February 4, 2022 • 37 mins
Roland is an American journalist. He was a commentator for TV One, The host of News One Now, and Washington on Watch with Roland S Martin. He was also a CNN contributor, appearing on a variety of shows, including The Situation Room, Anderson Cooper Ac360, and many others.
You can watch him on his own show Roland Martin Unfiltered, the first daily online show in history focused on news and analysis of politics, entertainment, sports, and culture from an explicitly African American perspective.
Roland Martin sits in with the money moves podcast to talk about his journey becoming the renowned journalist he is today.
He discusses the mentality of going against the system instead of playing the system for your benefit. The value of knowing your worth and not taking anything less than you deserve. The importance of maximizing the tools you currently have to help you get where you need to be.
Roland also shares valuable advice for future entrepreneurs.
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Guest IG: @rolandsmartin
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As you know, our crew went out to Tulsa, Oklahoma
for the one anniversary of the Greenwood massacre in nine.
While they were there, they were able to catch up
with multiple people who had stories to tell that aren't
usually told. So part of our job here at Money
Moves is to let you in on the moves made
in our communities, in our past, in our present, so
(00:20):
that you can also make your money move today. Hey, folks,
Roland Martin here hosting Managing a Roland Martin a digital show.
You're watching Money Moves Power to Buy Greenwood. Going back
(00:42):
to being a kid, like many young African Americans, we
all had these small bank accounts where we were able
to deposit money. My grandmother had a catering business and
so I started working with that business when I was
seven years old. So I was making money when I
was seven. My grandmo my mom had a cake business
and which was tied to it. My dad was executive chef.
So half that opportunity, had that opportunity to actually do
(01:05):
that and so to be able to save money, be
able to have money to spend or something that was
critically important. But but like most African Americans, uh, we
did not have UH an intensive UH focused on financial literacy.
And that's a great scene in the movie HOOTLM where
Lawrence Fishburne, who's playing Buffy Johnson, says, when you don't know,
(01:26):
you don't know. And for African Americans, that has historically
been our case. After the Civil War, when the Freedman's
Bank was created, part of that institution was supposed to
be about keep teaching financial literacy UH to free slaves
of African descent. Lincoln gets killed two months after that,
Andrew Johnson becomes president and completely decimates dissipates that. So
(01:49):
part of the problem in Black America is that we
have black success followed by white backlash, and so we
go forward, we go back, we go forward, we go back,
we go forward, we go back. So we've never actually
had a multi generational continuum. Even if you look at
what happened with the highest point of black home ownership
under President Bill Clinton, all of a sudden, then you
(02:11):
have the home foreclosure crisis that hit in two thousand
and seven two thousand eight, we lost all black wealth.
So again you go from my high, now you've gone
to a low. Now it's around forty two, so you're
still trying to get back. We've never had black homeownership
at a six level. And so again it's a perfect example.
You go in the nineties through through two thousand's twelve fifteen,
(02:32):
maybe by a twelve fifteen year period, and all of
a sudden hot, then all of a sudden goes down.
And so that has been our story. So what we
actually need is we need a minimum of three consecutive
generations of uninterrupted growth that will allow us to be
able to grow financially. And that's why the financial literacy
(02:55):
piece is important. I under I knew about entrepreneurship, so
it was always there, So it was always a president
in my life, and so I had multiple aunts and
uncles who actually owned businesses. But again, like many African Americans,
when we grow up, we go to college, all of
a sudden, you're there, We're we're in many ways were
under finance, my brother and my sister and myself we
(03:17):
were all the Texas and then together. But like many
African Americans, under finance, didn't have the ability to have
additional resources to parents, never made more than fifty dollars combined.
And so you go to college, now you're dealing with debt.
Now you're dealing with a credit card debt. When I
graduated from college, I was one of the top UH
(03:37):
journalism students in the country. I interviewed with the Birmingham
News h sixteen different editors. All these editors wanted to
hire me, but Alabama had a law that allowed the
HR department to deny you a job because of a
credit report. So he's a perfect example. Again, we're told
(03:58):
get education to go to college. I graduated in four years. Okay,
one of the top students, multiple job offers. First job
offer comes, the paper wants to hire me, but there's
a state law that says credit score. You're going on,
what the hell's the credit score have to do with
(04:18):
me being able to be a reporter? And so you
do all the right moves and so this is so
that's one. So it hit me and there were a
lot of people who were shocked and stunned. Mind you,
I'm a national student Representati for the National Association and
Black Journalist. I'm a national board I've worked at television station, radio, station, newspaper,
hundred and fifty clips, went to communications Madness school, So
(04:40):
I literally by tell my graduated. I had eight years
in media, and so there's the credit report, so which
is not something that again you're growing up in your learning.
And so there has to be a a complete reprogramming,
if you will, of our community to understand how all
(05:01):
of these different levels and systems and how different things
are being pushed that keeps us in a weak economic state.
So what then happens. You have this credit report, Now
you get your first job. Now all of a sudden
you're trying to get a car alone, high interest rate.
Now you're actually paying more than what you should. And
(05:22):
so that thing continues. I had to deal with at
a job to by two thousand, Um, I'm freelancing. No
health insurance appendix ruptures a Democratic national convention. Five days
in the hospital, uh comes out, got nearly a hundred
thousand dollars in debt, the hospital bills six plus sixties.
Sixty plus percent of people who filed for bankruptcy did
(05:44):
so because of healthcare CAUs. So went through went through that,
and so folks, folks will say, man, this was very interesting.
So I'm sitting in the room and I understand how
white folks play a game that black folks play a game.
And in the movie how Flying Bill Duke has a
quote called they invented a game on top of the game.
So I'm sitting here in this bankruptcy and the black
(06:07):
people are walking in like we were, uh, scared slaves.
I'm watching and I'm watching body language, and black folks were,
you know, you know, pensive, apprehensive. I would talk to
people who were like, man, you you really you really
shouldn't file I mean bankruptcy. Oh my god. And they
(06:27):
were sitting here going on and on. So I was
talking to a friend of mine who was a vice
president the newspaper I work. He said, hey, roll, I
filed bankruptcy. He said, six months file bankruptcy. You're gonna
have a ton of credit card applications in your box
to help you restore your credit. He said. White folks
said here filed bankrupt and left and right, he said,
don't impact them. He said, yeah, black folks, we will
sit here and suffer through debt and don't tell nobody.
(06:49):
So I'm sitting with the bankrupt attorney and she says,
the moment because I got the foreclosure letter of my house.
She said, the moment you filed for bankruptcy, they can't
call you. They can't write you, ill said, no contact,
file that ship. I said, that's fine. His was interesting.
I'm sitting and I'm sitting in the in the in
the room and it's like about seventy five people and
(07:10):
the black people dot you see the pressure like that's
on the white folks chilling talking. So I'm talking to
this white boy and he was like, yeah, this is
my third time. He started telling me all the ship
they bought and all he was I mean, he was
just telling me the second house, the boat, the stuff, um,
(07:31):
the jet skis and everything. And I'm sitting and I'm
listening to him, and I'm like, so, y'all, but all
this ship on credit and then your as conveningly gifted, gifted, gifted,
(07:51):
and then you turn around in five bankrupt. It was
his third time, and I'm sitting there going, that's same.
But I learned is white people created the system. Black
people we're so afraid of the system, and then what
we didn't do is do what the white people did.
(08:14):
Black people. Man, I'm not going through all that, man,
just file that easy form. You know, these white folks
writing all kinds of stuff off black people, like, man,
I I can't afford to pay accountant. You do know
that when you pay the account and do your taxas
that's also a write off. See again, we are sitting
(08:38):
sitting here, we sit in black conversations and we talk
about the ship white people do. We don't reverse it
and go, well, that law applies to them. I can
use the exact same law to apply to me to
(08:58):
do the same thing. That's so again, it's it's how
we look at it black people history. We look at
this as man, it's a damn shame. I can't believe
these things are happening versus why aren't we doing that? Again?
