Ep 464: Supporting Black-Owned Businesses During DEI Rollbacks
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So if you can buy direct, if you have the ability to go direct and buy from a black business, please do that. If you don't have the ability to do that or you can only get access by going into a store, by all means, go into the store and buy that product off of the shelf because that's still helping that business, even though you might not agree with the policies or the politics of the larger retail chain.

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Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us today on Her Money. I'm Jean Chatzky. And as we close out Black History Month, I wanted to shine a spotlight on one sector of the population that I am, to be honest, in awe of, Black female business owners. Because get this, Black women make up less than 10% of the U.S. population, but they have emerged as the fastest growing group of

of entrepreneurs in the country. And in 2025, with the rollback of DEI programs that we're serving to boost minority and women-owned businesses, they need our support more than ever.

That's why I am so excited to welcome Tiffany Dufu back to the show. She is the president of the Tory Burch Foundation, which empowers women entrepreneurs by providing access to capital and education. She is also the author of

the amazing and best-selling book, Drop the Ball, Achieving More by Doing Less, a lesson that we should all be taking to heart. In fact, if you didn't hear our first podcast with Tiffany, and it was years ago now,

Go back and listen to that episode. It is one of my all-time favorites. Tiffany, thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you for being just the host of this podcast and for your leadership for so long, Jean. It's an honor to be here. I appreciate that so much. I want to start with this incredible statistic and ask you to break it down for me.

According to the Brookings Institution, between 2017 and 2020, the number of Black women-owned businesses increased by nearly 20%, far exceeding the growth of women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses overall. What

responsible for this and what have things looked like since 2020? Absolutely. So this rate of black women starting businesses was actually on the rise before the pandemic. We all know that entrepreneurship is a vehicle for economic mobility, for autonomy, for power. And in fact, when you look historically at the

the ways that people in this country have been able to achieve economic power. Entrepreneurship is really the last remaining accessible one. The others are wealth transfer, which not everyone has access to, homeownership, which we won't have to, we don't have to go into how difficult it is now to purchase a home, then retirement savings, and then entrepreneurship.

So it just remains a more accessible pathway to economic security. And even though starting a business is one of the hardest, most ambitious things that you can do, it does represent freedom in so many ways. And I can tell you as an entrepreneur myself that starting a tech company is one of the biggest risks that I feel like I ever took.

But I also felt an enormous responsibility to my community, to my family. And when, as often is the case with black women in the workplace, you may not feel that you're seen or that you're heard in the same way. You have a lot of talent. You have a lot of ideas.

especially when you get to a point in your life and career where you know that you've got a solution for the consumer that could really meet their need, I think that it's worth it to take the risk. So it makes sense to me that a group of people

that might not have felt equity previously are the first ones, especially because they have a lot of experience to throw their hat in the ring. It makes sense to me too, although I really do appreciate your acknowledgement of how difficult it is

it is starting her money and trying to figure out how to scale and grow this company has been the toughest challenge I've ever faced in my working career. I think I want to talk about that because I think part of the reason why it's so challenging is because and I'm interested in whether or not you found this is the

the success of the enterprise is so closely tied, especially in the beginning, to your own evolution, both personally and professionally. And so it requires that you evolve and that you learn and that you grow in ways unimaginable. And I think that's part of what makes it so difficult. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. It has required me to...

to allocate more of my time to the business rather than things just associated with my personal brand, which look, I am happy to do that. I feel like her money is my legacy. I want it to outlast me. But it is, it requires a shift in mindset and a shift in time management that can sometimes be hard to just wrap your brain around.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Black-owned businesses, they saw more support than ever with big brands like Target promising to put Black brands on shelves. Lately,

We're just not seeing as much of that. So how do you think we can best support the Black-owned businesses that we want to see stick around and grow? I think it's so important to support Black

