we are turning our backs on ourselves. Your business is judged by how people view the good and bad habits of people who have the same color of your skin.

When I worked at Deloitte, I was the first minority in my department. I knew if I did a bad job, another person would be denied yet another opportunity. My track record allowed Deloitte to judge my successor by the content of his resume not the color of his skin. My successor in fact was a minority person. We have to stop pretending that these kids committing crime and those businesses who don’t have a certain look are not “our” people. The sooner we realize that we are all in this together, the more successful we will all be. By being listed on this website, your business is exposed to the businesses in your category. Hopefully, we can learn what it takes to measure up. Just by listing your business, we can mentor each other.

It is not fair to criticize people when they have not been empowered with your knowledge. We have to learn that there is a formula to success and current business owners are missing an opportunity to teach the next generation of business owners how to navigate the roadblocks that come in starting a business.

I am my brother’s keeper? UrbanPhilly and Ladybug Marketing, two of the businesses that had been in the internet marketing business a lot longer, allowed me to enter into their networks to create DiversePhilly. They did not have the crabs in a barrel mentality; they understood that everybody can share something with someone else. I, in turn, acknowledge their help and support every chance I get. The world is changing by leaps and bounds in the digital age and some people are being left out. My measure of success is not how much money my company makes but how many businesses/consumers are brought into the digital age to take advantage of the internet. Let's see how we can work together to cross the digital divide.