You take just basic taxes. We are scared to death
(09:22):
of five page tax form. Man, Just do the easy
form and let me just get my refund. But hold up,
what so huh? I gotta I got a job. But
you mean I can create a side business and then
(09:44):
certain things that I do for my business, those things
can be right off. Yeah, now, mind you, we have
the side business, but we don't look at the side
business as a business. We go, that's my hustle. So
what are we doing? We're giving son or daughter? And
(10:07):
my grandmother did it. She given me and my brother
fifty or seventy five dollars or a hundred dollars for
for working with the wedding. She didn't put us on
the payroll. We could have been ten ninety nine employees,
and so when she gave us the hundred, that was
(10:27):
a tax right off. But she was just getting well.
Y'are helping out and rinsell help out. We literally decorated
the whole damn turners and reception halls. But again we're
sitting here again, how our wealth, you know how our
wealth goes. We're dolling out to three D to help
you with your rent. Here's with school. White folks are saying, no, son,
(10:52):
you're a ten ninety nine employee, So I'm gonna give
you a stipend. Route that through the company. And then
and so they're sitting here when they're handing out they're
getting tax write offs. So again when you aren't armed
with information to understand how the game is going. So
we're running around like, how the hell can these white
(11:13):
folks afford all this because they have studied the game,
because they created the game, And we're running around saying, man,
I ain't playing the game. That's why you hire somebody
who know when the rules change to then tell you, yo,
the rules are changing. So what we did two years
ago we can't do in the next period because the
(11:36):
RS changed the rules. While I was working for others,
I had my own when I worked at the fourth
Worth Star Telegram. When I worked to the Austin American Statesman,
we covered Hurricane Andrew and they hit a laptop and
I'm sitting there so that it was this is and
so we had a bar laptop. The other reporters had
(11:58):
no I didn't even how to use the damn thing.
I was like, I'm learning how to use the damn laptop.
So then when I go to four Star Telegram at
ninety three, I was like, yo, I'm always on my
own ship. I'm not sitting here because my whole because
it was had a beeper at a pager and I
think I lost it and I had to had to
reimburse it, and I was like, you know what, I'm
gonna have my own stuff. So when Okloma City Federal
(12:18):
Building blew up and I was one of the first
reporters to go there ninety three, I had my own
cell phone. They shut off all cell phone communications unless
with emergency. I was so able to get outcause I
was on a different cell plan. They have my own phone.
So I bought my own phone, my own laptop, had
my own stuff because I said, if I ever leave
a job, I need to have my tools, so if
(12:41):
I had to freelance, I'm not stuck. So I always
did that. Those are also all right offs. And so
then when I worked at the radio station, about my
own gear, same thing, and so that was always the
deal because my whole piece was I'm not I don't
want I'm never gonna be in a position to where
are if anything happens with a job. Now, I'm stuck
(13:04):
because I have no access to technology to then be
able to go out and create more money. So I
started buying my own gear. So when I was at
TV one, same thing. We had the only show that
was produced internally. TV one didn't even own their own cameras.
They even own this us. So I was like, yo,
we're good. I bought my own stuff. But this is
what I did. I was like, Yo, if you're all
(13:25):
gonna use my ship, we gotta co own the content.
See now, mind you, I gotta show a TV one
they own the content. So I was like, okay, if
you're gonna use my stuff, because y'all don't have stuff now,
y'all more than happy to go out there and pay
a production crew for that the extra cause, but we
(13:49):
had something short something like whatever. They were like, damn,
we're not trying to pay a film crew. Fifte gonna
shoot shot the quick interview. Well I did, and now
I was like, we call on the content. So my
deal is, I understood, if you want to call on
the content, I can now leverage that content when I'm gone.
And that's what I do now. So a lot of
(14:10):
the content that I used, the archived content I shot
over the years. So when I was at TV one,
I started acquiring my own equipment. So when they ended
the show in December twenty seventeen, I already had a
hundred thousand illars worth of equipment. So when we sit
here and when we flipped the next month, I said,
we're gonna do our own State of the Black Union,
tied to UM tied to uh Trump's first speech. So
(14:34):
this was this was the second was in januaryeen. You know,
I wanted a black church, shallow about this church, yell,
we want to do this event. I coordinated all the
palace and the speakers. I spent some actually money to
Boston benches in additional lighting how the freelance crew. But
the bottom line is all a gear I owned. And
so that was always my deal. And in the genesis
(14:55):
that was I'm not going to be caught flat for
of it, having no equipment, no gear. Now I'm trying
to sit here in freelance. What can I do? I
ain't got nothing. Two words that I lived by, freedom
and flexibility. If you told me, then I came to
(15:15):
the fort Worth or Telegram. I got a job. They
offered me twenty thousand. I said, no, y'all gotta pay
me at least twenty two dollars. They were like again,
so let's go back, let's go back, Let's go back.
Let me go back to that. Because you talk about
how you understand your value. There was a guy's last
thing was Baker. He was executive vice president for night Ridder.
Knight Ridder was the second largest newspaper chain in the
country behind Connette at the time. And so I met him,
(15:38):
that Bill Baker. I met him bad n a b
J convention, Bill one to hire me. He was like, Yo,
this this kid is this kid is hot. Hell. I
knew that. I knew I was one of the top
hires in the country. So Bill said, you know, I
really think, I really think, uh you should. You should
work it out paper in Brighton in Florida. I was like,
(15:59):
m I said, what's the circulation of paper in Branton, Florida?
And he told me. I said, now, I can't do that.
That's too small. He's like, excuse me. I said, yeah,
I'm sorry, that paper is too small. I said, my
skill set is above that paper. He's executive vice president,
not rinder. I'm a I'm a college senior. So he's like,
(16:23):
hold on, wait a minute. He said, you're a skill
I said yes, I said the circulation size of that paper.
I said, more than likely, it's going to pay me
a salary. Starting salary is probably gonna be anywhere from
fifteen and eighteen thousand dollars. I said, my skill set
is above back. I said that's for the people who
(16:43):
don't have my resume. Bill was like, I know, he
was thinking, I don't know who this is. Arrogant black
kid is So when the Austin American Statesman called me,
I go in through the interview. They called me back,
offered me a salary twenty one hundred dollars. Uh, And
then I say, no, you gotta pay me at least
twenty two thousand dollars. They're like, what, okay, Wow, Now
(17:08):
I understood my value. I knew TV station, radio station, newspaper,
daily newspaper, black newspaper, a hundred and fifty clips. I
was far above other students at that at that level,
I knew my number. So the same thing. Part of
the thing with money and our people is do you
(17:31):
know your value? Do you know your value down to
the penny? So when somebody comes to you and they
say I'm gonna offer you this, and you you get excited.
No no, no, no, no, no, I know my value.
Now a lot of us And this is the hard
and and this happens with women all the time. And
I counsel a lot of sisters because we happened. No
(17:52):
you know, no, no, no, no, no, that that your
numbers higher than that. Because what people don't understand is
if I accept an offer at a lower value than
I know I'm worth, the problem is it's gonna take
me a lot longer to catch up to my actual value.
As well. I've turned down opportunity to saying no, no,
I'm sorry serious X. Some radio came to me, dude,
(18:14):
when I was at I was at CNN TV one
Obama election. Yo, I'm talking about I'm doing half a
million dollars in speeches. I'm doing all these different things.