Black business. I celebrate Kwanzaa. And one of the principles of Kwanzaa is all about economic empowerment and self-determination. And it's really about supporting Black businesses and keeping resources within the community. I think it's important to acknowledge that not all consumers have the same access to choice. So if you live in a place where you, it's not a food desert, you can

go to Whole Foods or you can go to Target or you can go to Walmart or you have choices, then I think there are several ways that you can exercise that choice in order to support Black business. But I do want to acknowledge that I have members of my family that live in food deserts where there's just one store. So it's more difficult for them. And I know it sounds shocking to anyone who lives in an urban area, but there are places in our country where Amazon does not deliver

You know, people are feeling really uncertain right now, but small business really is the backbone of this country. I'm not sure that most Americans realize it's over 90% of business.

I know that Google and Amazon and Microsoft, they get a lot of attention on the CNBC ticker that we see going across the bottom of the screen. But most people are employed by and are dependent upon small business. It's like responsible for two-thirds of our nation's job in the past decade.

So if you can buy direct, if you have the ability to go direct and buy from a black business, please do that. And obviously, if you can do just direct to their site, amazing. If you don't have the ability to do that, or you can only get access by going into a store, by all means, go into the store and buy that product off of the shelf, because

because that's still helping that business, even though you might not agree with the policies or the politics of the larger retail chain. And it keeps the supply system diverse. And so it says something.

Can we dig into that a sec? Social media the last couple of weeks has been just loaded with lists of companies that are rolling back their DEI initiatives, companies that are not rolling back those initiatives in an effort to get people to understand that there is a difference and that you can put your dollars where your beliefs are. How important is it

to try to use our economic power in that way.

It's incredibly important. It might be the one lever of power that we still have. Multiple streams of revenue are critical to growing a consumer brand if you're a small business. It protects against market fluctuations, so it increases cash flow stability. Whatever you can do

to go into the retailer and to buy the black product off of the shelf, it will make a difference. I love your play on Gloria Steinem's, "We have to put our bodies where our beliefs are, we have to put our money where our beliefs are." I was taught that that's exercising power. So I think that's critically important.

and especially when you're in a position to do so. Not everyone is, but certainly we have a lot of economic buying power. Certainly women have a lot of economic buying power and we should absolutely leverage it. Before we started recording this show, we were talking about

being back in the office. You are back in the office. I wish I was back in the office. I am so over working from home, but I do think that you're an Xer. I'm an Xer on the cusp of being a boomer. I think it's very, very generational. As I told you, I am pretty much the only person in my company who wants to be in an office, and for that reason, I lose. But I

Are you noticing a trend of more women in general feeling that the corporate world is just not for them and charting their own paths as a way of establishing a little more freedom over their surroundings, over their timetable, over their day, over their future?

Well, as you know, as an entrepreneur, the grass always looks greener on the other side. I probably have never worked so hard and not felt nearly the amount of flexibility as an entrepreneur as I did in hindsight, looking back to the workplace. I mean...

When you have a job, you take vacation. Often entrepreneurs don't do things like that. That is true. But I think in terms of the agency that you feel, there's no doubt that can certainly be a motivator for wanting to hang up your own shingle and go out. And the control over your time, you're still going to be working really hard. Yeah.

clients and consumers are just as demanding as the bosses. But you do have a sense of autonomy, a sense of agency, a sense of freedom. I wear freedom around my neck because it's so important to me. I love that. And I've never felt so free as when I was an entrepreneur. So I think for those reasons, at a certain level, again, when you have a certain level of expertise,

and you have strong opinions and knowledge and insight about what the consumer really wants and needs, I think that can be a motivator. What do you say to women who believe that they have something, who believe that they do have that thing

that secret sauce, that secret insight that actually could be a profitable business, but are just afraid of giving up the paycheck and striking out on their own. I am really in to MVPs, like just minimum viable products that you can use to just test and

