Today we’d like to introduce you to James Hill.
James, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
After finishing a speaking engagement, I stayed after to talk to the teens who were in the crowd. We discussed financial literacy, and I asked them what Financial success looks like to them. In one form or another, they all mentioned their favorite artist or athlete. Later that evening, I attended an entrepreneurship panel discussion and was fortunate to meet Lonnie Johnson, the creator of the super soaker. I called several of my friends to tell them about meeting Lonnie Johnson; to my surprise, no one knew who he was. Each time I mentioned, he was the guy who created the super soaker, and they all responded; he’s black?
At that moment, I knew there was an untapped market to educate my community on what Black financial success looks like. After these encounters, I was inspired to create Black Millionaires, a media company designed to showcase current & future Black Millionaires. Our following on Instagram grew to over 230K in eight months, and we use the media platform to educate in the areas of business, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy. We also have a podcast created to share the personal success stories of entrepreneurs to educate our audience of small business owners.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting and growing a media company is not as easy as it seems. Our founders are not engineers or producers. Like many others on social media, our production experience doesn’t go beyond our cell phone. The constant challenge of producing high-quality content with no production experience can be overwhelming. Early on, we were forced to hire audio engineers and others skilled in video production because of careless production mistakes that almost ruined our credibility. We also underestimated the influence of our brand early on, and now we act with a sense of responsibility and transparency to ensure our brand’s credibility isn’t damaged.
Black Millionaires – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Growing a community on the internet allows us to impact people from all walks of life. We have three key areas that we structure our business around. Our first model is financial education, so we partner with financial service professionals and industry experts to teach our community wealth-building strategies proven to work. We do this through our Podcasting and interviews on social media.
Next, we share our audience with small business owners as an advertising platform to connect them to their next customer. We don’t want to provide every service to customers; instead, we teach small businesses how to grow their social media following in our eBook. This growth strategy empowers small business owners who provide a product or service we don’t offer. We provide online courses and digital products by industry experts to educate our community on critical financial decisions to increase their net worth. We aren’t entertainers; we are looking to change lives.
As a company, we are most proud of the action our community takes after being educated on financial literacy. Knowledge is not enough; we must apply. What sets our company apart from others is we highlight everyday Black Millionaires, and we limit the content on entertainers and athletes. Our audience is inspired and motivated by seeing regular people who are no different than them. Of course, a celebrity can start a million-dollar business because of their fame, but what inspires our community is the 40-year-old married couple who we all would walk past with a combined net worth of 3.6 million.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.black-millionaires.com
- Phone: 313-728-7820
- Email: support@black-millionaires.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackmillionaires_/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackmillionaire
Image Credit:
Lonnie Johnson, Inventor of the Super Soaker with Black Millionaires Ceo James Hill.
James Hill, Denise Williams, and Clift Roach II
Clift Roach, James Hill, Ty Thorpe
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