They come to me, I want to a weekly radio show,
and white guys like he said, you know, I'm he's
he was sort of apprehensive even about even the offers.
So my agents like, look, man, just go ahead and
extend it. Dude. They wanted me to do a weekend
(18:35):
show two hours, two hours, gonna say, or two hours
on Sunday, hard dollars an hour. I was like, do
y'all know I'll get paid ten thousand dollars for thirty
minutes speech. I'm not, I said, for a second of all,
my ass don't work on weekends, not for hard dollars
an hour. And so again, it's understanding, it's understanding money,
and it's understanding value. And so then now how did
(18:58):
I do that? Mom and dad didn't go to college.
My mom and dad weren't negotiating six figures to that.
I told you, combine, they never made more than fifty dollars.
But what I have is I have a huge library
of media books. Can A Letta has a book called
Three Blind Mikes, talking about the Three Networks. In those books,
he's detailing the contract negotiations with Dan rather than Peter
(19:19):
Jennings and Wala Cronkite and those cats. I'm reading the
books on the New York Times and the Being a
Family in Kentucky, the Chandeler family in Los Angeles. So
I'm reading all these books, and in all these books
they talking about the contract negotiation with people in media.
So I'm learning from from these deals. David led Hman,
Jay Lennon, there was a movie called The Night Shift,
the Late Shift, and that was a book on it.
(19:39):
In that book, David let is leaving NBC. So NBC says,
y'all can't negotiate with anybody for eighteen months. So David
led Himan and Michael opens who was who was his agent,
They were sitting and there were trying to figure out
that day and I gotta get around that, and Ovis goes,
let's reverse the process. David, like what you're talking about?
He says, the contract says we can't negotiate and solicit offers,
(20:03):
but it doesn't say we can't be pitched. So all
the people want to do business day let him and
came in and they pitched Letterman. I read that. I
was like, damn. And from that moment on every contract
that I had I read U until the time I
(20:23):
didn't have contracts, I read my entire contract line by line,
and I looked at not what I couldn't do, but
I looked at what it said I was doing what
my limitations were, and that gave me the opening. So
when I was at CNN, I wasn't full time, and
(20:45):
John Stewart had cracked on me wearing the ascot on
the area and I fired back at him the next
day that he came back another day and was like
rolling you win this round? Seeing him it was a
wind viral. Seeing him was all hyped and so what
they didn't realize He's a brother had already asked me
a week before to launch a line of at ties,
ascots and bow ties. So then we announced it and
(21:06):
so UH David Borman was Washington Bureau Chief. We were
standing uh in front of the studio and he goes,
you know, if you were a full time at CNN,
you couldn't be doing these other things. And I said,
I know, that's why I would never be full time
at CNN. And and he's and he's sort of he's
sort of like fell back because seeing their minds, this
(21:29):
is CNN. This we're the worldwide we were, you know,
we were a worldwide news organization. Hmm. But you're trying
to control my money. So that's why when I was there,
I was sitting in the meeting with Scott Matthew said
I got a problem calling name. Scott Matthews was executive producer.
I was feeling in the camera around he was sort
of talking to me in a very paternalistic way, and
frankly was pissing me off. And I found that said
(21:50):
Scott said, let me help you out. I got five
revenue streams. Y'all are a number three. And the look
on his face is like and I know, I'm like, yeah,
there are two higher than you. Because when I signed
with CNN, I told my agent, we're gonna go get
(22:12):
another deal that equals the value or exceeds this one.
And then we got that deal. I said, we're gonna
get us a third deal that equals or exceeds the value.
So what I did was I fortified myself by having
five deals CNN TV one Tom Drawing the Morning Show.
Then I had books, Then I had speeches. Even when
(22:34):
Tom Drawing the Morning Show came to me, they ken
I ran his website. I was making eighty five thousand,
two thousand one, two thousand three, Tom fires me because
he has signed a guaranteed contract with a woman who
is the CEO, who ever the time to know what
the hell she was doing, so he then he fires
me two thousand three. Tavists leaves in two thousand eight.
Everybody's like, yo, y'all need to hire Rolling. They're like,
not len hiring Rolling. So they go through this whole
(22:55):
on air audition. It sucks. Tom has to come to
me the personally. He asked me to join his show. Cool.
So his son Oscar called my agent. He was like, well,
we paid contributes a hundred twenty thou dollars. We don't
take a hundred twenty thousand dollars. I mental numbers two
and fifty dollars. What Dad's not gonna pay that. I
guess we're not gonna do it. So we were to
stand still for three weeks. I'm at the National Black
(23:16):
NBA Conference, I moderated panel. He's on the board. So
when it was over, he I go into restaurant a
Katie across from the hotel Renaissance Hotel, and he walking
with me. He's like, well, you know, you know you're
you're gutting our guy to stand still us and my god,
not gonna blink. I said, man, let me help you
out and mind you. At a radio shore at the
WI billion in Chicago morning show, making fifty tho, I
was cool. I was happy when y'all called me. So
(23:39):
I said, it's real simple, y'all called me. I didn't
call y'all. Y'all got twenty four hours to accept our
offer or we're done negotiating. I said the numbers to fifty.
So then they were like, and again this is where
all the education, all those books come in. Just why
I need people to understand you can you can you
can have a have a learned processes beyond school. So
(24:02):
he goes, well, okay, so so when you're off, when
you're off, are we paying you? I'm like, yes, this
is gone. This euy is gonna work. You're gonna pay
me a fee every single month and when I go
on vacation, you're gonna pay me my I'm on vacation,
and you canna have money feeling for me when I'm gone,
I said, But and I get paid to get vacation
(24:23):
days a year, I said, all my contracts are the same.
Since what happened. Twenty four hours later they called back.
They set it off for two and fifty dollars. So
so and again, it's how you move for dollars. It's
how you how you maximize your value when you know
your value, when you know you're hot, that's why you
(24:46):
gotta hit it. And give you just two examples of
who one who was smart? One who was it? Franco
Harris Least Pittsburgh steals the four Super Bowls. Right after
the four Super Bowl Franco asked to steal it for
a of your dollars. He was, if I'm correct, by
three yards short of breaking Jim Brown's all time career
(25:06):
Russian record. The Steelers were like, now, we ain't paying
you and me nolls. He's like a lit y'all four
super bowls? Yeah, but you thirt two years old? You
older not maybe he was old. No, we ain't doing that, bro,
They cut his ass. He would to see it our seahawks.
I think he played two or three games. Franco Harris
(25:27):
never broke Jim Brown's Russian record. His ads never got
the million dollars. Gary Coleman, Garry Coleman was a highest
thing on different strokes from NBC the Top five show.
Gary coh was like, Yo, you're gonna pay. I think
it was like sixty tho episode. They were like, man,
we're not paying your little as sixty thouars an episode.
Gary Coleman said, cool, ain't gonna be on the show.
(25:48):
And he seems like fine, because shoot the show, wrot
your lass. I guess what happened Top five show? That
ship dropped the thirties. In the forties, NBC laws saw
how much revenue they lost not having Gary Coleman. What happened.
They gave gear Copen the money. When you know your
value and when you can read the market, and when
(26:10):
you know you have options, then you can make the
proper demands. And you don't have options and your value
is not high, then you are dumbass for demanding money,
which is Frank O'Hara. So I've always understood when I
was high, when I was hot, when I was a medium,
when I was low, and I'm negotiated accordingly, accordingly to
(26:33):
my position in in the marketplace, because the marketplace determines
your value. See, the deal is you have to understand
first of all, what's your foundation, who you're talking, what
is your core audience. I know my core is as
African Americans. I knew that was on CNN. CNN would
get the ratings, and they would get the minute by
minute ratings. And they knew when I spiked. When they
(26:54):
had the two thousand eight presidential debates, Uh, I already
had speeches locked and and so the first two debates
I didn't attend because I had speeches and seeing it
was like so, I think CBS one overall ratings from
the first two. Dude, I was on the plane. I
was on the plane. After the second debate. It was
(27:15):
in Jacksonville, and I offered to go live from Jacksonville.
