5 Common Traits of Successful Black American Female Entrepreneurs

Would you like to discover some of the top characteristics of successful black American female entrepreneurs? If yes, read on.

Being a successful entrepreneur is no easy feat. It requires a lot of resilience, strong will, hard work and tenacity.

But being a successful black American female entrepreneur? Believe me, that requires even more than the above-mentioned traits.

That is why we’ve taken out time to look at the lives of many successful black American female entrepreneurs.

The likes of Oprah Winfrey, Nancy Twine, Trinity Mouzon, and Chantel Davis are making waves in the business world. A quick study about them reveals some common traits that every black woman who wishes to excel in the business world should adopt.

Black women are making a lot of exploits in all spheres of life, both in America and other parts of the World.

According to a report by Harvard Business Review, as of the last year 2021, 17% of Black women in the US were in the process of running or starting new businesses. By a margin, that beats the percentage of white women (10%) and that of white men (15%). This is one of the best black female entrepreneurs statistics you need to pay attention to.

So, from our study, we’ve picked out 5 traits that are common among black American female entrepreneurs.  And we will be discussing them here and how you can adopt them to make your business a success.

5 Common Characteristics of Successful Black American Female Entrepreneurs

1. Black American Female Entrepreneurs Are Ambitious

Ambition is as important in business as it is in every other industry. Ambition is the strong desire to be successful in something.

Whether it is pursuing a good cause or a bad one, ambition is that strong desire to be successful in it.

In business, ambition makes it easier for you to withstand obstacles, and failures and keep striving until you achieve success.

When you’re ambitious, no matter the hurdles you have to pass through, your eyes will be set on the goal.

You can’t talk about ambitious black American female entrepreneurs in their 30s and not mention the famous Ashley Grayson formerly known as Ashley Massengill. Ashley Grayson is pregnant and she and her husband, Joshua Grayson are expecting a baby.

Big Ash as she’s fondly called by her social media followers is a digital content creator who launched an online course called Digital Course Recipe that generated a million dollars in 40 minutes. At the end of 24 hours, she closed with over $3 million.

As though that wasn’t enough, she relaunched the course again after a few months in August 2022 and generated over a million dollars in just 8 minutes. Can you beat that?

If this wasn’t ambition, then tell us what it is. That goes to show that a high-level ambition has been one of the driving forces and traits helping black American female entrepreneurs to succeed in business.

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Take a look at Oprah Winfrey. She grew up in an abusive home. She faced challenges that could have deterred an ordinary mind. But she showed how resilient she is by not giving up.

Oprah set her eyes on the goal. She knew what she wanted. That was why she never sat down to bemoan her conditions. Instead, she strived and struggled until she got to the limelight.

Today, Oprah is one of the most celebrated black women in the World. So, what does this mean to your business? I’d tell you what it doesn’t mean.

Ambition doesn’t mean you should stick to what doesn’t work, even when it is obvious something needs to change. It doesn’t mean you should stick to an abusive relationship or family.

It means you should go about finding different ways to make what isn’t working work. Thomas Edison worked on the light bulb 1,000 times without success. But he was not stuck to one formula or method.

He tried 1,000 different ways of making a light bulb. In the end, he said, “I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 999 ways to not make a light bulb.”

Ambition shouldn’t make you lose focus on the goal. Rather, it should make you understand that the goal is the target and not the process.

This doesn’t mean the process isn’t important. It however means, there are many ways to achieve one thing. Your ambition should drive you to look out for other ways to make your business a success.

2. Confidence

Confidence is another powerful trait of successful black American female entrepreneurs. Being in the midst of successful, powerful white men and women didn’t stop them from pursuing their dreams.

Confidence is that belief you have inside you that you’re capable of doing something. And you need it to succeed in business. These black American women business moguls understand how to approach investors with confidence.

When discussing with clients, employees or even talking to your target audience through any medium, confidence is what defines your capability. It wins you people’s trust, and respect, and gives you a strong brand reputation.

