Speaker 1: Thanks to MasterCard for sponsoring this episode. Head to MasterCard
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Speaker 1: and supporting black women entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2: And that's a.
Speaker 3: Good lesson in that you have to put yourself in
Speaker 3: environments that are outside of your sphere of business. So
Speaker 3: I started going to more conferences in corporate you know,
Speaker 3: advertising and marketing conferences, more diversity conferences. I started going
Speaker 3: to Chicago where the black ad agencies were, so I
Speaker 3: kind of brought my scope because I knew I wanted to,
Speaker 3: you know, broaden our services as a business. So we
Speaker 3: really that was and then the industry was growing the Internet.
Speaker 2: It just really took off for us in that area.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Money News powered by Greenway, a finance
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Speaker 4: Hey money Movers, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Today we continue our conversation with the driving force behind
Speaker 1: Miles Ahead Entertainment and Broadcasting, Sheila Eldred.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's talk about this. Is this where Orchid Communications
Speaker 4: was born?
Speaker 3: Oh no, Orchid Communications was the first my first business.
Speaker 3: That was a PR business. Okay, that was my first business.
Speaker 2: Wow, where'd you find that?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: Are we find everythin? We go deep into the crates?
Speaker 2: That was deep in the crate.
Speaker 3: All of us started Orchid Communications when I had just
Speaker 3: moved to California straight out of Howard and I was
Speaker 3: doing PR and you know, I just thought I want it.
Speaker 2: Meant I wanted people to know it was owned by
Speaker 2: a woman. So what man is going to name their
Speaker 2: company orchid?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: And so uh, that's how it got the name, but
Speaker 3: it really did stick. And then as the business changed.
Speaker 3: And then, mind you, when I started my business, there
Speaker 3: was no internet, So you talk about OG.
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, that's right. I lived through that time. I
Speaker 4: was right there on the cusp of it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, wow, So you had to have offices in
Speaker 3: LA in Chicago and New York, in Atlanta, you know,
Speaker 3: in DC you had to have these brick and mortar
Speaker 3: offices and so so the technology was changing and people
Speaker 3: had associated the business very much with just PR and
Speaker 3: I knew I wanted to expand I could do, we
Speaker 3: could do more than that. And I was slowly moving
Speaker 3: into broadcast and marketing as the industry.
Speaker 2: And the markets were growing.
Speaker 3: And so that's how Orchid Communications morphed into Miles Ahead
Speaker 3: Entertainment and Broadcast. I am a huge Miles Davis fan,
Speaker 3: so I said, Miles Ahead. Yeah, we're on the cusp
Speaker 3: of new technology and the Internet.
Speaker 4: It just came.
Speaker 3: So I used that as a theme for the business
Speaker 3: and services that we could all wow, And that's really
Speaker 3: how Miles Ahead became Orchid became Miles Ahead Entertainment and Broadcasting.
Speaker 5: Oh I love this, but an interesting trajectory and actually
Speaker 5: just that incredible time period of like seeing the Internet
Speaker 5: being ushered in and you know, money morrors out there
Speaker 5: don't remember this. I exactly remember dial up going from
Speaker 5: encyclopedias in the library to how the Internet changed. How
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm right there with you, and I think
Speaker 5: it's interesting times right now. We see new technologies from
Speaker 5: AI to you know, blockchain coming in. So pay attention
Speaker 5: for the opportunity here. So you had this vision, You've
Speaker 5: gone from PR now and you are trying to harness
Speaker 5: media entertainment. What came next because we got a teaser
Speaker 5: there where's you were able to buy five radio stations
Speaker 5: and sort of fulfill that part of your dream.
Speaker 2: But what was in the in between.
Speaker 3: Well, what was in between when we morphed into miles
Speaker 3: hit entertainment before broadcasting came about. My goal there and
Speaker 3: focus was, Okay, you come from the entertainment industry, you
Speaker 3: know radio, you've been you know, people in the entertainment side,
Speaker 3: and a lot of corporate America at that time was
Speaker 3: just beginning.
Speaker 2: To use music artists and celebrities.
Speaker 3: In their campaigns and that was kind of the beginning
Speaker 3: stages of hip hop. So I said, well, what if
Speaker 3: we become the go to agency that can align your
Speaker 3: brand with artists, speakers, or personalities that speak to in
Speaker 3: the same audience. And no one was kind of in
Speaker 3: that space because a lot of people hadn't come out of.
Speaker 2: The entertainment industry.
Speaker 3: My background was in the entertainment industry and radio and
Speaker 3: you know, in the music industry. And so my first
Speaker 3: client was Coca Cola and we did a campaign for Sprite.
Speaker 2: With Curtis Blow.
Speaker 3: Oh god, I remember that one and just it was
Speaker 3: Curtis Blow, I think, Dougie Fresh and a couple of
Speaker 3: other artists when Sprite was beginning to play around in
Speaker 3: the hip.
Speaker 2: Hop and that was one of my first projects.