I had a speech and turned my speech into the
debate part. They didn't want to do that, Like, all right,
I'm gonna get a tenth dout not of speech. Man.
The World Wide CEO Jim Walton calls me, like first
he left my voicemail. First of all, the world Wide CEO.
Don't just call my cell phone normoally called my agent. No,
(27:37):
he called me. So he said, uh, this is the voicemail. Hey, buddy,
Jim Walton here nothing major. Give me a call. Now,
come on, bro, the world Wide CEO calling your ass.
It's major. So I called my agent. I said, I
think we're going to council this next speech. I think
I know why Jim call it. I called him. He said, hey,
(28:00):
how you doing. He said, uh, I understand you have
a speech, uh for the third debate? So I do.
He said, we need you on the set. How much
is that speech? I told him, I said this thing
was like, I think it's teen or twelve, five and five.
He said, we'll pay for the speech. I need you
to cancel that speech and need you to be on
(28:22):
the set. We need you on the set. That's my
new value I saw. I was like, all right, so
I go on the set this true ash story. Go
on to set. It's like ten people, it's nine chairs.
The fuck I ain't got no goddamn chair. I was like,
(28:47):
they're like, no, you're standing. I'm like, hold up the
the anchor wolf standing Kemba Brown said, what the hell
you mean? I'm standing. I'm like, this is some bullshit.
Then I go, I wonder whom gonna be the first
black person to text to call my ask because I
ain't got a chair. No, lies spiked me. What the
(29:09):
funk the black man can't get a chair? Debate night over, Debate,
night over, I'll go, what's up? It said? We wanted
to make sure the audience knew you were in the studio.
They had me on par with the other anchors. We
(29:29):
want that overall ratings understood value. So I understand my audience.
So how you cultivate your audience and you lock on
your audience. Then when you lock in your audience, you've
gotta service your audience. You gotta see there and talk
to your audience. To communicate with your audience. See, people
think it's about big. No, you can have a dedicated
(29:51):
audience that's smaller, but they believe in you. Then you
have to understand the technology of what are doing. We're
sitting here right now. What dls are Cannon or nikon?
Same here? Okay, here's the deal. If you can't afford
that rig, you can't afford them, you can't afford to alivliers,
(30:12):
You can't afford the while it's microphones. You gotta then say, okay,
how can I still do what I do starting off?
In order to be able to achieve what I want
to achieve. I've had news people say, man, I ain't
got nothing, got no equipment. I'm sitting there going you
do realize the phone in your hand is a video camera,
has an editing software and you can upload, you can
(30:33):
compress video. And then looking at me like crazy, I said,
you haven't even read your manual, and so it's maximizing
the tools. But it's also and this is gonna be
something that people really don't understand. How can I be
content and ambitious? Content means I'm using what I got.
(30:53):
I don't feel sorry for myself, but I'm working hard
being ambitious to be the build bigger. So I use
what I got. So for us when we launched my show,
I can only afford the Kennon X. Now folks are
trying to tell me, yo, man, you gotta get the
d L s RS. And I was like, yeah, it
(31:15):
looks great. Problem is audio. You gotta add too much
other ship to them camera for audio plus it's also
not portable. It's not E n G. So I then said, okay,
I need an E n G option allows me to
have two microphone inputs. Now I can see there, I
can be mobile boom mic has also has s D I.
(31:35):
It gives me what I need. What's also more important,
A and B slot A A, B, C H D
shouldn't do recording. B. A can shoot MP four. I
can pop that SD card out, popping right in the
my phone, upload that file in mealing to YouTube without
actually having to any nencoding. So it's studying the equipment.
How do you maximize it. It's also you don't buy
(31:57):
one piece of equipment as a soul. You you do
multi use equipment. Okay, so it's understanding that and so
a lot of so people don't spend that time. But
this is the last thing, the most important thing. You
cannot get focused on the hype of the business. You
(32:18):
gotta focus on the business of the business. The problem
with a lot of people in the media space, oh man,
this looks great. This is one of them. Man, Look
it's popping. Can you sell that ship? Who's watching it?
How many people are viewing it? So your ass just
invested all that money into a cute as video. Ain't
(32:39):
nobody seeing and being I got people Oh yeah, but man,
it's always like, but but look at this here, so
many the C three hundred. Why am I gonna sit here?
And I ain't got the money? The C three hundred
and as a body costs nine thousand dollars. You through
the lens is on, it's gonna take up the twelve
to fifteen thousand and twenty thousand dollars. I said. When
people watching on videos and watching on the mobile device,
(33:00):
they don't get They don't the person is sitting at home.
I don't know if that ship was shot with a
C three hundred with the deals are with the cannon
except four or five. With the cannon. All they see
is the video. But yo, ass, you're trying to talk
to your friends who are in media and impress them.
I don't talk to them. I focus on the customer.
So the whole deal is how do I keep my
(33:21):
expenses low? How do to maximize my revenue? How do
I and then I also how do I maximize my gear?
So I stress test all of my gear to the
point that when I have max I had gotten everything
out of it. I say, now we've gotta buy another
level of gear because now we've increased our revenue. Not
going to the next level. And so when I when
(33:43):
when I got when I got our sprinter, same thing,
people like, dude, what the hell, Well, here's the piece
we were traveling. We need to be mobile. How can
we We were looking again the suv. Not enough space,
not enough gear. And so again I'm sitting here going
through it. But the accountant business of business said you
can write off a hundred percent of an equipment purchase,
(34:03):
a vehicle purchase. He said, you're gonna get killed in
taxes because how you're you're a great So I'm sitting
here going are the whole vehicle. So now I'm saying,
maximize the vehicle. See, it's the business of the business.
To pete. There are too many of us who fall
in love with the idea of CEO on our business card.
(34:26):
We haven't understood the business of the business. We're not
understanding costs, we're not understanding how to put it together.
When a book publisher called me for a meeting, I
pitched throughout several ideas and they were like no, no, no,
no no. I said hold up, I said, I'm gonna
y'all call me. I said, I don't need y'all to
publish a book at the time I have published three.
(34:47):
I said, now y'all want to I can take this
hat off as a writer and put this hat on.
And I said, so, now I want to know. I said,
what's the cost per copy of your book? I said,
what's the paper weight of the cover? I said, glossy
or matt hardcover or glossier Matt. I said, how about
the said, I said, the pound of the uh, I said,
of the paper on the inside. I started going. I
started hitting them with those and I said, I need
(35:08):
y'all to know. I know how much it costs to
print a book. I don't need your ass to print
a book. The business of the business. If you don't
understand the business of your business and you're only hyped
with the production in up, it looks great, I got candle,
I got whatever. Then you you lose because you're caught
(35:31):
up and how it looks, smells, sounds, it makes you
feel good. But if it ain't generating your revenue, all
you're doing is simply uh having a situation where basically
you gotta sell Basically, you got masturbation. You're just pleasing
your damn self and you're going broke. And that's the problems.
A bunch of us have gone broke because we like
(35:52):
the idea entrepreneurship and one and one more, your ass
gotta work. You gotta do the work. I will set
that trap all up, set it up. When I s
when my guys to me we can't, I'm like, that's
in bullish it. I did it last week. So when
you know how your stuff works, you cannot be a
chef with a catering company and your ass can't cook.
(36:14):
You can't be a chef. You can't pack a truck.