For example, I founded a company called The Crew five, six years ago. And my first test was just throwing up a splash page and putting out an invitation for women to join The Crew to see what kind of response I would get. I think that testing your ideas out in the market before you commit to

to leaving your job, for example, is very important to do, especially when you have responsibility to other people in your life and especially when you have economic responsibility to them. So I encourage you to figure out what is the small version of

of what it is that you want to put out into the world and start playing with that just to see how people respond, how the market responds, how potential customers respond, just to give you some more data that you can use in order to take the next step. One of the other interesting ways into entrepreneurship is not just

a business, but buying a business. And there seems to be a wave of sell-offs of small businesses that's about to tip, that's on the horizon. There are boomers

Boomer-owned businesses in the United States worth about $10 trillion. Do you think this represents a good opportunity for women who want to be business owners but think they'd like to get into something that's perhaps a little bit more established? And what do you think we need to think about?

think about before we dip a toe into somebody else's business in this way? Yes. So we often don't think about entrepreneurs as people who buy businesses as opposed to found businesses. But there is no doubt that

Purchasing an existing business can be a smart and strategic move, and one that in some ways can de-risk you from the volatility of a brand new enterprise because there's already typically a product. There's already been a lot of testing of that product. So I think that just like starting from scratch, it's

I would encourage women to ask yourselves, does this business align with your skills and your passions?

is this aiding in where I want to go? My values, something that I will be committed to? Because regardless of whether or not you start it yourself or you purchase it, you'll be in it for the long haul and it would be an enormous amount of sacrifice, as you know. And if the answers to those questions are yes, then it's all about the due diligence. Reviewing the financials, like what's the revenue? What are their profit margins? What are their debts? Looking at their tax records. There's

assessing the customer retention. Do they have strong customer retention? What is their turnover? What is their churn? What's the brand reputation, right? What's the market position? And then really understanding why is the owner selling?

this business? Is it truly a retirement exit, you know, that you mentioned? Are there deeper challenges in the business that you might want to look under the hood around? You know, it's similar to buying a car. You don't want to buy a lemon. So I think that it can be

a really incredible way to become an entrepreneur because it can often be safer. You have a lot more insight and knowledge, but I think you've got to go into it eyes wide open. Yeah. And if there is any way to structure your deal so that you can actually spend a year or two working in the business to make doubly sure that it's a fit before you actually sign the ownership papers, I think that's an incredibly smart move. Oh, I love that. Yeah.

We are going to take a very quick break, but when we come back, we're going to talk about what it really takes to become a female entrepreneur in 2025, as well as what's Tiffany up to at the Tory Burch Foundation. We'll be right back. For those of you who are loyal listeners to the Her Money podcast, you know I am all about saving you money, but that I also enjoy...

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dot com slash her money for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash her money to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash her money. And we are back with Tiffany Dufu, president of the Tory Burch Foundation. So,

Let's talk about your work there. Tell us, for people who are not familiar with Tory Burch, besides the fact that she makes fabulous clothes, what do we need to know about this foundation that's been around since 2009? So the first thing I want you to know is that I had the same experience. I've been a Tory Burch consumer for at least a decade.

And so I was very delighted to get a call about five years ago from the team here asking me if I would volunteer to be an advisor for their fellows program, which I had never heard of. It turns out that...

a percentage of all of the proceeds from the items that we wear and that we love go to support women entrepreneurs. That is really the focus of the foundation.

And even more specifically, I was impressed with the fact that the foundation hosts a program every year that is very focused on helping women entrepreneurs to get past the million dollar mark in business. As you may know, it's very difficult to get past the million dollar mark in revenue. And we're doing that for women entrepreneurs at 10 times the national average rate.

