Black entrepreneurs reach out to mainstream

DALE NEAL

Asheville Citizen-Times

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Many entrepreneurs start businesses out of their basement. Renita Fields didn't even have that kind of resource. She started selling out of the back of her Honda Civic.

In 2003, Fields saw an opening in the retail market for women and children who wanted to sport the latest "urban wear," or street-smart, hip-hop fashion. She launched her business from her car.

"It was hard, but hey, you've got to do what you've got to do," Fields said.

In 2004, she went to the then-Mountain Microenterprise Fund for business training. Through the "Foundations" class, Fields hooked up with a landlord and landed her own storefront for WB Fashions on Haywood Road in West Asheville.

"Plus they gave me a loan to cover my startup costs," Fields said.

Fields and other black business owners are still turning for help to the Microenterprise Fund, now known as Mountain BizWork. The nonprofit group is launching the Black Business Alliance, which will hold networking meetings and offer other services.

Black business owners would come for the BizWorks classes, "but they didn't come back for the networking and support," said Sharon Oxendine of BizWorks. "They're feeling isolated."

"With the loss of so many manufacturing jobs, people need to start making their own money by starting their own business," said Elaine Robinson, an alliance organizer and a business consultant. "The alliance is something that's been missing in our community."

Robinson hopes that older, more established businesspeople could help pass on advice to newer entrepreneurs. "Half the time, just a phone number or a single resource is all that they need to know."

Like most black entrepreneurs, Fields caters to a clientele beyond the black community since popular hip-hop fashions transcend race. "We get all ages, blacks, whites, Hispanics."

But reaching that cross-section of consumers is difficult for minority entrepreneurs, said Johnny Grant, who launched the Urban News in 2006. Grant's publications reach beyond the black community with articles in English, Spanish and Ukrainian.

"It's hard to break into the mainstream business community in Asheville," Grant said. The alliance could help entrepreneurs with ideas on marketing themselves, their products and services.

To survive, most black businesses will need to reach customers of all colors. A new study from the North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development shows that buying power among blacks in Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties reached $309 million in 2006, up from $169 million in 1990.

Yet that 83 percent increase is little more than half of the 151 percent gain black consumers have made nationwide, or the 160 percent gain in North Carolina.

With that slower growth, blacks' share of the total buying power of consumers in the Asheville area slipped from 3.6 percent in 1990 to 3 percent.

The metropolitan area's black consumer market is concentrated in Buncombe County, which accounts for 81 percent of the area's black buying power.

The black share of Buncombe County's total buying power was 4.3 percent in 2006, lower than the group's 1990 share of 5.1 percent.

Market share declined slightly in Henderson County, held steady in Haywood County, and rose slightly in Madison County.

The black market in Madison County was small at $2 million in 2006, but it was the region's fastest-growing county-level black consumer market.

The county's black buying power rose by 148 percent from 1990 to 2006, but even that percentage gain is below both the nation's 151 percent gain and the state's 160 percent gain.

The numbers don't faze Stefanie Williams, who has always wanted to have her own business.

In 2004, she launched her own hair styling salon, Stefanie's Hair and Beauty Design Studio, on South Market Street.

"I've always wanted to work for myself. I just believe I have this ability to do better," she said.