That's the most important thing. Also, you got to be
able to do the work. So when somebody tells you
an employee trips, you say, I'm gonna show your ass
how it's done. Now, don't tell me again what can't
be done. That's the biggest mistake a lot of entrepreneurs
make as well. They don't want to get gritty and grimy.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
(36:36):
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check
out the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an
I heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcast on iHeart Radio, visit
(36:56):
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your pod casts from
As you know, our crew went out to Tulsa, Oklahoma
for the one anniversary of the Greenwood massacre in nine.
While they were there, they were able to catch up
with multiple people who had stories to tell that aren't
usually told. So part of our job here at Money
Moves is to let you in on the moves made
in our communities, in our past, in our present, so
(00:20):
that you can also make your money move today. Hey, folks,
Roland Martin here hosting Managing a Roland Martin a digital show.
You're watching Money Moves Power to Buy Greenwood. Going back
(00:42):
to being a kid, like many young African Americans, we
all had these small bank accounts where we were able
to deposit money. My grandmother had a catering business and
so I started working with that business when I was
seven years old. So I was making money when I
was seven. My grandmo my mom had a cake business
and which was tied to it. My dad was executive chef.
So half that opportunity, had that opportunity to actually do
(01:05):
that and so to be able to save money, be
able to have money to spend or something that was
critically important. But but like most African Americans, uh, we
did not have UH an intensive UH focused on financial literacy.
And that's a great scene in the movie HOOTLM where
Lawrence Fishburne, who's playing Buffy Johnson, says, when you don't know,
(01:26):
you don't know. And for African Americans, that has historically
been our case. After the Civil War, when the Freedman's
Bank was created, part of that institution was supposed to
be about keep teaching financial literacy UH to free slaves
of African descent. Lincoln gets killed two months after that,
Andrew Johnson becomes president and completely decimates dissipates that. So
(01:49):
part of the problem in Black America is that we
have black success followed by white backlash, and so we
go forward, we go back, we go forward, we go back,
we go forward, we go back. So we've never actually
had a multi generational continuum. Even if you look at
what happened with the highest point of black home ownership
under President Bill Clinton, all of a sudden, then you
(02:11):
have the home foreclosure crisis that hit in two thousand
and seven two thousand eight, we lost all black wealth.
So again you go from my high, now you've gone
to a low. Now it's around forty two, so you're
still trying to get back. We've never had black homeownership
at a six level. And so again it's a perfect example.
You go in the nineties through through two thousand's twelve fifteen,
(02:32):
maybe by a twelve fifteen year period, and all of
a sudden hot, then all of a sudden goes down.
And so that has been our story. So what we
actually need is we need a minimum of three consecutive
generations of uninterrupted growth that will allow us to be
able to grow financially. And that's why the financial literacy
(02:55):
piece is important. I under I knew about entrepreneurship, so
it was always there, So it was always a president
in my life, and so I had multiple aunts and
uncles who actually owned businesses. But again, like many African Americans,
when we grow up, we go to college, all of
a sudden, you're there, We're we're in many ways were
under finance, my brother and my sister and myself we
(03:17):
were all the Texas and then together. But like many
African Americans, under finance, didn't have the ability to have
additional resources to parents, never made more than fifty dollars combined.
And so you go to college, now you're dealing with debt.
Now you're dealing with a credit card debt. When I
graduated from college, I was one of the top UH
(03:37):
journalism students in the country. I interviewed with the Birmingham
News h sixteen different editors. All these editors wanted to
hire me, but Alabama had a law that allowed the
HR department to deny you a job because of a
credit report. So he's a perfect example. Again, we're told
(03:58):
get education to go to college. I graduated in four years. Okay,
one of the top students, multiple job offers. First job
offer comes, the paper wants to hire me, but there's
a state law that says credit score. You're going on,
what the hell's the credit score have to do with
(04:18):
me being able to be a reporter? And so you
do all the right moves and so this is so
that's one. So it hit me and there were a
lot of people who were shocked and stunned. Mind you,
I'm a national student Representati for the National Association and
Black Journalist. I'm a national board I've worked at television station, radio, station, newspaper,
hundred and fifty clips, went to communications Madness school, So
(04:40):
I literally by tell my graduated. I had eight years
in media, and so there's the credit report, so which
is not something that again you're growing up in your learning.
And so there has to be a a complete reprogramming,
if you will, of our community to understand how all
(05:01):
of these different levels and systems and how different things
are being pushed that keeps us in a weak economic state.
So what then happens. You have this credit report, Now
you get your first job. Now all of a sudden
you're trying to get a car alone, high interest rate.
Now you're actually paying more than what you should. And
(05:22):
so that thing continues. I had to deal with at
a job to by two thousand, Um, I'm freelancing. No
health insurance appendix ruptures a Democratic national convention. Five days
in the hospital, uh comes out, got nearly a hundred
thousand dollars in debt, the hospital bills six plus sixties.
Sixty plus percent of people who filed for bankruptcy did
(05:44):
so because of healthcare CAUs. So went through went through that,
and so folks, folks will say, man, this was very interesting.
So I'm sitting in the room and I understand how
white folks play a game that black folks play a game.
And in the movie how Flying Bill Duke has a
quote called they invented a game on top of the game.
So I'm sitting here in this bankruptcy and the black
(06:07):
people are walking in like we were, uh, scared slaves.
I'm watching and I'm watching body language, and black folks were,
you know, you know, pensive, apprehensive. I would talk to
people who were like, man, you you really you really
shouldn't file I mean bankruptcy. Oh my god. And they
(06:27):
were sitting here going on and on. So I was
talking to a friend of mine who was a vice
president the newspaper I work. He said, hey, roll, I
filed bankruptcy. He said, six months file bankruptcy. You're gonna
have a ton of credit card applications in your box
to help you restore your credit. He said. White folks
said here filed bankrupt and left and right, he said,
don't impact them. He said, yeah, black folks, we will
sit here and suffer through debt and don't tell nobody.
(06:49):
So I'm sitting with the bankrupt attorney and she says,
the moment because I got the foreclosure letter of my house.
She said, the moment you filed for bankruptcy, they can't
call you. They can't write you, ill said, no contact,
file that ship. I said, that's fine. His was interesting.
I'm sitting and I'm sitting in the in the in
the room and it's like about seventy five people and
(07:10):
the black people dot you see the pressure like that's
on the white folks chilling talking. So I'm talking to
this white boy and he was like, yeah, this is
my third time. He started telling me all the ship
they bought and all he was I mean, he was
just telling me the second house, the boat, the stuff, um,
(07:31):
the jet skis and everything. And I'm sitting and I'm
listening to him, and I'm like, so, y'all, but all
this ship on credit and then your as conveningly gifted, gifted, gifted,
(07:51):
and then you turn around in five bankrupt. It was
his third time, and I'm sitting there going, that's same.
But I learned is white people created the system. Black
people we're so afraid of the system, and then what
we didn't do is do what the white people did.
(08:14):
Black people. Man, I'm not going through all that, man,
just file that easy form. You know, these white folks
writing all kinds of stuff off black people, like, man,
I I can't afford to pay accountant. You do know
that when you pay the account and do your taxas
that's also a write off. See again, we are sitting
(08:38):
sitting here, we sit in black conversations and we talk
about the ship white people do. We don't reverse it
and go, well, that law applies to them. I can
use the exact same law to apply to me to
(08:58):
do the same thing. That's so again, it's it's how
we look at it black people history. We look at
this as man, it's a damn shame. I can't believe
these things are happening versus why aren't we doing that? Again?