Speaker 3: And then we did some work for Ford, so you know,
Speaker 3: then we did McDonald's. McDonald's was in getting to move
Speaker 3: into the faith based and gospel market and so you know,
Speaker 3: those execs, they didn't know the industry. So if we
Speaker 3: were there, then you know, we became the go to
Speaker 3: agency for that. And that's a good lesson in that
Speaker 3: you have to put yourself in environments that are outside
Speaker 3: of your sphere of business. So I started going to
Speaker 3: more conferences in corporate you know, advertising and marketing conferences,
Speaker 3: more diversity conferences. I started going to Chicago where the
Speaker 3: black ad agencies were, so I kind of brought my
Speaker 3: scope because I knew I wanted to you know, broaden
Speaker 3: out services as a business. So we really that was
Speaker 3: and then the industry was growing the Internet. It just
Speaker 3: really took off for us in that area. But I
Speaker 3: knew in my heart hearts that broadcast is where I
Speaker 3: wanted to be. So that's when, like I said, I
Speaker 3: went through, went to Kathy, told Ms Hughes and told
Speaker 3: her what I wanted to do. Did the program for
Speaker 3: a year, came to d C every month, we had
Speaker 3: to come every month for this intensive you know program,
Speaker 3: and then came out. So I moved to Augusta, Georgia
Speaker 3: when I bought the stations.
Speaker 5: Okay, I want to talk about buying stations because this
Speaker 5: is a mix of you know, building a network, fundraising,
Speaker 5: trying to figure out where to buy a station, and
Speaker 5: radio was popping at this time. So how did you know, like,
Speaker 5: how did you narrow down to Augusta? How did you
Speaker 5: know what markets to go into?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, you have to two things, find
Speaker 3: a deal and she and her son gave me a
Speaker 3: great deal.
Speaker 2: That was first and foremost.
Speaker 3: And second of all, you've got to look at a
Speaker 3: market where the business at that time, the stations were underperforming,
Speaker 3: and they were underperforming because they owned stations in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: in Charlotte, in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: In big markets. So for them, Augusta was.
Speaker 3: Too small for them to keep their eye on, you know.
Speaker 3: And for me, it was big and it was perfect
Speaker 3: because it was underperforming, but it had the potential. And
Speaker 3: so when I got there, they had like thirty employees.
Speaker 2: I cut that down to nineteen, you know.
Speaker 3: Because I knew we could do it for less because
Speaker 3: I had an eye on it and I was in
Speaker 3: the market.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing.
Speaker 3: You can't purchase something that you are not there in
Speaker 3: the market to really dissect what your product is and
Speaker 3: figure out what's the best way to market it and
Speaker 3: to go to the market. So that's really how we
Speaker 3: began to grow. But I made a big mistake.
Speaker 5: Oh I love the big mistakes. Oh I hate that
Speaker 5: they happened, but we learned from them. That's not what
Speaker 5: a mistake is.
Speaker 3: For I guess it was always say, maybe a mistake
Speaker 3: is just a next step to where you want to go.
Speaker 3: I thought that Augusta was just like a small version
Speaker 3: of Atlanta. The mindset and the people and the progressiveness.
Speaker 2: You know, it is not, it is not, it is not,
Speaker 2: it is not.
Speaker 3: You know, there's some places that are open to the new,
Speaker 3: then the other places that are kind of rooted in
Speaker 3: what he is and don't necessarily embrace a new technology
Speaker 3: or embrace new and so Augusta was you know, the
Speaker 3: biggest thing that happens in Augusta, I say.
Speaker 2: Is are the masters? Okay, I mean, yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 5: Let's let's be frank. It is the South. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: Atlanta was is still is a mecand we saw this
Speaker 5: with our elections politics and Georgia. Augusta is a different place.
Speaker 5: So and what year was this.
Speaker 3: That you were Oh that was fifteen, that was fifteen,
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's definitely not the same. So knowing your
Speaker 5: market is certainly.
Speaker 2: Knowing your market.
Speaker 3: I mean, I did my due diligence, but there are
Speaker 3: just some things that you you don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: you just don't know. I was fortunate in that I
Speaker 3: was a good money manager. I learned that your biggest
Speaker 3: asset is always in business. The people that work with you,
Speaker 3: your team. I made sure that I had a team
Speaker 3: around me and in my business. Now that there, I say,
Speaker 3: these young people are smarter than I am. You know,
Speaker 3: you have to have a great team. And so we
Speaker 3: got through it and I ended up selling those stations
Speaker 3: ten years later and you know, profiting. But what it
Speaker 3: taught me was content is king. Yes, so I said,
Speaker 3: I need to get in the syndication business.
Speaker 2: I need to.
Speaker 3: Create content where my landscape can be the world, not
Speaker 3: just one market.
Speaker 4: Oh fascinating.
Speaker 3: And had I not gone to Augusta, I never would
Speaker 3: have moved into the syndication business. And so that is so,
Speaker 3: you know, it was a tough I'm not going to
Speaker 3: see it was a mistake. It was a learning experience.
Speaker 3: Let's put it there.
Speaker 4: I'd like to say exactly.
Speaker 5: It was a learning experience and on the outside, you
Speaker 5: you know, were able to make a sale out of it.
Speaker 4: And move on to the next day. And this is
Speaker 4: I think something is so interesting about your journey. You
Speaker 4: continue to pivot and evolve.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to today's episode. If we helped you
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