So it's from my personal experience in volunteering for the foundation that I come to this role. It's also my experience as an entrepreneur myself and feeling like there's just no other group of people I would rather lay my body for, lay on the table for than a woman entrepreneur. So, you know, the foundation has done a number of things. We've helped in partnership with

Bank of America to disperse over $100 million in loans to women entrepreneurs. We've got a robust library of free webinars and articles and tools. But the real bread and butter and heart of what we do is this Fellows Program, which is approaching its 10th anniversary this year. It's been a game changer for women entrepreneurs in building a community of entrepreneurs

other individuals who are going through the same journey you're going through, but really focused on how do I grow my business? How do I ensure the longevity of my business? And quite frankly, without the pressure that a VC firm, right, or an investor would have, because we're a nonprofit organization that's here to really ensure that

the world is benefiting from women entrepreneurs. I know that you've got some amazing fellows right now we're going to link to in the show notes, your class of fellows. But tell me just a little bit about what some of these women are set to accomplish in 2025. And also, for our listeners, if they're listening and they're thinking, oh my God, I need this. How do you become a Tory Burch Fellow?

Oh, absolutely. First of all, how you become a fellow, just go to torybirchfoundation.org. You will see information about how to apply for our fellows class. We're very excited about the process. And you can also reach out to me. I'm very accessible. I'm tdufu at torybirch.com. But we have some incredible entrepreneurs. We have one named Juleka, who has a podcast media company. She's a

Peabody Award winning journalist that is really all about getting stories out there in the world. We have Caitlin Murphy, who's in St. Louis. She runs a logistics company called Gateway Logistics. We have a woman named Chelsea, who has an amazing HR company that

actually supports organizations with creating more inclusive organizations in places that women can thrive. So the businesses that we support are across the gamut in terms of industry, whether it's direct to consumer retail, we've got some in the sports industry, and then we've got both

services and consumer-based brands. So it's really agnostic to industry. We're just very focused on how is she leveraging her gifts, talents, skills, and abilities to get her business to the next level. So it's very inspiring to hear from them and to hear how they're growing their businesses and how they're leveraging their businesses in order to strengthen their communities.

Amazing. They sound like incredible women. But you mentioned the million dollar mark, and I want to dig into this. I'm pulling this stat directly from your LinkedIn page, and it's that last year women started half of all the new businesses in the U.S., but most of these businesses remain small. Only 4.2% of women-owned businesses have a million or more in revenues.

What's actually happening here? Why is that mark so difficult? It's difficult for a number of reasons. It's a challenging milestone for all businesses, but women do face particular barriers. One barrier, as you can imagine, is access to capital, which often can be an accelerator for a business.

There's also this idea of networks playing a significant role. And we've recently done some really incredible strategic work at the foundation to hone in on why is it that we've been so successful with helping women to accelerate their businesses and really grow the revenue. And a lot of it is connected to the ecosystem of experts and mentors and advisors and thought leaders, similar to how I entered the foundation sphere recently.

that is really helping to support them because it's not just having capital. I mean, I ran a company, I raised venture capital. It's also how do you shortcut through the challenges and the barriers that you face, especially early in a business. Starting a business, it's almost like building a pile of Legos that you've never built before. As soon as you build one pile, you've got to move on to the next pile of Legos that you need to build.

And so having access to networks and people who can help you navigate those piles of Legos can help you to grow your business faster. But there's many levers working together to really hopefully change this. Tiffany, as you know, we're a money show. And in 2023, the Tory Burch Foundation launched a funding finder tool for women. Can you explain that?

what this is and how a founder might use this to sort of leapfrog into being able to find capital when it's so difficult? Yes, thank you for bringing this up, Jean, because when I learned about the Funding Finder, as an entrepreneur, I felt like, oh, wow, I really could have used this. So this Funding Finder was created for two reasons. First, to bring some transparency.

to the process of securing funding because 73% of women entrepreneurs say that they've experienced difficulty in getting funding for their businesses. But the second reason is that one of the common questions that we receive at the foundation is what type of funding is right for my business, right? Not all funding is created for every type of business and there's not one way to fund a business.

