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Speaker 1: Earners.

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Speaker 2: What's up.

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Speaker 1: You ever walk into a small business and everything just

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Speaker 1: works like The checkout is fast, the receipts are digital,

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Speaker 1: tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before

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Speaker 1: the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We

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Speaker 1: love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just

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Speaker 1: feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor

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Speaker 1: at a pop up market, or even one of our

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Speaker 1: merch partners, Square makes it easy for them to take payments,

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Speaker 1: manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from

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Speaker 1: one simple system. If you're a business owner or even

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Speaker 1: just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down

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Speaker 1: one of the best tools out there to help you start, run,

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Speaker 1: and grow. It's not just about payments, it's about giving

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Speaker 1: you time back so you can focus on what matters

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Speaker 1: most Ready. To see how Square can transform your business,

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Speaker 1: visit Square dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn

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Speaker 1: more that Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait,

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Speaker 1: don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you

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Speaker 1: can keep pushing your vision forward. This episode is brought

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Speaker 1: to you by P and C Bank, a lot of

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Speaker 1: people think podcasts about work are boring, and sure, they

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Speaker 1: definitely can be, but understanding of professional's routine shows us

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Speaker 1: how they achieve their success little by little, day after day.

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Speaker 1: It's like banking with P and C Bank. It might

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Speaker 1: seem boring to save, plan and make calculated decisions with

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Speaker 1: your bank, but keeping your money boring is what helps

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Speaker 1: you live a more happily fulfilled life. P and C

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Speaker 1: Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly Boring since

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five is a service mark of the PNC

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Speaker 1: Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank National Association

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Speaker 1: Member FDIC.

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Speaker 3: Let's talk about this, the rollback of DI, the rollback

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Speaker 3: of corporate involvement with black organizations. You are in the

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Speaker 3: crossfires of that because you work with a lot of

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Speaker 3: corporations and you have a black event, right, Yeah? Has

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Speaker 3: that impacted you? What's your thoughts on this? Because a

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Speaker 3: lot of time people just hear this, but it doesn't

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Speaker 3: really matter if it doesn't impact you personally. So you,

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Speaker 3: as somebody that's operating at a high level and have

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Speaker 3: a lot of corporate relationships, what's your thoughts on everything

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Speaker 3: that's been happening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, our business is over forty million in revenue.

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Speaker 2: Half of it is aprotech, half of it is media.

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Speaker 2: So on the media side, revenue is up. Like all

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Speaker 2: these consumer advertisers are completely like cappin when it comes

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Speaker 2: to D and I, like it's very much a political fodder.

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Speaker 2: But when it comes to their bottom line and their

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Speaker 2: top line, you have to invest in black audiences and

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Speaker 2: consumers like we are where growth is, multiculturals, where growth is.

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Speaker 2: They already have the white consumers, so they can't put

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Speaker 2: their foot off the gas and not advertise to us.

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Speaker 2: Now how they advertise that shifts slightly. But actually the

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Speaker 2: tariffs are having a bigger impact on the media business

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Speaker 2: than the D and I executive orders really, So yeah,

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Speaker 2: so the D and I executive order was basically saying

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Speaker 2: like you can't have preferential treatment. So all the programs

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Speaker 2: and you know, these big commitments of we're going to

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Speaker 2: spen one hundred million dollars on black old media, like

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Speaker 2: they were honoring those anyways, So nothing really changed, Like

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Speaker 2: you are already going to spend what you were going

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Speaker 2: to spend with me, regardless of what you said you

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Speaker 2: were going to do, so nothing changed from our end

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Speaker 2: for the tariffs. The tariffs require people to be more

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Speaker 2: risk averse because they're not quite sure what's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: And Trump is changed in his mind constantly, I mean

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Speaker 2: literally Friday afternoon, like dude, what are you doing? You know,

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Speaker 2: So there, when people become unstable, they become more risk averse.

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Speaker 2: They become slower, you know, they slower with payment terms,

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Speaker 2: They're slower with are we going to release this product line?

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Speaker 2: Are we not going to release this product line. Advertising

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Speaker 2: is tied to campaigns and launches, so things get held

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Speaker 2: up because things are stuck in the ports or whatever.

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Speaker 2: That impacts how much they're willing to spent on advertising

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Speaker 2: those products and services.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting, I mean, and the other side of it,

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Speaker 1: and we've seen it as well, especially in media, when

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Speaker 1: there's uncertainty, when people are unsure, then they go to

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Speaker 1: trusted sources for news. Have you seen an uptick obviously

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Speaker 1: in your space during this I don't even know this

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Speaker 1: one hundred days, yeah, right.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, traffic stuff. I mean, media companies do well under

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Speaker 2: Trump because these chaos you kind of have to you

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Speaker 2: have to stay involved, and because people know they can't

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Speaker 2: trust mainstream media anymore. They're looking for alternative platforms, Like y'all.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure your traffic on your YouTube is

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Speaker 2: probably skyrocketing. I saw Martin.

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Speaker 3: He's good for business.

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Speaker 2: He's good for business. He's not good for society, but

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Speaker 2: he is good.

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Speaker 1: Things. Thank you, thank you for drawing that line.

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Speaker 2: But I do think I mean, even Roland Martin, I

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Speaker 2: think that like three hundred thousand subscribers in like ninety days.

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Speaker 2: You know, these are crazy numbers, but it's because people

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Speaker 2: are looking for reliable sources and people they trust that

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Speaker 2: they know they're going to get the truth from.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that you began investing into the stock

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Speaker 1: market at the age of thirteen, which I think is amazing.