You take just basic taxes. We are scared to death
(09:22):
of five page tax form. Man, Just do the easy
form and let me just get my refund. But hold up,
what so huh? I gotta I got a job. But
you mean I can create a side business and then
(09:44):
certain things that I do for my business, those things
can be right off. Yeah, now, mind you, we have
the side business, but we don't look at the side
business as a business. We go, that's my hustle. So
what are we doing? We're giving son or daughter? And
(10:07):
my grandmother did it. She given me and my brother
fifty or seventy five dollars or a hundred dollars for
for working with the wedding. She didn't put us on
the payroll. We could have been ten ninety nine employees,
and so when she gave us the hundred, that was
(10:27):
a tax right off. But she was just getting well.
Y'are helping out and rinsell help out. We literally decorated
the whole damn turners and reception halls. But again we're
sitting here again, how our wealth, you know how our
wealth goes. We're dolling out to three D to help
you with your rent. Here's with school. White folks are saying, no, son,
(10:52):
you're a ten ninety nine employee, So I'm gonna give
you a stipend. Route that through the company. And then
and so they're sitting here when they're handing out they're
getting tax write offs. So again when you aren't armed
with information to understand how the game is going. So
we're running around like, how the hell can these white
(11:13):
folks afford all this because they have studied the game,
because they created the game, And we're running around saying, man,
I ain't playing the game. That's why you hire somebody
who know when the rules change to then tell you, yo,
the rules are changing. So what we did two years
ago we can't do in the next period because the
(11:36):
RS changed the rules. While I was working for others,
I had my own when I worked at the fourth
Worth Star Telegram. When I worked to the Austin American Statesman,
we covered Hurricane Andrew and they hit a laptop and
I'm sitting there so that it was this is and
so we had a bar laptop. The other reporters had
(11:58):
no I didn't even how to use the damn thing.
I was like, I'm learning how to use the damn laptop.
So then when I go to four Star Telegram at
ninety three, I was like, yo, I'm always on my
own ship. I'm not sitting here because my whole because
it was had a beeper at a pager and I
think I lost it and I had to had to
reimburse it, and I was like, you know what, I'm
gonna have my own stuff. So when Okloma City Federal
(12:18):
Building blew up and I was one of the first
reporters to go there ninety three, I had my own
cell phone. They shut off all cell phone communications unless
with emergency. I was so able to get outcause I
was on a different cell plan. They have my own phone.
So I bought my own phone, my own laptop, had
my own stuff because I said, if I ever leave
a job, I need to have my tools, so if
(12:41):
I had to freelance, I'm not stuck. So I always
did that. Those are also all right offs. And so
then when I worked at the radio station, about my
own gear, same thing, and so that was always the
deal because my whole piece was I'm not I don't
want I'm never gonna be in a position to where
are if anything happens with a job. Now, I'm stuck
(13:04):
because I have no access to technology to then be
able to go out and create more money. So I
started buying my own gear. So when I was at
TV one, same thing. We had the only show that
was produced internally. TV one didn't even own their own cameras.
They even own this us. So I was like, yo,
we're good. I bought my own stuff. But this is
what I did. I was like, Yo, if you're all
(13:25):
gonna use my ship, we gotta co own the content.
See now, mind you, I gotta show a TV one
they own the content. So I was like, okay, if
you're gonna use my stuff, because y'all don't have stuff now,
y'all more than happy to go out there and pay
a production crew for that the extra cause, but we
(13:49):
had something short something like whatever. They were like, damn,
we're not trying to pay a film crew. Fifte gonna
shoot shot the quick interview. Well I did, and now
I was like, we call on the content. So my
deal is, I understood, if you want to call on
the content, I can now leverage that content when I'm gone.
And that's what I do now. So a lot of
(14:10):
the content that I used, the archived content I shot
over the years. So when I was at TV one,
I started acquiring my own equipment. So when they ended
the show in December twenty seventeen, I already had a
hundred thousand illars worth of equipment. So when we sit
here and when we flipped the next month, I said,
we're gonna do our own State of the Black Union,
tied to UM tied to uh Trump's first speech. So
(14:34):
this was this was the second was in januaryeen. You know,
I wanted a black church, shallow about this church, yell,
we want to do this event. I coordinated all the
palace and the speakers. I spent some actually money to
Boston benches in additional lighting how the freelance crew. But
the bottom line is all a gear I owned. And
so that was always my deal. And in the genesis
(14:55):
that was I'm not going to be caught flat for
of it, having no equipment, no gear. Now I'm trying
to sit here in freelance. What can I do? I
ain't got nothing. Two words that I lived by, freedom
and flexibility. If you told me, then I came to
(15:15):
the fort Worth or Telegram. I got a job. They
offered me twenty thousand. I said, no, y'all gotta pay
me at least twenty two dollars. They were like again,
so let's go back, let's go back, Let's go back.
Let me go back to that. Because you talk about
how you understand your value. There was a guy's last
thing was Baker. He was executive vice president for night Ridder.
Knight Ridder was the second largest newspaper chain in the
country behind Connette at the time. And so I met him,
(15:38):
that Bill Baker. I met him bad n a b
J convention, Bill one to hire me. He was like, Yo,
this this kid is this kid is hot. Hell. I
knew that. I knew I was one of the top
hires in the country. So Bill said, you know, I
really think, I really think, uh you should. You should
work it out paper in Brighton in Florida. I was like,
(15:59):
m I said, what's the circulation of paper in Branton, Florida?
And he told me. I said, now, I can't do that.
That's too small. He's like, excuse me. I said, yeah,
I'm sorry, that paper is too small. I said, my
skill set is above that paper. He's executive vice president,
not rinder. I'm a I'm a college senior. So he's like,
(16:23):
hold on, wait a minute. He said, you're a skill
I said yes, I said the circulation size of that paper.
I said, more than likely, it's going to pay me
a salary. Starting salary is probably gonna be anywhere from
fifteen and eighteen thousand dollars. I said, my skill set
is above back. I said that's for the people who
(16:43):
don't have my resume. Bill was like, I know, he
was thinking, I don't know who this is. Arrogant black
kid is So when the Austin American Statesman called me,
I go in through the interview. They called me back,
offered me a salary twenty one hundred dollars. Uh, And
then I say, no, you gotta pay me at least
twenty two thousand dollars. They're like, what, okay, Wow, Now
(17:08):
I understood my value. I knew TV station, radio station, newspaper,
daily newspaper, black newspaper, a hundred and fifty clips. I
was far above other students at that at that level,
I knew my number. So the same thing. Part of
the thing with money and our people is do you
(17:31):
know your value? Do you know your value down to
the penny? So when somebody comes to you and they
say I'm gonna offer you this, and you you get excited.
No no, no, no, no, no, I know my value.
Now a lot of us And this is the hard
and and this happens with women all the time. And
I counsel a lot of sisters because we happened. No
(17:52):
you know, no, no, no, no, no, that that your
numbers higher than that. Because what people don't understand is
if I accept an offer at a lower value than
I know I'm worth, the problem is it's gonna take
me a lot longer to catch up to my actual value.
As well. I've turned down opportunity to saying no, no,
I'm sorry serious X. Some radio came to me, dude,
(18:14):
when I was at I was at CNN TV one
Obama election. Yo, I'm talking about I'm doing half a
million dollars in speeches. I'm doing all these different things.
They come to me, I want to a weekly radio show,
and white guys like he said, you know, I'm he's
he was sort of apprehensive even about even the offers.
So my agents like, look, man, just go ahead and
extend it. Dude. They wanted me to do a weekend
(18:35):
show two hours, two hours, gonna say, or two hours
on Sunday, hard dollars an hour. I was like, do
y'all know I'll get paid ten thousand dollars for thirty
minutes speech. I'm not, I said, for a second of all,
my ass don't work on weekends, not for hard dollars
an hour. And so again, it's understanding, it's understanding money,
and it's understanding value. And so then now how did
(18:58):
I do that? Mom and dad didn't go to college.
