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3. Use black travel agencies, and contract with black taxi, bus and limousine operators for transportation services to and from the airport and around town. 4. Do business with black equipment and supply rental companies, and use black secretarial agencies, photographers, caterers, printers and sign painters. 5. Find out where the best black restaurants and lounges are and tell their members to patronize them. 6. Tell their members that when they are away from home to buy black newspapers and listen to black radio stations and to patronize their advertisers. 7. Tour and sightsee in the black community with black tour businesses. 8. Have some outings and hold some programs in black neighborhoods. 9. Help organize group shopping sprees to black shops and boutiques and other businesses. 10. Maintain lists of black professionals and specialists that convention goers can call upon if necessary. Why should black convention planners look out for black businesses and do all they can to see to it that black businesses get a share of the money that black organizations spend at meetings? In the convention industry, white businesses have their convention and visitors bureaus and chambers of commerce to look out for their interests. Black businesses have no one in their corner. (In most cities, nobody tells black businesses what conventions will be in town this year or those planning to come to town in 1992. Nobody tells them about the number of booked delegates or the spending histories of conventions. White businesses are furnished this information and they plan accordingly.) Here are some ways the leaders of black organizations and black convention planners can look out for black businesses: * When deciding upon a "headquarters" hotel, select one that does a lot of advertising in black newspapers and magazines, and has a record of using black lawyers, accounting firms, P.R. agencies, property management consultants, security guards and trash pick-up companies. * Get hotel and airport officials to allow black newspapers and magazines to be sold on their premises and arrange for black taxi, bus and limousine operators to make pick-ups at the hotels and airports. * Request and scrutinize the figures that reflect the amount of money the convention and visitors bureau and the chamber of commerce spend with black businesses to solicit conventions and promote the city. I have mentioned that downtown businesses get a lot of convention business because organizations such as the convention and visitors bureau and the chamber of commerce look out for their interests. The reason for this is most downtown businesses are dues paying members of the convention and visitors bureau and the chamber of commerce. Name me an organization that doesn't take care of its members. In order to get a piece of the action, I suggest that black businesses join and become active in their local convention and visitors bureau and chambers of commerce. And once in do this: * Support community efforts to bring conventions to town. * Let officials of the convention and visitors bureau and the chamber of commerce know the problems that you are having getting convention business and ask them to help you come up with money and ways and means to overcome your obstacles. * Impress upon black and white community leaders that black organizations want to meet in cities where they know black entrepreneurs are going to get some of their convention dollars and where black businesses and the black community are doing well. * Make convention and visitors bureau people aware of your affiliations and offices and connections in black organizations. My last suggestion to black businesses for getting convention business is to do more advertising, image building, and planning. Advertising. To get convention business and keep it, white downtown businesses do a lot of advertising. Black businesses interested in convention business must do the same, and their advertising campaigns should include: 1. Taking out full-page ads (individually or collectively) in convention souvenir booklets, black newspapers and magazines. 2. Advertising in local convention and visitors bureau publications. 3. Placing noticeable ads in convention and tourist magazines such as "KEY," "WHERE," and "HOST." It is no secret that a number of black businesses get little or no convention business because of poor image. Let's define poor image as bad looking and bad reputation. If the inside of an establishment looks like a palace, conventioneers and very few others will go in if the outside looks bad. A number of black businesses are passed-by because their windows and doors are dirty, sidewalks are unswept and littered, and signs and outdoor lighting are in need of painting and repair. And on this subject, some black businesses are not patronized because they look "chancey." Very few people are going in a restaurant if there's a chance that the kids playing 'n the unlit parking lot will rip-off their cars. Very few people are going into a lounge if there's a chance that the "characters" hanging around in front will rob them. Bad reputation. If the word gets around that a business charges too much, is not dependable, and has intolerable help, it ain't long for this world. Almost everybody knows that it costs black businesses more to operate than white businesses. And for this reason they go along with a sandwich or a drink costing a dime or a quarter more out in the "area" than downtown. But when something costs fifty cents or a dollar more, it's a rip-off and people know it and won't stand for it. Too many black businesses are not making any money because they have reputations of not being dependable. Everybody in the city knows that these businesses never get work out on time and they get everything mixed-up. Local people and local organizations don't trust them, don't use them and won't recommend them to conventioneers coming to town. I don't know how many businesses are out of business because the owners and employees were discourteous to their customers. I do know that people are walking out and not coming back to businesses where managers and their staffs don't know that paying customers - not boyfriends - come first, and that a "wrong" customer - not the help - is always right. Planning. What is the secret of making money? Planning to make it. Money don't grow on trees and it don't fall from heaven. But if it did a number of black business people still might lose out on their fortunes because they don't plan. Know what? If it was announced on TV and written up in the newspaper that on December 27 at 4:00 p.m. $100 bills would be dropping off a money tree at 12th and Vine Streets and that $1,000 bills would be falling from heaven on the same date at the same place, a number of black business people would gain little from this bonanza. Why? Half the business people that I know wouldn't even know about the event because they don't watch the news on TV nor read the newspaper. A fourth would be late. They would get to 12th and Vine after everything was over. The remainder might come away with a little money: a couple of hands full. If they had thought to bring sacks or baskets they could have walked away with a bundle. But half of these brothers and sisters will go home with nothing because they will get robbed on the way to the bank...they forgot to hire security guards. The Omega Psi Phi Fraternity will meet in Kansas City in 1983: 6,000 strong. How many black business people here know this and are planning for the Omegas...I estimate about five. The point here is...you can make money off conventions and anything else if you got a plan. And speking of points, in ending this article let me point out once again that if the people of a community want the place where they live to be a nice street, a viable neighborhood or a prosperous city then they must support the businesses there. And if black convention goers don't support black businesses, nobody else will. ----- Joe Mattox is a business management consultant in Kansas City, Mo. Clients include the Small Business Administration, entrepreneurs and business organizations throughout the Midwest. Mattox is a former regional director of Phi Beta Sigma's Bigger and Better Business Program. He has written several articles relating to the convention industry, they include: "Smiling and Grinning Makes Money," "Black Businesses Refuse To Make A Million Dollars In A Day," "Rude People Hurt Black Businesses," "Kansas City Get Ready...The Republicans Are Coming," "Kansas City Has Class (The Black Shriners Are Coming," and "Chicago Ain't Got No Barbeque." 27