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Speaker 2: What lessons from investing so.

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Speaker 3: Early have you taken into your media empire?

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Speaker 1: Mmm?

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Speaker 2: Cash is king. You know, the more cash you can

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Speaker 2: sit on, the more you can take advantage when the

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Speaker 2: moment strikes. You know, I've done three acquisitions in the

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Speaker 2: last you know, five years of black owned businesses. The

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Speaker 2: only reason we'll be able to do that is because

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Speaker 2: we had cash waiting for a moment that made sense

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Speaker 2: for us. And then the other thing is like when

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Speaker 2: it comes to investing. And I've also raised venture funding,

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Speaker 2: which you know, you guys have talked about quite a bit.

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Speaker 2: So I raised over twelve million dollars. You got to

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Speaker 2: treat every dollar that you get as your last and

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Speaker 2: you gotta figure out how you're gonna flip it. That's

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Speaker 2: the same thing with investing. When you get those moments

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Speaker 2: where you have unreasonable games, you got to take some

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Speaker 2: chips off the table for sure. Do not get greedy, okay,

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Speaker 2: And if we had listened to that, we all will

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Speaker 2: be doing really well right now. If we had sold

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Speaker 2: in November December being like this is looking pretty darn good,

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Speaker 2: and now that money would be worth basically sixty seventy

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Speaker 2: percent more because the stocks are down. So you sold

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Speaker 2: at the high, plus you're getting everything at the low.

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Speaker 2: That's a double win.

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Speaker 3: So can you walk us through, like some of your

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Speaker 3: acquisitions that you made, Yeah, for sure companies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The first one I bought was Traveloir So Travenoor

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Speaker 2: was an Instagram brand. They had group trips, which was amazing.

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Speaker 2: They did trips in Bahia and Johannesburg and Almafi Coast

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Speaker 2: with little you know, Grandma's cooking pasta and stuff, and

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Speaker 2: they had no media brand. Well, what we know is

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Speaker 2: that black travelers have huge discretionary income and are like

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Speaker 2: really growing because millennials and Gen Z we spend on

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Speaker 2: experiences way more than our parents did. So I was like,

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Speaker 2: all right, how do I build out Blavity in a

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Speaker 2: way where we're off of interest groups not just being black,

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Speaker 2: but like what black people are interested in, and travel

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Speaker 2: is one of them. So we bought Travel Noir that

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Speaker 2: was like twenty seventeen. I talked about it in my

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Speaker 2: book Rewriting Your Rules. And then the other brand that

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Speaker 2: we bought was Shadow and Act, same but for entertainment

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Speaker 2: in Hollywood. You know, black people watch more TV than

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Speaker 2: any other demographic in the country, and we just love

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Speaker 2: TV and we love watching TV as an activity with

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Speaker 2: other people, which is different. So that was the second

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Speaker 2: brand we bought. And then two years ago I bought

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Speaker 2: a brand called R and B House Party, which is

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Speaker 2: a traveling party series, so that we could build out

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Speaker 2: blavity Fest, which is our new festival which will be

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Speaker 2: in Atlanta at the end of May with two chains

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Speaker 2: and Kirk Franklin and all types of programming around black wealth.

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Speaker 2: So just starting out our experiential business on the blavity side,

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Speaker 2: which is super important for our business.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you reference the book, rewrite your rules, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about it. You said, master yourself, master your method, master

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Speaker 1: your growth. Break that down for us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm from Saint Louis originally, and nobody

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Speaker 2: really told me the game. What they told me was

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Speaker 2: you work hard, you get a good job, you go

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Speaker 2: to school the best education you can get, and like

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Speaker 2: it should all work out. And that's just not true.

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Speaker 2: Like there are so many people watching this where it's

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Speaker 2: like you did all the things you like, had the

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Speaker 2: good job, and you did all the things that you

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Speaker 2: did what was right. And we're watching a system, more

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Speaker 2: so today than ever before. We're the people who are

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Speaker 2: making the rules. They're making them for all of us

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Speaker 2: to follow, but they're not even following them. So what

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Speaker 2: do you do? You know, you have to decide for

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Speaker 2: yourself how you want to interact in that kind of system.

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Speaker 2: So this book is basically a framework to help you

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Speaker 2: figure out, well, if success is it? Like do all

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Speaker 2: these things and then you died this golden eag at

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Speaker 2: the end, what is my definition of success? And how

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Speaker 2: do I get there? What is the strategy and the

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Speaker 2: frameworks that I need to have in order to do it.

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Speaker 2: So it really is a workbook and a playbook for

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Speaker 2: people to be able to do that, you know, leveraging

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Speaker 2: all the ups and downs with blavity and the things

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Speaker 2: that I've done. But more importantly, like whether you're a

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Speaker 2: career nine to five or an entrepreneur, like you can

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Speaker 2: do what you want to do, but you have to

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Speaker 2: define it for yourself.

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Speaker 4: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child

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Speaker 4: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador

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Speaker 4: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with

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Speaker 4: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just

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Speaker 4: of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J.

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Speaker 4: Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States Secretary of

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Speaker 4: Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border crossings are

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Speaker 4: at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred

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Speaker 4: thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you are here illegally,

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Speaker 4: your next you will be fined nearly one thousand dollars

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Speaker 4: a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will never return. But

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Speaker 4: if you register using our CBP home app and leave now,

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Speaker 4: you could be allowed to return legally. Do what's right,

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Speaker 4: leave now. Under President Trump America's laws, border and families

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Speaker 4: will be protected.

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Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,