My mom and dad weren't negotiating six figures to that.
I told you, combine, they never made more than fifty dollars.
But what I have is I have a huge library
of media books. Can A Letta has a book called
Three Blind Mikes, talking about the Three Networks. In those books,
he's detailing the contract negotiations with Dan rather than Peter
(19:19):
Jennings and Wala Cronkite and those cats. I'm reading the
books on the New York Times and the Being a
Family in Kentucky, the Chandeler family in Los Angeles. So
I'm reading all these books, and in all these books
they talking about the contract negotiation with people in media.
So I'm learning from from these deals. David led Hman,
Jay Lennon, there was a movie called The Night Shift,
the Late Shift, and that was a book on it.
(19:39):
In that book, David let is leaving NBC. So NBC says,
y'all can't negotiate with anybody for eighteen months. So David
led Himan and Michael opens who was who was his agent,
They were sitting and there were trying to figure out
that day and I gotta get around that, and Ovis goes,
let's reverse the process. David, like what you're talking about?
He says, the contract says we can't negotiate and solicit offers,
(20:03):
but it doesn't say we can't be pitched. So all
the people want to do business day let him and
came in and they pitched Letterman. I read that. I
was like, damn. And from that moment on every contract
that I had I read U until the time I
(20:23):
didn't have contracts, I read my entire contract line by line,
and I looked at not what I couldn't do, but
I looked at what it said I was doing what
my limitations were, and that gave me the opening. So
when I was at CNN, I wasn't full time, and
(20:45):
John Stewart had cracked on me wearing the ascot on
the area and I fired back at him the next
day that he came back another day and was like
rolling you win this round? Seeing him it was a
wind viral. Seeing him was all hyped and so what
they didn't realize He's a brother had already asked me
a week before to launch a line of at ties,
ascots and bow ties. So then we announced it and
(21:06):
so UH David Borman was Washington Bureau Chief. We were
standing uh in front of the studio and he goes,
you know, if you were a full time at CNN,
you couldn't be doing these other things. And I said,
I know, that's why I would never be full time
at CNN. And and he's and he's sort of he's
sort of like fell back because seeing their minds, this
(21:29):
is CNN. This we're the worldwide we were, you know,
we were a worldwide news organization. Hmm. But you're trying
to control my money. So that's why when I was there,
I was sitting in the meeting with Scott Matthew said
I got a problem calling name. Scott Matthews was executive producer.
I was feeling in the camera around he was sort
of talking to me in a very paternalistic way, and
frankly was pissing me off. And I found that said
(21:50):
Scott said, let me help you out. I got five
revenue streams. Y'all are a number three. And the look
on his face is like and I know, I'm like, yeah,
there are two higher than you. Because when I signed
with CNN, I told my agent, we're gonna go get
(22:12):
another deal that equals the value or exceeds this one.
And then we got that deal. I said, we're gonna
get us a third deal that equals or exceeds the value.
So what I did was I fortified myself by having
five deals CNN TV one Tom Drawing the Morning Show.
Then I had books, Then I had speeches. Even when
(22:34):
Tom Drawing the Morning Show came to me, they ken
I ran his website. I was making eighty five thousand,
two thousand one, two thousand three, Tom fires me because
he has signed a guaranteed contract with a woman who
is the CEO, who ever the time to know what
the hell she was doing, so he then he fires
me two thousand three. Tavists leaves in two thousand eight.
Everybody's like, yo, y'all need to hire Rolling. They're like,
not len hiring Rolling. So they go through this whole
(22:55):
on air audition. It sucks. Tom has to come to
me the personally. He asked me to join his show. Cool.
So his son Oscar called my agent. He was like, well,
we paid contributes a hundred twenty thou dollars. We don't
take a hundred twenty thousand dollars. I mental numbers two
and fifty dollars. What Dad's not gonna pay that. I
guess we're not gonna do it. So we were to
stand still for three weeks. I'm at the National Black
(23:16):
NBA Conference, I moderated panel. He's on the board. So
when it was over, he I go into restaurant a
Katie across from the hotel Renaissance Hotel, and he walking
with me. He's like, well, you know, you know you're
you're gutting our guy to stand still us and my god,
not gonna blink. I said, man, let me help you
out and mind you. At a radio shore at the
WI billion in Chicago morning show, making fifty tho, I
was cool. I was happy when y'all called me. So
(23:39):
I said, it's real simple, y'all called me. I didn't
call y'all. Y'all got twenty four hours to accept our
offer or we're done negotiating. I said the numbers to fifty.
So then they were like, and again this is where
all the education, all those books come in. Just why
I need people to understand you can you can you
can have a have a learned processes beyond school. So
(24:02):
he goes, well, okay, so so when you're off, when
you're off, are we paying you? I'm like, yes, this
is gone. This euy is gonna work. You're gonna pay
me a fee every single month and when I go
on vacation, you're gonna pay me my I'm on vacation,
and you canna have money feeling for me when I'm gone,
I said, But and I get paid to get vacation
(24:23):
days a year, I said, all my contracts are the same.
Since what happened. Twenty four hours later they called back.
They set it off for two and fifty dollars. So
so and again, it's how you move for dollars. It's
how you how you maximize your value when you know
your value, when you know you're hot, that's why you
(24:46):
gotta hit it. And give you just two examples of
who one who was smart? One who was it? Franco
Harris Least Pittsburgh steals the four Super Bowls. Right after
the four Super Bowl Franco asked to steal it for
a of your dollars. He was, if I'm correct, by
three yards short of breaking Jim Brown's all time career
(25:06):
Russian record. The Steelers were like, now, we ain't paying
you and me nolls. He's like a lit y'all four
super bowls? Yeah, but you thirt two years old? You
older not maybe he was old. No, we ain't doing that, bro,
They cut his ass. He would to see it our seahawks.
I think he played two or three games. Franco Harris
(25:27):
never broke Jim Brown's Russian record. His ads never got
the million dollars. Gary Coleman, Garry Coleman was a highest
thing on different strokes from NBC the Top five show.
Gary coh was like, Yo, you're gonna pay. I think
it was like sixty tho episode. They were like, man,
we're not paying your little as sixty thouars an episode.
Gary Coleman said, cool, ain't gonna be on the show.
(25:48):
And he seems like fine, because shoot the show, wrot
your lass. I guess what happened Top five show? That
ship dropped the thirties. In the forties, NBC laws saw
how much revenue they lost not having Gary Coleman. What happened.
They gave gear Copen the money. When you know your
value and when you can read the market, and when
(26:10):
you know you have options, then you can make the
proper demands. And you don't have options and your value
is not high, then you are dumbass for demanding money,
which is Frank O'Hara. So I've always understood when I
was high, when I was hot, when I was a medium,
when I was low, and I'm negotiated accordingly, accordingly to
(26:33):
my position in in the marketplace, because the marketplace determines
your value. See, the deal is you have to understand
first of all, what's your foundation, who you're talking, what
is your core audience. I know my core is as
African Americans. I knew that was on CNN. CNN would
get the ratings, and they would get the minute by
minute ratings. And they knew when I spiked. When they
(26:54):
had the two thousand eight presidential debates, Uh, I already
had speeches locked and and so the first two debates
I didn't attend because I had speeches and seeing it
was like so, I think CBS one overall ratings from
the first two. Dude, I was on the plane. I
was on the plane. After the second debate. It was
(27:15):
in Jacksonville, and I offered to go live from Jacksonville.
