Dr. Velma Trayham is an award-winning Entrepreneur, sought-after speaker and economic empowerment specialist who believes that inclusive, equitable businesses and communities are what create opportunity and drive prosperity. Through ThinkZILLA Consulting Group Dr. Trayham builds, manages, and helps bring greater awareness to programs and initiatives that are vital to supporting underserved and underrepresented communities around the U.S.
Having been born into poverty, Dr. Trayham understands the realities associated with growing up poor. That’s why she has devoted her life to helping other women achieve success. Her best -selling book titled When God Says Go represents her philosophy on life and her commitment to being of service to others.
To date, Dr. Trayham has mentored more than 5,000 minority women business owners in the past three years. She has also developed programs for notable fortune 500 organizations and enterprises such as University of Phoenix, T.D. Jakes Enterprises, Fiji Water, Country Financial, Atlanta Airlines Terminal Company, Blaylock Van, LLC amongst others and was recently featured in Forbes November 2020 issue as a top business consultant.
Connect with Dr. Trayham on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.
Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with ThinkZILLA Consulting Group, Velma Trayham. How are you?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Hi. I’m well, thank you very much for asking and thanks for having me on today.
Stone Payton: Well, we are delighted to have you on the show, Velma. I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think a great place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners just mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Our mission is to end poverty through Entrepreneurship. So in that and through the work that we do, I do across the nation, partnering with public and private companies, building, um, entrepreneurial ecosystem so ecosystems to ensure that small businesses, underserved entrepreneurs and people of color has the have the access to information, access to capital, access to contracting opportunities. I truly believe that in order to close the racial wealth gap and to help people to rise above the poverty line, we need the resources. And not only the resources, but the, uh, the intelligence, the intellect, um, in terms of understanding the resources that are available and also being able to, um, just show up and excellence. So that’s what we’ve been doing across the country so far. We’ve helped about 5000 entrepreneurs to rise above the poverty line. Through the programs that we’ve built.
Stone Payton: I got to know the backstory. 5000 women. What a sobering and impressive and encouraging stat. I got to know the backstory. How in the world did you find yourself doing this kind of work, trying to serve these folks?
Dr. Velma Trayham: You know, it’s really interesting. I will I’m happy to share a little bit of the backstory. So I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I was actually raised in poverty. Um, and, you know, I, I realized early on that I could change the trajectory of my life and not only could I change the trajectory of my life, but if I did this very well, then I can I could create a blueprint to where I would be able to help other people to do the same thing. So to fast forward, um, I’ve had two jobs in my entire life. I worked for a Google for nine months and a subrogation firm for a year and a half. And there I started my entrepreneurial journey. My first three companies failed. I decided not to give up. Continue to just go and grow. I didn’t just go through it, but I grew through it. And so, um, my fourth and fifth company was highly successful. I was able to sell those companies and, um, you know, then I started my, uh, consulting company, think Zillow. And I started think Zillow as a marketing and public relations strategy company 11 years ago. Um, and to fast forward today, we are a national company helping government and helping corporations, um, through by way of building programs to support entrepreneurs. And so, um, small businesses, entrepreneurship. I am a serial entrepreneur and business owner. And, um, so just the information that I learned through trial and error, through failing forward fast, through resilience and not giving up, it has truly become a model for entrepreneurs across the country in terms of them seeing not only do I, you know, uh, not only do I empower others, but they’re able to see it, um, through my life and the tangible results through the work that we do. So that’s how it started. Um, and so excited for the work to continue, because I truly believe that poverty is a state of mind.
Stone Payton: Well, you have unquestionable what’s the right term street cred. Right? You actually grew up in poverty. You took a swing at being an entrepreneur, and it wasn’t raging success right out of the box. You’ve got plenty of scar tissue, plenty of lessons learned. Well, now that you’ve been at it a while, what are you these days? What are you finding the most rewarding about the work? What’s the most fun fun about it for you these days?
