A Lesson From Quinton Primo at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit 2016

This morning, at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit 2016, Quintin Primo III had a one-on-one talk with Butch Graves.  Thanks to L. Michelle Smith & AT&T, you can watch the #BESummit livestream of the conference at http://www.blackenterprise.com/events/entrepreneurs-summit/livestream/.  Just in case you’re not aware, Quintin Primo III is the CEO and cofounder of Capri Capital Partners, LLC, a real estate investment management firm, which is an international firm that is estimated to be worth $3 billion.

***In case anyone reading this knows Mr. Primo, I’d love the opportunity to interview him for the How To Raise Your Black Child To Be A Millionaire audio book series.***

Nonetheless, he shared some phenomenal insight to the audience of entrepreneurs that are really more deeply tools for parents who are #RaisingBlackMillionaires.  Let’s delve into a couple of those tips!

Tip #1

One of the points he touched on that we’ll definitely have to expound upon in later articles AND when I’m able to interview him (yes I’m calling it into existence), was the fact that he was a disciplined musician in his youth.  Now we’ve talked a lot about the value of having your children to learn the discipline of a musical instrument, but Mr. Primo kind of itemized the benefits of insuring your children participate in such training.

The first point he made was that to excel in music, you have to be voluntarily disciplined.  You have to train yourself to practice for long hours until you master a certain note or skill, and you have to do so eagerly, without losing patience with yourself or enthusiasm about your objective of mastery.  So as your children set out-of-this-world goals, they need to be trained to go through the requisite long processes associated with the attainment of those goals, without allowing themselves to lose focus or enthusiasm about their objectives.

Next, he mentioned that music has components that are very technical and require attention to detail.  While he was discussing these points to explain how studying music prepares one for successful entrepreneurship, we can see how regularly participating in an activity that requires such attention, trains a child to be observant and regularly assess changes that must be considered and manipulated to maintain control over self and the environment.  Do you know any millionaires who DON’T do this?  I don’t…

The third thing he mentioned was how all musicians practice to perform well and to the pleasure of his/her audience.  All business owners understand that once you’ve identified your exact customer, all of your efforts are made to attract, fulfill the needs of, and maintain that customer.  As they exercise the art of assessing their environments and determining the needs of those within those environments, it’s important to teach them the value of developing rapport with others and maintaining relationships so that that skill will translate to their customer relations as they carry on any legacies we’re working to build for them.

The final point he made about the value of learning to play music was that doing so affords one the opportunity to learn how to improvise during critical, unforeseen, moments.  The difference between a millionaire and a poor man is that a poor man will complain about a problem or something that he was counting on not going his way; but a millionaire will quickly accept the reality presented to him and determine an alternate course of action before he even enters a mental space of let-down.  Giving our children this type of experience will advance them well beyond their peers and skyrocket them towards Millionairedom…(Yes, it’s a real place…thank you very much).

Tip #2

When explaining the strategy behind building his firm as a diverse firm versus a minority owned firm, he mentioned how often times Black entrepreneurs do the latter to more quickly position themselves to take advantage of contracts and opportunities set aside for minority owned businesses (perhaps those with MBE certifications -note is mine), enabling them to become fairly profitable in less time.  But what they often don’t realize is that they may get to go after a contract that was set aside as a $5 million contract, but the same company issuing that contract is paying another non-Black firm $500 million to do the same thing.

So his point was that there’s value in allowing your company more time to become positioned to take advantage of the $500 million opportunities, through strategic positioning and delayed gratification, versus going after the more easily accessible $5 million opportunities that will ultimately require the same work and expenditures from your company as the larger one.  In short, it’s important to rear our children to see the bigger picture and choose that, versus allowing themselves to be distracted by the lower hanging fruit.  Many of our millionaires in the series discussed this concept of delayed gratification and how to train our children with that discipline in the first volume of the audio book series; so stay tuned for word about the release of How To Raise Your Black Child To Be A Millionaire (I’m working on having a sneak peak for you next week…).

In the mean time, leave us a comment about what you got from Mr. Primo’s tips, and don’t forget to subscribe to get your free gift, The 5 Can’t-Miss Steps For Parents in Raising Black Millinaires!