Janice Gassam Asare, workplace equity consultant and the founder of Black White Green (BWG) Business Solutions, discusses supporting Black-owned businesses outside of Black History Month. 

<div class="block">Black History Month is closing out, but for Janice Gassam Asare, workplace equity consultant and the founder of Black White Green (BWG) Business Solutions, supporting Black-owned businesses is a year-round effort.&nbsp;</div><div class="block">Asare stopped by Cheddar News to provide some tips on how to provide tangible support to these businesses long after February is over.&nbsp;</div><div class="list"><ol><li>Help connect business owners with needed resources&nbsp;</li><li>Make introductions to valuable contacts both in-person and on social media&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Leave positive reviews and testimonials on Google&nbsp;</li><li>Provide monetary support when possible&nbsp;</li></ol></div><div class="block">Watch the full interview above for more details.</div>

Tips for Supporting Black-Owned Businesses Year-Round

Thank you Chloe. Meanwhile with black history month coming to an end if you haven't already now is a great time to celebrate and support black owned businesses this month and all year long. And as business owners, people of color can establish financial independence for themselves and their families and also provide employment opportunities for others within their community. So joining us now to discuss is Janice. Gasam Asseri, workplace equity consultant and founder of B W. G Business Solutions, Jan is such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for getting up early with us. So can you lay out some of the tangible authentic ways people can support black business owners here? Absolutely! Thank you so much for having me here. I would definitely say that social media support is what we often hear about and that is great. But I always say for business owners especially for black business owners are network don't often contain the folks that can provide those resources for us. So I think introductions is huge for black owned businesses, right? If you know someone who is able to provide business coaching, for example that person is a great resource. So being very intentional about creating those networking opportunities on that could be on linkedin, right? I think we often overlook the power of our linkedin networks. Right? So making those introductions for people that don't have that access and don't have those opportunities is huge. So I would say even something as simple as if you utilize the black owned business, have you left a review on google, right? Because the algorithms on google are so powerful and if someone is looking up services, the more reviews of business has, the higher they'll be when you do that google search. So even something as simple as that. Have you provided a testimonial right? For service based businesses? Testimonials are vital because we don't have tangible offers or we don't have tangible, excuse me, products that people can see. So those testimonials are gonna be vital. So offered to provide those testimonials introduce people to folks within your network, whether on linkedin or in person. I know my business has grown immensely just from word of mouth. So I think that we often overlooked the Power of our networks, but there's a small but very tangible and powerful things that we could all be doing to support black-owned businesses. Yeah. We forget how much we even use Google all the time. How important that is when it comes to reviews Janice, according to a study by merchant maverick between February 2020 and August 2021 black-owned businesses increased by 38%. Not bad. But do you think we're sort of moving in the right direction or is there still more growth that's needed to be happening here. Yeah, I think that that is a sign in the right direction. I know that black women business owners were the most negatively impacted during the pandemic. And so I think that people are realizing that support is needed monetarily right? So as much as we promote black businesses on social media, we recommend them to other, a lot of black owned businesses need tangible monetary support. Right? So if your organization is looking for a supplier inquire about whether they could utilize more black owned suppliers, right? So I think that that is also really, really important is like that tangible monetary support, but I do feel like we're moving in the right to Direction and more of these studies are coming out. So we know this information and knowledge is power. So I think that it's great that more of these studies are being done to look at what is needed within black-owned businesses Janice. I only have about 30 seconds left with you. Any advice you have for anybody that's thinking about maybe starting their business, what advice would you have for them? Absolutely. I would say understand that it's you're gonna be working longer hours than a 9 to 5. We often have this perception that you're gonna be laying on the beach and have your laptop out. But being a business owner is hard and I think that it you have to really develop that stick to itiveness and understand that in the beginning it will be tough, but things will eventually get better jane, it's such a pleasure to have you here and I know so many people looking up to you and all your advice this morning, Janice, gas emissary, workplace equity consultant and founder of b w g Business Solutions.