October 19, 2021 • 11 mins
Greenwood Instagram contest winner Asha Wilkerson, a business coach and employment law attorney, debunks several of the myths holding people back from starting their own business.
Tanya and Asha provide much-needed advice and suggestions to anyone becoming an entrepreneur: how to receive help, which businesses require money to start, the truth about being your own boss, and the value of a support system that will encourage your success.
Host IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @ashawilkersonesq
Need more business advice from Asha? Check out Transcend.
ICYMI: Hear what Dr. Kenneth Alleyne has to say about why it's important to view your health as a financial investment on Episode 1.
Listen to more episodes and find additional tips at BankGreenwood.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, money Movers, Welcome back to the Money Moves Podcast
powered by Greenwood. We are here once again to give
you the keys to the financial kingdom of wealth, abundance
and success. Welcome back to Money Movers. We are continuing
(00:22):
our discussion of entrepreneurship, and you know, I realized that
there are still a lot of things that people are
unsure or questioned when it comes down to owning a business.
So today we have Asha Wilkerson, one of our Greenwood
Podcast contest winners. Asha, can you tell us a little
bit about yourself and welcome to the show. Sure, thank
you so much. I'm so excited to be here. So
(00:44):
my name is Asha Wilkerson. I am a business and
employment law attorney in Oakland, California, and my mission right
now is to help black and brown entrepreneurs build a
business and leave a legacy. I love that and thank
you for joining us all the way from the other
side of the country in Oakland. So, Ausha, we have
been asking for people to give us their questions concerns
(01:06):
about entrepreneurship, and I feel like you are the perfect
person to help us break down some of these questions. So, Asha,
what was the first thing that jumped out to you
about this. What was the biggest misconception? Absolutely so on
the internet, on social media, we see these big time
business owners, people who are getting millions of dollars in bcs,
But there's a whole market of mom and pop shops,
(01:29):
of side hustlers, of folks just you know, trying to
get a business to live off of, not trying to
be you know, way up here, which is just fine.
And so the first misconception is that you need a
lot of money to get started. It depends on what
kind of business you want. If you want to, you know,
play in the International Space shirt, you're probably gonna need
a lot of money to get started. But if you
(01:49):
have a service based business, when I started my law firm,
all I needed was a laptop, and uh, I think
that was it actually just a laptop in my brain.
So you don't always need a lot of money to
get started. So don't let that be a deterrent for
you if you have a business idea that you're ready
to roll with. I love that you say this because
oftentimes our heads starts spinning like do I need to
(02:10):
raise capital? Is my business big enough? And we have
this conversation often on the show. But you know, one
of the things that I think is the best testament
to hey can I build a business? Is my idea?
Good is customers. If you can find somebody who will
actually pay for the service you're offering, the product you're offering,
you've now proven like product market fit, get a customer. Yeah, absolutely,
(02:34):
And you know, from all of my experience talking with
vcs and stuff, people don't invest in an idea. They
want to make sure that you've actually taken it to
market and that it has some scalability and that people
are going to get their money back. So you know,
before you start thinking about getting an infusion of capital,
just start and what can you do? Not necessarily on
a shoe string, but what can you do or you
(02:54):
need those other financial resources from the outside. This is
a perfect example. And I want to talk about this
a little bit because there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of really excitement about you know, black
people and getting venture capital. But here's the thing. Different
types of businesses fit different types of capital infusions. Can
you sort of walk us through the spectrum of hey,
(03:14):
I'm building this, do I need capital? Like what type
of businesses need capital, right, absolutely, So, like restaurants need
capital because you have supplies, you need a kitchen, you
need a storefront, you need chairs, you need you know,
places for people to dine on the tables. Um. But
things that don't need a lot of capital maybe a
service based business like a law firm or a business
(03:36):
coach or uh nursing consultants or something like that. Right
when you when your product is the service instead of
a thing, then you don't need nearly as much capital.
And I think being in the age of COVID, we
have seen that we really can conduct business online with
with limited overhead, which is great because the profit margin increases.