The CEO of Leap Innovative Group, Janna M. Hall said, “our white counterparts are used to having capital, used to pricing themselves higher, and had the confidence to stand behind their prices, even when they were higher than the market rate.  I realized that if they had the confidence to stand behind their prices, why couldn’t I? I am confident in my expertise… so I should also be confident that I’m worth the price I set for it.”

Now, that is it. Confidence makes you bold enough to demand what you’re worth. It makes you stand your ground in the midst of any form of intimidation or show of power. It makes you make promises to your customers and uphold policies that make them believe and trust you more.

And the most interesting part is that you can nurture confidence. With constant practice and quality delivery. With constant humility and willingness to learn and grow. You’d get more and more confident until it becomes an integral part of your being.

Start applying confidence in your business and see the massive turnaround you’d get.

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3. Hard Work

In business, hard work is one important trait you can’t do without. If you want to achieve results faster, you have to get up and do it. Talent without hard work is the reason people are not making money from their talent.

It is hard work that sets the overachievers apart from the underachievers. Building a business as an entrepreneur would require you to make a lot of sacrifices. You’d sacrifice your private time and work long hours to ensure demands are met in the workplace.

That is why Marsha Evans, a famous black American musician said, “You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.”

You can’t get to the top without working hard. Even when you get to the top, the only thing that guarantees you a long experience there is hard work.

To drive your business to that level you envisioned it to be, you have to be ready to make the sacrifices. Entrepreneurs work harder than employees.

Don’t let anyone deceive you. Most people quit their jobs because they want to live the entrepreneurial lifestyle – free schedules, more money, more authority, etc.

It doesn’t work that way, and the earlier you know it, the better for you. There are loads of entrepreneurial activities you will be engaged in. Entrepreneurs work harder than employees. They stay back in the office to work extra hours. Even when they get home, they spend their leisure time putting things together.

If you’re not ready to put in that much effort, please, do not start a business. Because along the line, you’d be weighed down by the heavy demands a business comes with. And you’d be left with no choice but to give up halfway.

4. Continuous Desire for Knowledge

Methods change, and information keeps getting updated. In the business world, if you want to stay relevant, you have to keep updating yourself.

You should always be on the lookout for programs and activities that will help you improve your business processes. If you refuse to update yourself, you’d be left behind when your methods become outdated.

That is why the continuous desire for knowledge is one character trait we’ve picked out from many successful black American female entrepreneurs.

Oprah for instance always sought knowledge. She won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant but didn’t stop there. She got a job afterward as an on-air personality at WVOL and won a full scholarship to Tennessee State University.

Not only that, but she kept updating herself until she founded her own radio show.

So, make out time to take extra classes on business, entrepreneurship, leadership, executive training, technology and every other area you know will help improve the way you manage your business.

Because the moment you stop learning, you start declining. And it’s only a matter of time before you’re completely replaced by economics.

5. Sense of Purpose

Sense of purpose is the belief you have in yourself. That innermost conviction that you’re here to achieve great things.

As a black female entrepreneur, it is this purpose that keeps you going when other thing feels lost. Your desire to make an impact, rewrite history and change the status quo. The desire to see your business making a difference in people’s lives.

That is what drives successful black American female entrepreneurs. That was what drove Oprah Winfrey to rise from the ruins of the domest!c abuse and molestation she got to become the most adored woman in American history.

And this trait is common with every other successful black American female entrepreneur we studied. They all have that strong desire to make a difference in the world.

It mustn’t be about running a business. Whatever you do in life, you should strive to leave a positive mark in the lives of people.

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Conclusion

Being a black woman entrepreneur comes with a lot of challenges. It is necessary that you have the traits to help you build a successful business.

And the good news is that you can learn most of these traits. Once you have the ambition to succeed, you can acquire every other trait.

Constantly reminding yourself of your purpose and the desire to make a change will help you work hard, stay confident, and always be on the lookout for knowledge and personal development.