Fantastic Hair, America Open for Home business

As a business debt expert, I am often asked questions by business owners that run the gamut of complexities that occur when a business or an owner is faced with debt or credit issues.

Question: "I manage a small business with five full time employees. I want to buy the business, it is a LLC, but has a significant debt comprised mostly of credit cards and a bank line of credit. I want to purchase the business and wonder if I can arrange to pay less each month. It is a good business worth saving."

I'd like to know if my personal credit score will be affected if I stopped paying on these debts.

Answer: If you have not already discussed renewal of the hardship program with your creditors, you should if you want to continue to pay the debt down.

Question: "If a business is incorporated and has outstanding debt that has been sent to a collection agency and now is threatening to sue in court what happens to the debt if we just close the business?

Answer: To clarify, your creditors are not reporting to your personal credit score because you have a "small business credit card problem" but rather because you have most likely placed a personal guarantee on the credit cards, which makes you responsible for their payment whether your business is solvent or not.

Question: "I had a small LLC business which recently closed.

So Many Business Debt Issues, So Few Solutions

Do you know who manufactures your hair care products?

How many of those dollars are paid to Black hair care businesses?

Monopoly – pass go; collect billions of Black consumer dollars. America is open for business!

Born in 1867, Madame Walker is the undisputed mother of beauty and hair care products for Black women. Through a unique process of combining raw ingredients, Madame C.J. Walker created superior hair care products to meet the demand within the Black community for "good" hair.

What Madame Walker did possess was the unique skill of reading what the Black Community wanted enough to pay for again and again. The straightening comb was a revolution in Black women's hair care. The Black Haves and Black Have Notes were equally desirous of the straightening comb.

Madame Walker saw opportunity there too.

The "good" hair look created by the magic of the hot comb application to black hair turned out to be short-lived. A better process to straighten the Black woman's hair was needed with a longer-lasting effect.

The targeted customer is the same—Black men and women. The entire shooting match, including Black hair care magazines, trade shows, and a host of other events, is now dominated by Korean business owners. Ninety percent of the Black hair care business is controlled by Korean entrepreneurs.

Just like Madame C. J. Walker, Korean entrepreneurs seized the moment. Lobbyists, tax incentives, our Small Business Administration, and a host of other skillful tactics were employed—all with the purpose and intent to take control of the billion-dollar Black hair care market.

The Black community proved a gold mine for Korean businesses. I remind you that this is not about bashing Korean business owners for taking control of our Black hair care market in order to create jobs for their communities, both here and overseas. We are a fractional consumer market, with little, if any, loyalty to the concept of buying from Black businesses.

America is open for business. Korean business owners found our gold mine, a never-ending supply of cash. The Black hair care industry is as lucrative to Korean Americans much as the casino business is for Native Americans. Step right up; drop your coins in the Korean Business slot machine. Do you see any of these dollars put back into the Black community? Have you seen the Korean businessperson in the pews of the Black churches on Sunday--perhaps depositing some of those once-Black dollars into the church building fund? Is our hair a potential key to opportunities for jobs and growth in the Black community? Koreans stopped, dropped, and setup shop in the Black community all across America – America Open for Business.

Note: There are many Black hair care companies such as, Bonner Brothers, Miss Jessies, Dudley Products, and a host of others. A list of Black and non-Black manufacturers of hair care products can be found on the web site for Black Owned Beauty Supply Association (BOBSA) website