7 Ways to Support Businesses Owned by People of Color

Macroeconomic progress is meaningless if such progress excludes large sections of the population. Unfortunately, for various reasons across history, people of color have found themselves at the wrong end of discriminatory practices, policies, and even laws. For the past two years, as the world was gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic, black owned businesses were hit more than white owned businesses. Today, as we strive to move towards an egalitarian society cherishing equitable growth outcomes, it is essential that such historically deprived communities are supported financially. This economic aspect combined with the social cause of eradicating racism underscore the importance of supporting black businesses.

Here is how you could do your bit to support black owned businesses:

1.  As far as possible, avoid the temptation to buy everything you need from Amazon or Walmart. Try to shop as many items as you can from local black-owned retail outlets. What this will ensure is that your dollars do not go only to the big businesses (which we need not be against, but which need not be the only ones benefiting out of our wallets) but to small mom-and-pop stores.

2.  If you are someone who owns a business and require any work to be done on a freelance basis, try to look out for freelancers among the communities of color. Of course, you need not compromise on your skill and talent requirements, and you need not make it a rule to only look out for black or brown freelancers. But if there is a freelancer who may fit the bill, do try to hire his or her services without overtly negotiating down the price.

3.  In addition to the above point, if you yourself own a business, try to onboard black-owned businesses as vendors or distributors provided, they meet your requirements. Again, you do not need to make any compromises in terms of your own business requirements; you only need to give due consideration to such black owned businesses who may offer what your business is looking for.

4.  You do not always need to spend money to support black-owned businesses. If you happen to be at a restaurant or a supermarket owned by a person of color and happen to have a great experience, you could talk about the same on your social media pages such as Facebook or Instagram. In this way, you help promote such businesses through word of mouth, which is inarguably, one of the most effective tactics of marketing.

5.  Conversely, if any of the products or services you bought from a black owned business failed to meet your expectations, you could choose to contact the manager or the owner and offer constructive verbal feedback instead of leaving a negative online review. This way, black entrepreneurs would be able to improvise their offering and be better equipped to compete in the market.

6.  Try and not bargain much when you are dealing with black-owned businesses. Almost every business will concede to some extent when a potential customer bargains for price because the cost of losing a customer is high in the long-term. However, what this does is erode their margins and consequently, business growth. Buying goods and services at the quoted price is one of the most effective ways to support black owned businesses.

7.  If you are someone with considerable industry experience, you could offer pro bono consultancy services to one or two small business outfits owned by the black community who could benefit from your insights. Not everyone would be in the position to do this, but the value of informed guidance that comes from industry experience would be immensely beneficial for such businesses to grow.

The above seven tips serve as a comprehensive list for how to help black owned businesses. The importance of supporting black businessesis immense as has already been mentioned above. With a collective effort by adhering to the above points, there are thousands of such small businesses and self-employed individuals of colorwho stand to benefit economically and socially.