KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: The Baldwin Business Institute

"Failure is not the opposite of success, it is the stepping stone."

-Harold Leffall

Harold is the author of the business course we will be offering through The Baldwin Project. Harold Leffall recently left Atlanta and now lives in Oakland, CA. He is an empowerment specialist, author, speaker and entrepreneur with 20 years of experience who has been featured in Black Enterprise, Essence, and Entrepreneur magazines. He has held senior management positions with Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency, Vehicles for Change and United Way of Metro Atlanta. He founded Leffall Employment Agency, a full service staffing firm in Oakland that reached revenues of over $3 million in two years. He holds an M.A. in management and a B.A. in political science.

We have adopted and will be launching his program for the target date of November 3rd this year. We asked him about some of the things prospective students can expect from this course as opposed to investing thousands of dollars into an academic program filled with theory just so that one can get a degree working for a company that one does not own. Just research the curriculum vitae of the many of the founding CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and you will find that a majority, over 70% of them did not hold business degrees. While we believe that formal education has its place, we refute the notion of it being a requirement of going into business and being a success. We like how Mark Twain put it, "Don't let schooling get in the way of your education." Once your business is up an running and you want to sharpen your skills with whatever the top business schools have to offer, by all means go for it. But by then you will have gained some core concepts and frame of reference which will help you understand and appreciate the more heady material given in colleges and it will not be about getting a degree to impress anyone but to add to your knowledge base to help you expand nationally and/or internationally or become publicly traded. However, before you get to that level, our focus is on helping the novice to get started on sturdy footing with the core basics from turning that first dollar to hiring that first employee, the startup phase. There is a lot of danger in this phase that good guidance could help you avoid, saving you time, money and embarrassment. For many, the most difficult phase in developing a business is getting started in the first place. For those of us not coming from business owning families, those hows are elusive and hard to come by. The Baldwin Project aims to change that. 

Let's hear straight from the author, himself:

"When I started my first business, Leffall Employment Agency, I had no idea what I was doing. I did not have a business plan and although I had two college degrees I had no training in entrepreneurship. I read all the books I could find on entrepreneurship but none of them prepared me for what it really takes to start and grow a business as an African American. I simply had a dream and drive with no real strategy of how to make it happen. As a result my first year in business was spent making the same mistakes most new business owners make, from not really understanding my market to underestimating the value of relationship building. By trial and error I eventually figured out the success formula, growing my business to close to $4 million in annual sales in just two years.

Like every other entrepreneur, your journey will likely be filled with tremendous challenges, disappointments and setbacks – accept these experiences as a part of the process. The Baldwin Project’s intensive entrepreneurial training will provide you with real tools, information and resources that you can use immediately to start or grow your business. This course explores how to identify and develop solutions to the most common leadership and personal challenges faced by entrepreneurs when starting new ventures or growing an existing one. You will learn step-by-step how to use market analysis, operational plans and financial projections to create a comprehensive business plan. After you complete this course you will be on track to realizing your entrepreneurial dreams."