(03:57):
So definitely think about what can you do with having
to have a lot of stuff behind you. Yeah, you know,
And I think it's been really interesting is how technology
has changed this. You know, back in the day, if
you wanted to you know, let's say you were a
mom at home and you wanted to sell baby food,
you would have to find someone who would build a
very expensive website for you. But now there's all these
tools that technology has enabled us to build our websites
(04:19):
at home, and it might cost you a subscription of
thirty nine dollars. There's tools that will help you make
graphics so that you can now you know, push this
product online on social media. So there's all these things
where you can do this from you know, your home,
your backyard, your car, even if you need to escape
your kids. Yeah. Absolutely, And one of the things I
tell people to is to find your passion and then
(04:41):
start a business behind your passion, because this this is
too hard. Entrepreneurship is hard. It's not a walk in
the park. And that's actually the second point. The second
myth is that it's going to be easy. That if
you have found your groove and if you were good
at entrepreneurship, it's gonna be easy, honey, let me tell you.
And nothing about this thing is easy. It's hard to
work for somebody else, it's hard to work for yourself.
(05:03):
But I don't have children, but I always say it's
probably like having kids, one of the hardest, most rewarding
things you'll do. You'll put your hair out, but they
love your baby at the same time. So you know,
it's not easy, but it's definitely worth the journey. It's empowering,
and it has the opportunity to change your financial future.
As the business owner, the financial future of your immediate family,
and then also your community because if you're hiring people,
(05:24):
who are you hiring probably the people who are local
around you. And there's there's a really really powerful movement
behind small business that gets looked over a lot, because
you truly have the opportunity to bring money into your
community and to change the financial situation of everybody around you.
All right, So going on to our next topic, our
next smith. We saw people talking about you can start
(05:46):
a business all on your own, your own little island.
Let's start a business. Nobody does it alone. So there's
this myth in our communities that you've gotta do it alone,
or that if you have questions and can't figure it out,
it's some you know, knock on your aptitude, you are
on your intelligence. That's not true. We know what we know, right,
We don't know everything, and you don't have to know everything.
(06:06):
And the most powerful thing that I have done as
a teacher and as an attorney and as a business
owner is to say I don't know, I need some help,
and then I can go to the expert whoever that is,
for whatever it is, whether it's marketing or just like
mindset coaching or legal services, and I can say I've
got a question here, I'm stuck here. Can you give
(06:27):
me some advice or tell me how to move through it? Actually,
I want to expand on that because I think this
is a really important lesson, you know. I think people
want to help other people succeed, you know. And the
cold call, the cold email, it works, it works. But
one tip I'd love to give our money moves audience
is how to successfully reach out to other people. And
I find I get, you know, inundated with lots of
(06:49):
different emails saying hey can I pick your brain? Yeah?
And that pick your brain email is like okay, It's
like someone knocking on your door all the time and saying, hey,
can I get something from you? Can I get something
from you? If a different approach when you say, hey,
this is what I'm working on. I have seen what
you have been able to do. Is there an opportunity
where I could learn from you? Because everyone, you know,
(07:10):
just simple psychology. Yeahs to feel like you know, they
have excelled in something and it makes us feel good. Oh,
someone wants to learn from me, And that's a better approach,
And like, hey, can I just, um, can I just
get this info for free? You know, and being able
to offer something in return is really helpful, not necessarily money,
but just like I can offer this social media skill,
(07:32):
I can would love to be an intern and learn
from you, and so I can, you know, give back
to you in the same way. She's laying down some
gems here, like be intentional with your ask and you know,
offer something up And I think this will get you
in the door to you know, people you would not
even have imagined would reply to your email. So I
love that you said that. Last, but not least, when
(07:53):
you run your own business, you don't have a boss
that's on this one. So this is one I actually
got from my mom because you know, I like to
pretend like I'm my own boss and I and I
am for some extent, but really it doesn't mean that
you are not um responsible to people. So depending on
how you build your business, you can feel like you
(08:14):
have more responsibility than if you were just working for
somebody else. But you have to meet your deliverables. You
have to, you know, pay attention to maintain those relationships
with your customers, with your vendors, with the people who
are working with you with your employees, so you know,
it's depending on how you set it up and what
kind of business it is. There's a lot of freedom
that's involved, but there's also a lot of responsibility. So
(08:35):
it's not just license to do whatever you want, not
if you're trying to be successful and build that reputation.
But there are freedoms that are included so you can
pick and choose when, where and how you want to
show up. And I think you know, when you're an entrepreneur,
being your own boss is even tougher than working for
someone else because you if you want to be successful,
(08:56):
you have to set metrics, you have to set goals,
and you have to make sure you keep moving forward
every day because there's nobody else to crack the whip
other than you. So it's a tough job being an entrepreneur.
