IAM776- Business Plan Writer Helps Black Businesses Receive Funding

Title: Transcript - Sat, 11 May 2024 06:16:59 GMT

Date: Sat, 11 May 2024 06:16:59 GMT, Duration: [00:16:58.58]

[00:00:02.20] - Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:29.69] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Sheree Warrick of the ten k project. Sheree, it's awesome to have you on

[00:00:37.10] - Cheree Warrick

the show. Thank you so much, Gresham.

[00:00:39.50] - Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jumped in, I want to read a little bit more about Sheree so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And for close to ten years, Sheree helped companies raise millions of dollars as a business plan writer. The most successful fundraiser fundraisers already had a network of high net worth individuals and could raise millions within a few weeks of Sheree's completing their business plan. Her black clients, most of whom had great ideas but didn't have these relationships, would struggle to receive funding. Sheree has a solution for this massive problem. She's building the largest community of black small dollar dollar investors who can help fund black businesses. Sheree, are you ready to speak to the IMCL community?

[00:01:15.70] - Cheree Warrick

I am so ready. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:17.90] - Gresham Harkless

No problem. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to kinda rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more about what led you to get started in your CEO story.

[00:01:25.59] - Cheree Warrick

Sure. So my my true CEO story started with a very controversial now person who is Robert Kiyosaki, unfortunately, and, Rich Dad Poor Dad. So I was on track to become the CFO for a Fortune five hundred company. That's what I thought I wanted to do when I was in in college. Right? And, when I went to my first job, one of my coworkers gave me a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad, and that totally changed my perspective. So, I started off like most people do doing things part time. I, you know, went out and and flipped real estate for a little bit, and and I'd gotten to other businesses. And I was really just trying to find myself and ended up about fifteen years ago, my mother actually is more like eighteen, nineteen years ago now. My mother started a bookkeeping business, and, I ended up joining her full time with her bookkeeping business, helping her grow it. I started off as her, marketing person, and I was so good at marketing. I was bringing in in clients, and then she said, well, you know, you brought these clients and now you have to service them. You know? And that wasn't in my plan. However, I worked with her diligently. I serviced clients. I did their bookkeeping, their accounting for them. And one of the interesting things is I got to see the patterns of the most successful business owners and those who weren't successful, and they couldn't lie to me because I saw their numbers. You know? So, so it was it was interesting that I got to see that, inside look, Aetna.

[00:03:00.30] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's extremely powerful. And and and I've always thought that was one of the best things to learn. Because I think they say, like, if you're able to look at the the numbers, so to speak, and read the book read the books and understand the books, it kinda tells the story of the business. And I can imagine getting that opportunity to kind of work with probably different types of business owners at different stages and see all that. It's probably a really great foundation.

[00:03:19.80] - Cheree Warrick

Yes. It was. It was. And I will give everybody a hint right now because because you are the I am CEO podcast. The most successful people that at least were in our business, they, sat down with my mother every single month without fail and reviewed their numbers. How much money were they making? How much money were they spending? What were their goals? And because of that, I kinda it's kinda liking it to, your weight. You know, if you say, okay. I wanna be x pounds, and, you know, if you get within five pounds of that range, you, you know, you know, you gotta rope it in and you gotta cut out the sweets or whatever. Those are usually the most successful people with their health. Well, it's the same thing with with your money and with your business success as well.

[00:04:03.19] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That that makes so much sense. I'm I'm glad you gave that kind of, analogy as well too because I think anytime as you said, you know, the people that are the healthiest, so to speak, or reach those goals, a lot of times they're on the scale every day or every week and understand exactly where they are, what they need to do, or what they don't need to do. And so many times, we forget that about our businesses, like, how important those finances are. And ignoring them or looking at them maybe once a year doesn't cut it for those businesses that are truly gonna be the most successful ones.

[00:04:29.10] - Cheree Warrick

Right. And and let me add on to that. Some businesses is not necessarily about dollars. A lot of times your your, finances is like the outcome. Some businesses, it's how many customer complaints are you getting? How many refunds are you getting to people? You know? How many times do you have to go back and explain things to certain people? There are usually they're factors and lagging factors. I'm sure your your clientele and your your listeners know about this. But looking the the numbers that we gave really were like the after effect to how people were effectively managing those leading factors within their businesses as well and being able to say, okay. If I wanna do better, I need to to tweak these things on the front end. So, yeah, I mean, there's there's so much to, I I don't believe in people having a lot of different things that they're looking at, but usually I would say three metrics within any business. If you if you get those correct, then usually a lot falls into line.