Dr. Velma Trayham: I’ll say the most rewarding thing and the and what’s fun to me is really being able to, um, empower hope and also be able to share the wisdom. And so in that, the reason why that’s purposeful to me and why and why it’s, um, exciting for me is because, you know, it may have taken me some time to get it right, but I’m helping now, so many people to get it right. We’re helping people to really, um, you know, build proper business models. We’re connecting them to corporate people. We’re connecting them to government and SBA resources. And, you know, and so to see, um, our businesses getting millions of dollars in funding, winning millions of dollars in contracts. And I really to just hear everywhere I go, someone comes up to say, you know, I’m so thankful that we met two years ago or we met three years ago, because the information that you share with me now, I am an employer firm. Um, I was once just a solopreneur. But here, two years later, I am an employer firm creating jobs in our communities, and I have 20 plus employees. That is what brings joy to me. Um, small businesses are the backbone to our economy. And I believe that when you have someone and partners and people that have walked the walk, um, they it really is, is more tangible in terms of the advice and the information that we share. So that’s what keeps me going. And that’s truly what’s pleasing to me, is being able to serve and to also be a contributing, uh, solution to the problems that plague our nation.
Stone Payton: Let’s dive into the work a little bit. Maybe, I don’t know, walk us through a use case or two. That kind of gives us a real picture of what happens when, when someone takes advantage of your specialized expertise and experience and applies it to their journey.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Yes. So that’s a great question. And I have a two pronged approach. I have a two pronged approach. The first approach I want to talk from an entrepreneur and small business side of things. Um, so as a entrepreneur myself, obviously we all know the statistics and the data that shows eight out of ten new businesses fail. Um, and I truly believe that the reason those businesses fail is because a nobody knows the brand exists, so they don’t do a good job with messaging, marketing, and really understanding who their target audience is to be able to, um, fine tune their business model, um, in order to serve their customer. And so, um, what we have, what I’ve been able to do. We and I say we a lot because I have an amazing team that I’ve, you know, been able to lead and that I’ve been able to pour into, that I’ve been able to motivate. I truly believe that you’re only as good as your team and the leader. And so I have an amazing team. Um, and so from that we’ve been able to help entrepreneurs through, um, messaging, helping them to create the proper business strategy, um, helping them to understand who their target audience is, helping them to put in place the proper revenue models and then helping them to understand about their model, not just what you’re selling, but the problem that you’re solving.
Dr. Velma Trayham: So one of the things that I talk about nationally when I’m speaking on stage to five people, 100 people or even 5000 people, you create a business based on the problem that you’re solving. And when you solve the problems. You won’t need money because money follows people who solves problems. Money follows solutions to problems. And so, um, we’ve seen just some case examples. We’ve seen some of our, uh, some of the people that’s gone through some of our programs go from being a single mom with less than $5 in their bank account, um, to now being budding entrepreneurs, whereas two, three years later, they’re at 2.5 million, $3 million in revenue because of the information that we’ve shared, the programs that we’ve that we’ve, um, uh, that I’ve kind of led and also being able to hear I’ve been a boots on the ground individual and really taking the time to hear from entrepreneurs studying data and creating programs that, uh, that is driven by data. So that’s on the entrepreneur standpoint. And the second prong is, uh, corporations and government entities. So corporate people, they congregate with corporate people and they have a lot of resources, government officials, they congregate with government officials. And so oftentimes public and private companies, they their messaging is a little, uh, it doesn’t resonate to the entrepreneur.
Dr. Velma Trayham: And what I mean by that is you have corporations and government entities that that have set asides for minority owned companies, and they have so many resources, um, for entrepreneurs, however, the tone when they’re messaging their, um, resources, the entrepreneurs, it’s not getting to the entrepreneurs because the entrepreneurs don’t even recognize and understand the messaging from a corporate tonality perspective. And so they’re not corporates and governments in Organizations are not meeting their goals. And so what I do is on the on the prong two approach is I help these corporations and government entities fine tune their messaging. I help them through looking at their their diversity infrastructures, their social governance strategies to understand how we can help them to integrate into the into the community. Um, in a in a short time span, I look at everything as being an urgency. It is truly, um, an urgency. And because corporations and government, they are spending a lot of money and they’re not seeing impact on their dollar, they’re not seeing the return on investment from them investing in communities. And so what I do is I make sure that I am bridging the corporate and government gap to entrepreneurs and small business owners across the US.