It is a tough job. And that's also why the
community is so important. We all have days where we
don't feel like, you know, jumping out of bed and
you know, marketing our product again, you know, so it's
(09:17):
important to have the right community around you. The community
that's going to encourage and it's not always going to
be families. And this is where I feel like networking
and communities and now a lot of this is done
online so that you can find people and you might
not even mess these people, but knowing who's going to
be your cheerleader on the days when you're down the
dumps and like, pick yourself up, let's go. You got
(09:38):
this like people who that will clap for you, and
other people that you can reach out to, who you
can problem solve with, like you need all these people
in your support arsenal. And then of course your family
is gonna be there for you hopefully and support you.
But be intentional about the people and minds that you
put around you because that success mindset, I mean, it
seeps in and it's so powerful. Right I heard a
(10:01):
long time ago, if you are the smartest person in
the room, you're in the wrong room. That I right
by that. I want to be in the rooms where
you know people are thinking ten times bigger than me
and are doing ten times more than me, because it
just tells me where I can go. Oh my goodness, well, Asha,
it was wonderful having you here. Can you let the
people here know where they can find you on social
media Instagram or your business website? Absolutely So my website
(10:24):
is the Wilkerson Law Office dot com and I hang
out mostly on Instagram at Osha Wilkerson e s Q.
So I hope to engage with everybody over there. Thank
you so much, Asha, and we hope to see you
again soon. And to all of you money movers out there,
make sure you stay with us. And if you want
to recap of everything and all the jewels and gems
that Asha has dropped here, please go to the Bank
(10:45):
Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves podcast blogs.
Stay tuned tomorrow and every day this week from a
very special Money Versus Moves. So we have a friendship
turned business partnership that seems to be souring. Hear this
kind of stuff all the time, more from our experience. So,
Dr Ken, you just made everyone's mouth drop because you
(11:06):
mentioned you just received a hundred and sixty million dollar
invest minutes, two or maybe three series days for black
Founders and a celebrity guest. You won't want to miss
the one, the only, the indomitable Terrell Owens of the
agent that I had drew osen House and just Osenhouse Sports.
They screwed me over Gosh, the depths of this are
(11:30):
like overwhelming. Money Moves is an I heart Radio podcast
powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For
more podcasts on I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Don't forget to tune into the Money Moves podcast Monday
to Friday, so that you too can have the keys
to financial freedom that you so rightly deserve.
Hey, money Movers, Welcome back to the Money Moves Podcast
powered by Greenwood. We are here once again to give
you the keys to the financial kingdom of wealth, abundance
and success. Welcome back to Money Movers. We are continuing
(00:22):
our discussion of entrepreneurship, and you know, I realized that
there are still a lot of things that people are
unsure or questioned when it comes down to owning a business.
So today we have Asha Wilkerson, one of our Greenwood
Podcast contest winners. Asha, can you tell us a little
bit about yourself and welcome to the show. Sure, thank
you so much. I'm so excited to be here. So
(00:44):
my name is Asha Wilkerson. I am a business and
employment law attorney in Oakland, California, and my mission right
now is to help black and brown entrepreneurs build a
business and leave a legacy. I love that and thank
you for joining us all the way from the other
side of the country in Oakland. So, Ausha, we have
been asking for people to give us their questions concerns
(01:06):
about entrepreneurship, and I feel like you are the perfect
person to help us break down some of these questions. So, Asha,
what was the first thing that jumped out to you
about this. What was the biggest misconception? Absolutely so on
the internet, on social media, we see these big time
business owners, people who are getting millions of dollars in bcs,
But there's a whole market of mom and pop shops,
(01:29):
of side hustlers, of folks just you know, trying to
get a business to live off of, not trying to
be you know, way up here, which is just fine.
And so the first misconception is that you need a
lot of money to get started. It depends on what
kind of business you want. If you want to, you know,
play in the International Space shirt, you're probably gonna need
a lot of money to get started. But if you
(01:49):
have a service based business, when I started my law firm,
all I needed was a laptop, and uh, I think
that was it actually just a laptop in my brain.
So you don't always need a lot of money to
get started. So don't let that be a deterrent for
you if you have a business idea that you're ready
to roll with. I love that you say this because
oftentimes our heads starts spinning like do I need to
(02:10):
raise capital? Is my business big enough? And we have
this conversation often on the show. But you know, one
of the things that I think is the best testament
to hey can I build a business? Is my idea?