I had a speech and turned my speech into the
debate part. They didn't want to do that, Like, all right,
I'm gonna get a tenth dout not of speech. Man.
The World Wide CEO Jim Walton calls me, like first
he left my voicemail. First of all, the world Wide CEO.
Don't just call my cell phone normoally called my agent. No,
(27:37):
he called me. So he said, uh, this is the voicemail. Hey, buddy,
Jim Walton here nothing major. Give me a call. Now,
come on, bro, the world Wide CEO calling your ass.
It's major. So I called my agent. I said, I
think we're going to council this next speech. I think
I know why Jim call it. I called him. He said, hey,
(28:00):
how you doing. He said, uh, I understand you have
a speech, uh for the third debate? So I do.
He said, we need you on the set. How much
is that speech? I told him, I said this thing
was like, I think it's teen or twelve, five and five.
He said, we'll pay for the speech. I need you
to cancel that speech and need you to be on
(28:22):
the set. We need you on the set. That's my
new value I saw. I was like, all right, so
I go on the set this true ash story. Go
on to set. It's like ten people, it's nine chairs.
The fuck I ain't got no goddamn chair. I was like,
(28:47):
they're like, no, you're standing. I'm like, hold up the
the anchor wolf standing Kemba Brown said, what the hell
you mean? I'm standing. I'm like, this is some bullshit.
Then I go, I wonder whom gonna be the first
black person to text to call my ask because I
ain't got a chair. No, lies spiked me. What the
(29:09):
funk the black man can't get a chair? Debate night over, Debate,
night over, I'll go, what's up? It said? We wanted
to make sure the audience knew you were in the studio.
They had me on par with the other anchors. We
(29:29):
want that overall ratings understood value. So I understand my audience.
So how you cultivate your audience and you lock on
your audience. Then when you lock in your audience, you've
gotta service your audience. You gotta see there and talk
to your audience. To communicate with your audience. See, people
think it's about big. No, you can have a dedicated
(29:51):
audience that's smaller, but they believe in you. Then you
have to understand the technology of what are doing. We're
sitting here right now. What dls are Cannon or nikon?
Same here? Okay, here's the deal. If you can't afford
that rig, you can't afford them, you can't afford to alivliers,
(30:12):
You can't afford the while it's microphones. You gotta then say, okay,
how can I still do what I do starting off?
In order to be able to achieve what I want
to achieve. I've had news people say, man, I ain't
got nothing, got no equipment. I'm sitting there going you
do realize the phone in your hand is a video camera,
has an editing software and you can upload, you can
(30:33):
compress video. And then looking at me like crazy, I said,
you haven't even read your manual, and so it's maximizing
the tools. But it's also and this is gonna be
something that people really don't understand. How can I be
content and ambitious? Content means I'm using what I got.
(30:53):
I don't feel sorry for myself, but I'm working hard
being ambitious to be the build bigger. So I use
what I got. So for us when we launched my show,
I can only afford the Kennon X. Now folks are
trying to tell me, yo, man, you gotta get the
d L s RS. And I was like, yeah, it
(31:15):
looks great. Problem is audio. You gotta add too much
other ship to them camera for audio plus it's also
not portable. It's not E n G. So I then said, okay,
I need an E n G option allows me to
have two microphone inputs. Now I can see there, I
can be mobile boom mic has also has s D I.
(31:35):
It gives me what I need. What's also more important,
A and B slot A A, B, C H D
shouldn't do recording. B. A can shoot MP four. I
can pop that SD card out, popping right in the
my phone, upload that file in mealing to YouTube without
actually having to any nencoding. So it's studying the equipment.
How do you maximize it. It's also you don't buy
(31:57):
one piece of equipment as a soul. You you do
multi use equipment. Okay, so it's understanding that and so
a lot of so people don't spend that time. But
this is the last thing, the most important thing. You
cannot get focused on the hype of the business. You
(32:18):
gotta focus on the business of the business. The problem
with a lot of people in the media space, oh man,
this looks great. This is one of them. Man, Look
it's popping. Can you sell that ship? Who's watching it?
How many people are viewing it? So your ass just
invested all that money into a cute as video. Ain't
(32:39):
nobody seeing and being I got people Oh yeah, but man,
it's always like, but but look at this here, so
many the C three hundred. Why am I gonna sit here?
And I ain't got the money? The C three hundred
and as a body costs nine thousand dollars. You through
the lens is on, it's gonna take up the twelve
to fifteen thousand and twenty thousand dollars. I said. When
people watching on videos and watching on the mobile device,
(33:00):
they don't get They don't the person is sitting at home.
I don't know if that ship was shot with a
C three hundred with the deals are with the cannon
except four or five. With the cannon. All they see
is the video. But yo, ass, you're trying to talk
to your friends who are in media and impress them.
I don't talk to them. I focus on the customer.
So the whole deal is how do I keep my
(33:21):
expenses low? How do to maximize my revenue? How do
I and then I also how do I maximize my gear?
So I stress test all of my gear to the
point that when I have max I had gotten everything
out of it. I say, now we've gotta buy another
level of gear because now we've increased our revenue. Not
going to the next level. And so when I when
(33:43):
when I got when I got our sprinter, same thing,
people like, dude, what the hell, Well, here's the piece
we were traveling. We need to be mobile. How can
we We were looking again the suv. Not enough space,
not enough gear. And so again I'm sitting here going
through it. But the accountant business of business said you
can write off a hundred percent of an equipment purchase,
(34:03):
a vehicle purchase. He said, you're gonna get killed in
taxes because how you're you're a great So I'm sitting
here going are the whole vehicle. So now I'm saying,
maximize the vehicle. See, it's the business of the business.
To pete. There are too many of us who fall
in love with the idea of CEO on our business card.
(34:26):
We haven't understood the business of the business. We're not
understanding costs, we're not understanding how to put it together.
When a book publisher called me for a meeting, I
pitched throughout several ideas and they were like no, no, no,
no no. I said hold up, I said, I'm gonna
y'all call me. I said, I don't need y'all to
publish a book at the time I have published three.
(34:47):
I said, now y'all want to I can take this
hat off as a writer and put this hat on.
And I said, so, now I want to know. I said,
what's the cost per copy of your book? I said,
what's the paper weight of the cover? I said, glossy
or matt hardcover or glossier Matt. I said, how about
the said, I said, the pound of the uh, I said,
of the paper on the inside. I started going. I
started hitting them with those and I said, I need
(35:08):
y'all to know. I know how much it costs to
print a book. I don't need your ass to print
a book. The business of the business. If you don't
understand the business of your business and you're only hyped
with the production in up, it looks great, I got candle,
I got whatever. Then you you lose because you're caught
(35:31):
up and how it looks, smells, sounds, it makes you
feel good. But if it ain't generating your revenue, all
you're doing is simply uh having a situation where basically
you gotta sell Basically, you got masturbation. You're just pleasing
your damn self and you're going broke. And that's the problems.
A bunch of us have gone broke because we like
(35:52):
the idea entrepreneurship and one and one more, your ass
gotta work. You gotta do the work. I will set
that trap all up, set it up. When I s
when my guys to me we can't, I'm like, that's
in bullish it. I did it last week. So when
you know how your stuff works, you cannot be a
chef with a catering company and your ass can't cook.
(36:14):
You can't be a chef. You can't pack a truck.
That's the most important thing. Also, you got to be
able to do the work. So when somebody tells you
an employee trips, you say, I'm gonna show your ass
how it's done. Now, don't tell me again what can't
be done. That's the biggest mistake a lot of entrepreneurs
make as well. They don't want to get gritty and grimy.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
(36:36):
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check
out the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an
I heart Radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcast on iHeart Radio, visit
(36:56):
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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