Stone Payton: And your influence and impact it’s being recognized. You, uh, very recently, uh, received an honor from Arizona Big Media. Tell us about that. Like most influential women, weren’t you, uh, named that in that group?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Yeah. You know what it was? It came to me as a as a surprise. Because, you know, I honestly don’t do this work for accolades. It’s truly my heart. Um, but, yes, I was just named, um, uh, Arizona, uh, most Influential Women in Arizona business in 2024 by AZ Big Media. Um, I have been in Arizona now three and a half years. Again, it really came as a surprise to me, um, along with other women that were honored on this platform, was mayor. I’m sorry. Governor Katie Hobbs was one of the honorees. And I’ll tell you that, um, at the awards recognition dinner on last week, they said that they had received close to Thousand um, uh, nominations, and they narrowed it down to 50 top women in Arizona. And so I don’t take that lightly. Um, it’s truly, I believe, a testament to when you do the work, when you walk it like you talk it, and when you are serving others and when you are a servant leader, then the rewards will come. So I believe that dominion is not a pursuit, but it’s the result, and it’s the result of doing the right thing, being a light in a world of darkness, and really being a conduit to be a part of the solutions and not the problem.
Stone Payton: So you have a lot of different ways of living into your mission, and you bring a lot of tools to bear. One is your professional speaker. In the very early days of doing the speaking, I mean, did that come real easy to you, or was that also a bit of a learning curve for you?
Dr. Velma Trayham: You know what’s so Also interesting stone. Um, so I never wanted to be a speaker. In fact, when I started my entrepreneur journey, I. I was like, you could kill me before I speak. I will not speak in front of people. I just wouldn’t do it. Didn’t desire to do it. In fact, I wanted to just be the person to do the work behind the scenes. I never wanted to be a speaker. And so now to fast forward, when I hear people say how incredible of a speaker I am, when I see when I’m speaking on national platforms and when I’m speaking, um, you know, everywhere I hear you are an amazing speaker and a great thought leader. How did you do this? And I’m thinking, well, you know, I didn’t do it intentionally. It just, you know, happened. So I believe that some things is just a result of. And so I’m grateful and I thank you for the compliment, but it truly was not something that I set forth to do or to be.
Stone Payton: We don’t have time to talk about all of the ways that you are genuinely serving these constituencies. But I gotta mention that this book that you authored, When God says go, and there’s a pretty strong theme in there around the ideas of resilience and faith. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Yeah. So, you know, when I authored When God Says Go, which is a bestseller, we’ve actually sold over a million copies through events and things like that. And so I actually authored that book during a time when I was actually going through hell. I was, you know, I had transitioned from Houston to Atlanta. I had gone through a divorce, and it was just a very tough time. And, um, you know, for me, I will say that my grandmother raised me. And one thing I know about faith, Faith is the substance of the things that we hope for, but it’s the evidence of the things that we don’t see. And so for me, I did not see myself, but I knew that I needed to tell my story. I knew that in order to reap, I had to sow. And so I sowing in terms of sharing with people my journey, sharing with people, how I’ve gone from this little girl in poverty to now a global businesswoman making such a impact in the world. Because. Because here’s the thing. Because if God can do it for me, he can do it for anyone. And so, um, in that, you know, when God says go turning your storms into an unshakable relationship with God, leaving it all behind, um, you know, I think that it’s a it’s really a testament of understanding that sometimes in life we really have to embrace our goal Moment.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Uh, Ago, meaning whether that’s, you know, a relationship, toxic friendships. Um, you know, go from the table from eating toxic foods because our health is our wealth. Um, go from moving from one state to another. Go from leaving a job that’s not adding value or seeing you as an individual who you are or the purpose that you have. And so, um, when God says go, it is it’s actually a book that I continue to read often. I am actually highlighted three incredible entrepreneurs in that book. And it’s really about, uh, transformational thinking. Um, because, again, I believe that poverty is a state of mind, and I believe that most of our society, uh, have they’ve been, um, conformed to they are conformed to, uh, a culture where it’s glitz and glam opposed to really doing the work. There’s no elevator to success. And so that is what when God says go is all about, when recognizing the time of when it’s time to go from whatever that means to elevate your life to a greater disposition.