Good is customers. If you can find somebody who will
actually pay for the service you're offering, the product you're offering,
you've now proven like product market fit, get a customer. Yeah, absolutely,
(02:34):
And you know, from all of my experience talking with
vcs and stuff, people don't invest in an idea. They
want to make sure that you've actually taken it to
market and that it has some scalability and that people
are going to get their money back. So you know,
before you start thinking about getting an infusion of capital,
just start and what can you do? Not necessarily on
a shoe string, but what can you do or you
(02:54):
need those other financial resources from the outside. This is
a perfect example. And I want to talk about this
a little bit because there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of really excitement about you know, black
people and getting venture capital. But here's the thing. Different
types of businesses fit different types of capital infusions. Can
you sort of walk us through the spectrum of hey,
(03:14):
I'm building this, do I need capital? Like what type
of businesses need capital, right, absolutely, So, like restaurants need
capital because you have supplies, you need a kitchen, you
need a storefront, you need chairs, you need you know,
places for people to dine on the tables. Um. But
things that don't need a lot of capital maybe a
service based business like a law firm or a business
(03:36):
coach or uh nursing consultants or something like that. Right
when you when your product is the service instead of
a thing, then you don't need nearly as much capital.
And I think being in the age of COVID, we
have seen that we really can conduct business online with
with limited overhead, which is great because the profit margin increases.
(03:57):
So definitely think about what can you do with having
to have a lot of stuff behind you. Yeah, you know,
And I think it's been really interesting is how technology
has changed this. You know, back in the day, if
you wanted to you know, let's say you were a
mom at home and you wanted to sell baby food,
you would have to find someone who would build a
very expensive website for you. But now there's all these
tools that technology has enabled us to build our websites
(04:19):
at home, and it might cost you a subscription of
thirty nine dollars. There's tools that will help you make
graphics so that you can now you know, push this
product online on social media. So there's all these things
where you can do this from you know, your home,
your backyard, your car, even if you need to escape
your kids. Yeah. Absolutely, And one of the things I
tell people to is to find your passion and then
(04:41):
start a business behind your passion, because this this is
too hard. Entrepreneurship is hard. It's not a walk in
the park. And that's actually the second point. The second
myth is that it's going to be easy. That if
you have found your groove and if you were good
at entrepreneurship, it's gonna be easy, honey, let me tell you.
And nothing about this thing is easy. It's hard to
work for somebody else, it's hard to work for yourself.
(05:03):
But I don't have children, but I always say it's
probably like having kids, one of the hardest, most rewarding
things you'll do. You'll put your hair out, but they
love your baby at the same time. So you know,
it's not easy, but it's definitely worth the journey. It's empowering,
and it has the opportunity to change your financial future.
As the business owner, the financial future of your immediate family,
and then also your community because if you're hiring people,
(05:24):
who are you hiring probably the people who are local
around you. And there's there's a really really powerful movement
behind small business that gets looked over a lot, because
you truly have the opportunity to bring money into your
community and to change the financial situation of everybody around you.
All right, So going on to our next topic, our
next smith. We saw people talking about you can start
(05:46):
a business all on your own, your own little island.
Let's start a business. Nobody does it alone. So there's
this myth in our communities that you've gotta do it alone,
or that if you have questions and can't figure it out,
it's some you know, knock on your aptitude, you are
on your intelligence. That's not true. We know what we know, right,
We don't know everything, and you don't have to know everything.
(06:06):
And the most powerful thing that I have done as
a teacher and as an attorney and as a business
owner is to say I don't know, I need some help,
and then I can go to the expert whoever that is,
for whatever it is, whether it's marketing or just like
mindset coaching or legal services, and I can say I've
got a question here, I'm stuck here. Can you give
(06:27):
me some advice or tell me how to move through it? Actually,
I want to expand on that because I think this
is a really important lesson, you know. I think people
want to help other people succeed, you know. And the
cold call, the cold email, it works, it works. But
one tip I'd love to give our money moves audience
is how to successfully reach out to other people. And
I find I get, you know, inundated with lots of
(06:49):
different emails saying hey can I pick your brain? Yeah?