So we worked with banks, CDFIs, there's bootstrapping and equity experts really to develop the funding finder. And the success with the funding paths obviously depends on the business model and the stage of the business. But it's so simple and easy. In fact, even though I was well beyond that stage, I used the funding finder just to see whether or not for my business at that time,

it would have delivered the right types of funding and it did. So especially if you're early on, I encourage you to go to torybrichfoundation.org and just start filling out the tool and it will point you in the right direction.

When it comes to all of those piles and all of the different things that we need to get done in our businesses, but also just in the day-to-day lives of a busy woman, I know that you have some really strong and also interesting thoughts. Your classic book, and I think it is a classic at this point, suggests that some of us, many of us, may need to be doing something

less in order to create the sort of change that we need in our lives. As we look at all of the things that are on our plates or are trying to push their way onto our plates, how do we figure out what to do and what to drop? I think that getting relentless about everything

what matters most to you and what your highest and best use is in achieving what matters most to you.

is more important now than ever. So as an entrepreneur, and this is really hard for high achieving women in particular, because we want everything to be amazing. It's really honing in on what's most important right now that will really create a lever and potentially even a hockey stick for my business. I think that it's so important. And what is my highest and best use of

Am I best at really being in touch with the consumer, understanding her needs? Am I really good at figuring out the acquisition funnel? Am I really good at pitching my business in order to raise capital? And then where do I need to provide scaffolding for myself as a leader, whether you're an entrepreneur or not? Asking for help is so critical and it's something that I used to be terrible at.

at doing, it's part of the reason why I wrote the book, Drop the Ball. I used to engage in this thing called imaginary delegation, where you assign someone a task and you fully expect them to complete the task. But then when they don't do it the way you would want them to do it, you become resentful or upset. And then sometimes common sense will prevail. And you'll think to yourself, well, Tiffany, you actually never asked him to take notes in the meeting, or you never asked her to take out the recycling. But then you snap back

it common sense. Well, when I was an associate, I knew that I was supposed to take notes in the meeting. What is going on with these people these days that they don't know? Or I can see that the recycling is overflowing. Am I the only person who can see that the recycling is overflowing? And you just kind of get into this habit of what I call imaginary delegation, which of course no one knows about except for me. And I think moving to a place where we can say, this is where I am in my business, or this is where I am in my role. This is where I am as a mother. This is where I am as a wife or a partner.

And here's what you could do that would really help me to unleash our business or our family or our agenda for what we've got to do for Q2 in order to, you know, hit the ball out of the ballpark, whatever it is. I think it's so critical. So I encourage everyone to just think about what's on your plate. Who can you ask for help?

And is what's on your plate your highest and best use in order to move the needle forward? I love that. I am thinking, I mean, as you were talking about imaginary delegation, all I'm thinking about is my dishwasher and how I will ask my husband to load the dishwasher, but it's always kind of messy and I always end up redoing it and I have to just stop that because it's

It's fine, right? I mean, it's always fine. As long as it gets done, it's fine. But these are the kinds of things that we have to just allow ourselves to let go of and to accept that as the saying goes, perfection is the enemy sometimes. We just have to be satisfied with the good enough. As we wrap up here, Tiffany, when you look out over the next decade, and let me just acknowledge that I know

Right now we are living in this swirling chaos where it's really difficult to look out two weeks, let alone 10 years. But what do you think is on the horizon for Black women in business? And what do you think that the current political landscape is going to bring? Well, obviously that's a tough question to answer. We don't know what it's going to bring. But I'll tell you what Black women have always brought.

their integrity, their commitment to community, their commitment to doing what's right, whether it's in the ballot box or beyond, in order to move their communities forward. If there's one thing that Americans are agreeing on right now, it's that small business matters to our economy, that it's important, and that entrepreneurs, regardless of whatever other identity they might hold,

are really critical and important people to support.

So I wish for our nation's healing and I wish for us to continue to invest in the people who can really move our economy and our nation forward. Tiffany Dufu from the Tory Burch Foundation, thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you for being here. A big reminder, Tiffany's great book is called Drop the Ball. It is a wonderful read. Always so great to see you.

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