Proven Strategies for Successful Entrepreneurs
By Marc Parham
With over 30 years of experience, Marc Parham is a passionate small business advocate. He helps people turn their ideas into thriving businesses through coaching, consulting, and public speaking. His book Yes I Can – Develop My Idea and Start My Own Business, offers a roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs.
You started off as an entrepreneur, and now you help entrepreneurs grow their business. How did that transition happen?
I had an engineering company for about 10 years and we did great. I was a great engineer, but a terrible business owner. I closed the engineering company down and I started working on teaching business owners how not to make the same mistakes that I made. That’s when I came up with my coaching programs and I started writing books because my goal was to teach people how to do it the right way.
As you were growing your consulting business, did you feel like writing a book was a necessary next step?
When you are a published author, people take you more seriously. I started noticing people would call me to speak. They’d say, ‘We have author Mark Parham here.’ And so I used to book more as a lead magnet to establish myself as a professional in the small business consulting industry. It also helped a lot of people write a business plan, because what it really did was teach people how to evaluate your ideas, and write a plan.
Why is Atlanta such a great place for Black businesses to thrive?
There’s a lot of funding, a lot of resources and support. I wish I could put a gate up around the city for a minute. Atlanta has become an industry specific location for the movie industry. I didn’t really realize how many businesses support the movie industry. Catering, cleaning, dry cleaning, carpentry, the electricians. There’s a lot of businesses that are supported by the movie industry, so this is a place to be right now.
How important of a role has the Urban League played in helping Black businesses win in Atlanta?
The Urban League of Greater Atlanta’s Entrepreneurship Center has been active since 2006. So we’ve been training people on how to start and grow businesses. Urban League has really stepped up with wealth building, economic sustainability, and housing. We have all kinds of programs that people are funding us to help start businesses to generate wealth, by owning property and owning your business. You don’t have to rent a building, you can buy a building. We can show you how to buy a building, and then rent it out to people. There’s a loan for that, but you don’t know if you don’t know.
Marc Parham is Director of Entrepreneurship at the Urban League of Greater Atlanta, as well as Managing Partner at CAPBuilder Network Group LLC. He also hosts the The Entrepreneurial Edge Show weekly podcast. www.marcparham.com
