Case Study: Rescuing the Dream

Busi­ness Devel­op­ment: Asset Divesti­ture / Indus­try Entry
 
Chal­lenge: 
The North Amer­i­can Divi­sion of a Global 50 cor­po­ra­tion wanted to drive quan­tifi­able minor­ity par­tic­i­pa­tion in an over­looked multi-billion dol­lar retail seg­ment. The dri­ving force for this ini­tia­tive was the enti­ties pend­ing exit from con­ve­nience store oper­a­tions – thus a loss of direct influ­ence. With the dead­line set time was of the essence.
 
The divi­sion had approached the National Urban League (NUL) about col­lab­o­rat­ing to achieve this goal. How­ever, when spo­radic con­ver­sa­tions pro­duced no tan­gi­ble agree­ment – yet plan – the spon­sor­ing orga­ni­za­tion began to feel that the oppor­tu­nity would go unrealized.
 
Action: 
I was given the task of sal­vaging this oppor­tu­nity. In fact it was the first assign­ment given to me when I walked into the NUL. The next five months were spent:
  • Rebuild­ing creditability
  • Clear­ing the deck
  • Build­ing rap­port with the vision­ary exec­u­tive who placed his pro­fes­sional rep­u­ta­tion on the line to cam­paign for the initiative.
The key to this was focus­ing on hav­ing an open and hon­est busi­ness dia­logue. By doing so I was able to:
  • Con­nect with the vision­ary at his level and help him com­mu­ni­cate his vision in lan­guage under­stood within the NUL.
  • Nego­ti­ate a mutu­ally agree­able seven fig­ure ‘fee-for-service’ agreement.
  • Design and exe­cute a three-pronged national pro­gram — career aware­ness, media ser­vices, and con­sult­ing sessions.
Results: 
As a direct result of my efforts:
  • The NUL real­ized a +25% profit margin
  • 250 indi­vid­u­als were exposed to spe­cialty retail­ing man­age­ment as a career
  • Tech­ni­cal busi­ness assis­tance was pro­vided to three nascent entre­pre­neur­ial con­cerns (multi-million dol­lar retail mar­ket­ing enti­ties) allow­ing them to estab­lish a solid busi­ness foundation
My skills, knowl­edge, and pas­sion for struc­tur­ing busi­nesses brought order to the numer­ous mov­ing parts, pro­vid­ing client with a higher level of com­fort in the strate­gic relationship.