Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 15, 1990 TAG: 9004150070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY HALLMAN THE RICMOND NEWS LEADER
DATELINE: RICHMOND (AP) LENGTH: Medium
"One of my advertisers is a black who owns a dry-cleaning store. His store is in a mostly black neighborhood.
"A lot of his potential neighborhood customers don't bring their cleaning to him, even though his prices are very good. They think a white-owned cleaner will do a better job simply because it is white-owned. They go out of their way to take their clothes to this particular white-owned business.
"What they don't know is that when this white-owned cleaner has an overflow, the owner sends the clothes to the black-owned business, pays to have them cleaned, then takes them back and tacks on the extra 10 or 15 percent he charges.
"The consumers in that neighborhood drive right by the store where their clothes have been cleaned, and the only difference is that they pay more for the service."
Walton laughs, but it is a rueful chuckle. For years he has preached the importance of economic loyalty among blacks, and his Black Pages is aimed at promoting that loyalty. But he knows the experience of the dry cleaner is all too common for blacks in business.
Walton and other black business owners say they often find black consumers are quick to stereotype black businesses as inadequate. He says the perception is, in part, a cultural hangover.
"Some blacks have an inferiority complex," he says. "You're told you're inferior long enough, and eventually you begin to believe it and accept it."
Dispelling the perception among blacks that black businesses are, by nature, inferior is one of the problems those businesses face in their attempt to tap the resources of black consumers.
A primary question - should black businesses target black customers, or should they concern themselves with the market as a whole?
Kenneth M. Gassman Jr., retail analyst for Wheat First Securities Inc., says the question is one that every business has to answer for itself.
"The market is segmented in any number of ways - by age, sex, education, earning power - you name it. There's no reason not to segment it by race," Gassman says. "What every retailer wants is to create a niche. Where there's a niche there's a need. If you can fill that need, you're in business.
"On the other hand, you don't want to appeal to such a narrow customer base that you cut yourself out of a potential market. A black business is like any other."
Blacks acting as a community have economic clout - witness the 1960s, when boycotts of key businesses proved an effective weapon in the battle for the civil rights and human dignity of black Americans.
But the solidarity of the civil rights movement seems dormant now as blacks struggle to breach the sometimes subtler barriers of the business world.
Larry J. Gray Sr., deputy director of the Virginia Lottery, says development of black small businesses is the key to the economic health of the black community.
"Most of the hiring in this country is done by small businesses, and most small businessmen and women hire people like themselves,"Gray says.
"It's a fact of life. If you're operating a small business you hire your family, your friends, people from the neighborhood - people you're comfortable with.
by CNB