[00:05:30.69] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Well, that's extremely powerful to know. And especially as you you said, you you've been able to kinda work and see those successful businesses and be able to kinda see those trends as you kinda spoke to as well. And I I know when I read your bio, I kinda touched on a little bit about what came about from seeing success and how it contribute to your your venture now. So could you take us through your the ten k project and tell us exactly what you're doing with clients you

[00:05:51.19] - Cheree Warrick

work with? Sure. Sure. So, actually, the ten k project started out because of my mother's bookkeeping business. So at one point in my mom's bookkeeping business, she decided that she wanted to get a bank loan in order to, get a well, she decided she wants to get a bank loan. Let me just say that. And part of the bank loan, you know, is you have to write a business plan. And I had written one for school, but I had never written one for a company to actually go and get a loan, right, or get any kind of funding. And I just thought, oh my goodness. If I screw this up, what what is Thanksgiving gonna look like? Right? So what do you do? The first thing you do is usually go to Google. Right? Like, how to write a business plan? And then I started asking, well, what are they really looking for? What do they make their decisions on? And long story short, I wrote this business plan for my mom. I gave it to a gentleman that had about thirty years of experience helping companies raise funding. He said you did a great job. Make these few tweaks and give it to the bank. And the bank said it was one of the best business plans they'd ever read. So at that point, my mother starts bragging, my daughter wrote this

[00:06:55.00] - Gresham Harkless

business plan

[00:06:55.50] - Cheree Warrick

and the bank said, you know, And her friends and her clients started asking me, well, can you write my business plan? Fast forward to ten years later. This is where we are. So I'm writing business plans for people, and people some people still aren't getting funding. And I asking, well, why? What is happening with the people who are getting funding from the ones who aren't? And people from other ethnicities usually would have someone that they could take that business plan to and say, this is, you know, this is a plan. This is what we're gonna do. And, literally, my clients were getting fifty thousand dollar checks, a hundred thousand dollar checks, a hundred fifty thousand dollar checks based on the strength of the team they have put together and the business plan that I have put together. I would have innovative, hardworking, great black entrepreneurs, but they didn't have those individuals in their lives. Only had actually one who did. Right? And she got the check, right, based on the the business plan that I wrote. So I also saw that there was the resurgence of we buy black movement. Right? And, I started thinking if people were buying black, maybe they would invest black too. And, for three years, I was saying this. You know? Ten thousand of us got together. We put in a hundred dollars each. That's a million dollars. We could start funding our own businesses. But I'm telling you, Gresham, I was trying to get somebody else to do it. I'm like, somebody please take this idea. Please take it. And finally, one day in a meeting, one of my cofounders said to me, you're gonna do something about that. And I think that's important as CEOs. You're saying something for so long. You have a great idea. You're saying it. You're bringing somebody else to do it. Right? And what I I was making good money as a business plan writer, but I wasn't having the impact that I knew I could have. And everything aligned where, the right person said it to me. The right group of cofounders came in with me. They put money in. I put money in as well. So we were all committed. We all had our time commitment, our money commitment, and, this was pre, you know, the social unrest, pre COVID, all of that, but I just kinda felt like the time was right. And, that that's the long story

[00:09:13.79] - Gresham Harkless

of

[00:09:13.89] - Cheree Warrick

how we got here today.

[00:09:16.60] - Gresham Harkless

Would you would you consider that to be what I call, like, your secret sauce? The thing you feel kinda sets you apart or the organization apart and makes it unique or or even for yourself? Do you feel it's that ability to be able to see kind of maybe the forest for the trees to be able to see all those different aspects and greetings that lead to success and be able to set that up in your organization.

[00:09:33.60] - Cheree Warrick

Yeah. So, I'm I'm so glad that you started off the interview the way that you did because, I'm forty four now. So when I was twenty two, twenty three, I was introduced to Robert Kiyosaki, and that's, what, twenty years of experience of making money, of losing money, of risking, of starting businesses, you know, some businesses failed, some businesses were successful and really discovering some of the formulas to, investing as well as, well, investing in private equity. Let me say that. In private businesses. Right? Investing as well as, as entrepreneurship and being able to say, again, what can we do that that one of the venture capitalists that we spoke with with in the ten k project said that, you know, everyone says that, you know, one out of ten businesses fail. Why are we accepting that as, you know, as okay? Yeah. What can we do to make it that six out of businesses, six out of ten businesses, make it?