And that pick your brain email is like okay, It's
like someone knocking on your door all the time and saying, hey,
can I get something from you? Can I get something
from you? If a different approach when you say, hey,
this is what I'm working on. I have seen what
you have been able to do. Is there an opportunity
where I could learn from you? Because everyone, you know,
(07:10):
just simple psychology. Yeahs to feel like you know, they
have excelled in something and it makes us feel good. Oh,
someone wants to learn from me, And that's a better approach,
And like, hey, can I just, um, can I just
get this info for free? You know, and being able
to offer something in return is really helpful, not necessarily money,
but just like I can offer this social media skill,
(07:32):
I can would love to be an intern and learn
from you, and so I can, you know, give back
to you in the same way. She's laying down some
gems here, like be intentional with your ask and you know,
offer something up And I think this will get you
in the door to you know, people you would not
even have imagined would reply to your email. So I
love that you said that. Last, but not least, when
(07:53):
you run your own business, you don't have a boss
that's on this one. So this is one I actually
got from my mom because you know, I like to
pretend like I'm my own boss and I and I
am for some extent, but really it doesn't mean that
you are not um responsible to people. So depending on
how you build your business, you can feel like you
(08:14):
have more responsibility than if you were just working for
somebody else. But you have to meet your deliverables. You
have to, you know, pay attention to maintain those relationships
with your customers, with your vendors, with the people who
are working with you with your employees, so you know,
it's depending on how you set it up and what
kind of business it is. There's a lot of freedom
that's involved, but there's also a lot of responsibility. So
(08:35):
it's not just license to do whatever you want, not
if you're trying to be successful and build that reputation.
But there are freedoms that are included so you can
pick and choose when, where and how you want to
show up. And I think you know, when you're an entrepreneur,
being your own boss is even tougher than working for
someone else because you if you want to be successful,
(08:56):
you have to set metrics, you have to set goals,
and you have to make sure you keep moving forward
every day because there's nobody else to crack the whip
other than you. So it's a tough job being an entrepreneur.
It is a tough job. And that's also why the
community is so important. We all have days where we
don't feel like, you know, jumping out of bed and
you know, marketing our product again, you know, so it's
(09:17):
important to have the right community around you. The community
that's going to encourage and it's not always going to
be families. And this is where I feel like networking
and communities and now a lot of this is done
online so that you can find people and you might
not even mess these people, but knowing who's going to
be your cheerleader on the days when you're down the
dumps and like, pick yourself up, let's go. You got
(09:38):
this like people who that will clap for you, and
other people that you can reach out to, who you
can problem solve with, like you need all these people
in your support arsenal. And then of course your family
is gonna be there for you hopefully and support you.
But be intentional about the people and minds that you
put around you because that success mindset, I mean, it
seeps in and it's so powerful. Right I heard a
(10:01):
long time ago, if you are the smartest person in
the room, you're in the wrong room. That I right
by that. I want to be in the rooms where
you know people are thinking ten times bigger than me
and are doing ten times more than me, because it
just tells me where I can go. Oh my goodness, well, Asha,
it was wonderful having you here. Can you let the
people here know where they can find you on social
media Instagram or your business website? Absolutely So my website
(10:24):
is the Wilkerson Law Office dot com and I hang
out mostly on Instagram at Osha Wilkerson e s Q.
So I hope to engage with everybody over there. Thank
you so much, Asha, and we hope to see you
again soon. And to all of you money movers out there,
make sure you stay with us. And if you want
to recap of everything and all the jewels and gems
that Asha has dropped here, please go to the Bank
(10:45):
Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves podcast blogs.
Stay tuned tomorrow and every day this week from a
very special Money Versus Moves. So we have a friendship
turned business partnership that seems to be souring. Hear this
kind of stuff all the time, more from our experience. So,
Dr Ken, you just made everyone's mouth drop because you
(11:06):
mentioned you just received a hundred and sixty million dollar
invest minutes, two or maybe three series days for black
Founders and a celebrity guest. You won't want to miss
the one, the only, the indomitable Terrell Owens of the
agent that I had drew osen House and just Osenhouse Sports.
They screwed me over Gosh, the depths of this are
(11:30):
like overwhelming. Money Moves is an I heart Radio podcast
powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For
more podcasts on I heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Don't forget to tune into the Money Moves podcast Monday
to Friday, so that you too can have the keys
to financial freedom that you so rightly deserve.
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