[00:10:38.20] - Gresham Harkless

I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:10:47.79] - Cheree Warrick

Three years ago, I hired a business coach to help me. And one of the things she had me start doing was working out regularly and now I'm at a point where if I don't work out two days in in a row, I'm like, I need to get my power walk in. So, I'm I'm gonna say power walking. Thirty to forty minutes a day, I use that time sometimes to listen to a podcast or listen to a piece of information that I need for my business. And then sometimes I don't have anything on, and I'm just walking and praying and letting my thoughts kind of come, to me. So that that for me is a very powerful hack that I use, that's effective.

[00:11:24.70] - Gresham Harkless

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be somebody that you would give advice to within the ecosystem, or it might be something you would tell your younger business self.

[00:11:35.50] - Cheree Warrick

Well, the one that I have at the top of my head right now is, a quote by Henry Ford, and it's whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right.

[00:11:45.29] - Gresham Harkless

Mhmm.

[00:11:45.89] - Cheree Warrick

And what he meant by that is if you think you can't do something, then you can't do it.

[00:11:52.10] - Gresham Harkless

Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So, Shari, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:12:01.10] - Cheree Warrick

Oh, goodness. Being a CEO means, I'm gonna say control. Control, equity, and, owning your mistakes as well as your successes. So that's CEO. So, you know, I I like control. I do. I'll admit it. I like control. I get to control my time. I get to control the people that I work with, the people that I surround myself with. However, just as much control as I have, that's also control I don't have as well because, you know, you, for example, if I had a job, I could be there Monday through Friday, nine to five. No one's bothering me on a weekend, and no one's bothering me at night, and I'm not staying up at night tossing and turning, trying to solve problems. But I like that as well. And then, you know, I like the equity. I like the ownership. I like knowing there's a guy named T. Hart Eker who did a, a, something called Speed Wealth back in the nineties. You can still find it on YouTube. And he said that, for entrepreneurs, the biggest asset that you'll have is the business itself that you can sell. So years ago, I did some calculations, and I said, okay. If I want to have something that I could live off the interest, I would need to build a business where I could get three million dollars. Right? Where are you gonna get that from a job? You know? It's gonna be hard to do that. Not impossible, but hard. However, if you're an investor or if you're an entrepreneur, the chances of that are are much easier. So, you know, that's what's being a CEO means to me.

[00:13:47.20] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I definitely appreciate that and appreciate that information and knowledge because I think when you start to understand and you see those things and as you kinda even said as well from the beginning to even where we are now about how we're able to read and to learn and to to understand how exactly people develop wealth and develop equity and how exactly that happens, that mindset that goes into that. You start to make those shifts, you start to invest, you start to see the power that you have, with the dollars that sometimes we have as well too. So I appreciate that, definition and I appreciate that perspective and appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:28.00] - Cheree Warrick

Sure. Sure. So I just wanna invite everyone to come and join our community. It is free to sign up for our email list and get our ebook. It is the ten k project dot com, the ten k project dot com. So we're building the nation's largest community of black investors who want to fund black businesses for as little as one hundred dollars per investment. So you can come. We have a ton of free webinars that are coming up. You'll also get access to to some of the previous free webinars that we've had because we do believe in, financial literacy and in building black wealth. And then when you're ready, we would love for you to become a member. And what happens is when you become a member, you, will get access to our, knowledge center for members, either the investor knowledge center or the entrepreneur knowledge center, depending on which one you choose. And you'll have an opportunity to hear all the pitches on the platform and invest in any and all the businesses, on the platform. So that is what membership gets you. And, you know, please just, consider becoming a part of our ecosystem.

[00:15:39.89] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I definitely appreciate that, Sheree. And what we'll do is we'll have the links and information in the show notes. And, I definitely appreciate you for all you're doing and obviously the time that you provided today. I think being able to to have those opportunities to to build that equity is so important. So I appreciate you for for riding that and also the knowledge within the ecosystem and those opportunities as well too is maybe even more important because I think as we kinda talked about that mindset piece and understanding exactly what you can or cannot accomplish, is often based in your head and the things that you think about and things that you see. So I appreciate you providing all that positivity and actions in order to do that. So I appreciate you so much, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:16.50] - Cheree Warrick

Thank you so much, Gresham. Thank you everybody for listening to me.

[00:16:20.60] - Gresham Harkless

Alright. And I'll cut it off here.

[00:16:22.79] - Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.