Stone Payton: You’ve mentored thousands of women business owners of color. I’m interested to know a couple of things. And one is, do you do you see some patterns, like are there some unique challenges among that group of people? And that’s part one. And then part two is what can and should a middle aged white guy who’s pretty comfortable at this point in his career, uh, you know, that has a media platform, what should we be doing to, to to try to serve that constituency?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Great question. Um the first question in terms of what are some of the patterns that I’m seeing are barriers, shall we say, maybe, um, with, you know, this population. Um, well, one barrier is that, um, it’s access to capital. Um, in order for population to grow, there needs to be not only investing in the businesses by way of grants, by way of low interest rate, low interest rate loans. Um, you know, the information, but also, um, you know, as strategic investments into programs like some of the ones that we are, um, overseeing that yields a great reward and a great impact. Um, the other barrier that I’m seeing is that, you know what? This is the really big one here. And I wish this is a huge one here. Um, and I’ll try to articulate this as best as I can. Um, so there are a lot of programs. There’s a lot of accelerators, there’s a lot of business programs, there’s a lot of gurus. There are a lot of people that is, uh, pulling everyone’s, you know, attention grabbing attention. They’re selling, selling, selling. And we are really in a, in a, in a very fast paced environment culture right now. Um, but in that, because there are so many programs and stuff going on, people are getting information overload and also people are not getting the right information. I’ll give an example. There was a lady here a few months back that she was just pouring tears to me, um, and ready to commit suicide. She had taken her last $100,000 savings to give to a guru coach that said that promised that they would help her to get millions of dollars in contracts.
Dr. Velma Trayham: They would help her to build her company, this, that, and the other to find that lady that gave her $100,000. That person, that coach gave this lady wrong information didn’t have no, uh, contacts to connect her. No collaboration, no resources for her. And she lost her $100,000 to this guru. Uh, thankfully, I was, uh, I was able to connect her with one of my, uh, long term banking constituents, one of my banking partners that was able to come in and give her a loan for $500,000. Um, very low interest. And I was able to come on and help her to build the proper infrastructure for her company. This was two and a half months ago, and now this entrepreneur has an amazing and blazing business model, and she’s hitting the ground running with her technology company that she’s already now starting conversations with investors to acquire the software that she built. And so that’s that that’s, you know, barriers. That’s and I know that’s a lot that I just said. But to simplify it, um, too many people giving too many too much advice. People are listening. They’re not discerning right from almost right. And they’re taking big hits by trusting these gurus and social media people. Um, and so what can someone like yourself do to help? Um, Stone, I always say to my, uh, partners across the US, I cannot do this alone. Um and.
Speaker4: So.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Invest in me so that I can continue investing in our communities. And so, um, you know, I have allies. Amazing. I have Jewish friends. I have, you know, white friends. I have Hispanic friends. I love everyone. And again, um, I don’t look at the color of skin. I look at impact. And how can we collectively, how can we work collectively to make sure that we are creating big, big impact as one?
Stone Payton: So what’s new and next for you? The balance of this year, but maybe 18 to 24 month horizon. You got any kind of new initiatives you’re really excited about and are and are willing to let us in on new initiatives?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Um, we have um, a couple of, uh, things that we’re launching to solve the housing crisis. Um, I can’t say too much on that. Still in the, uh, stages, legal stages and stuff like that. Um, looking at an economic empowerment tour for 2025. I will be touring and taking this information across the US, connecting entrepreneurs to resources to scale and take their business to the next level and helping more people get out of poverty. Um, and you know what? I think the other thing is really just creating more leaders. We need to create more leaders. I have a lot of followers that I’m so very grateful and thankful for, but really what I want to do is create some sort of leader ship, um, uh, program or something to help more leaders to become agents of change. So that’s kind of where I am and what, what I’m kind of up to.
Stone Payton: Well, I have no doubt you’re going to accomplish that. And it’s going to be fun to, to continue to, to follow your story. I mean, this is an invigorating, inspiring conversation outside the scope of this work, and I don’t know when you’d find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway about passions, interests, hobbies outside the scope of your work. Most of my listeners know that I like to hunt, fish, and travel. Anything like that that you nerd out about to kind of get away from it and recharge.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Yeah, so I love to hike. Um, I love rodeo. I like horses, I like going to, like rodeos. And I like the bull. I like looking at bull rides I like. Um, so that’s fun to me. Oh, and I have a 13 year old son. Um, who is an entrepreneur, and he’s also an athlete, so I love to go to his games. I love children, I love to spend time with our children, especially at risk youth. I like to empower them. I like to just listen to them. I like to hear their bravery and hear their ideas for their own vision for the future. So those are some of the ways that I really just, um, kind of unplug. Oh, and I can’t leave church out. Um, I am a member of a revival, um, church in Arizona that just continues to light a fire in me. And so those are the things that allows me to recharge.
Stone Payton: And don’t you find that I call it white space, but I find that not only do I enjoy these activities, but I really think it gives me a chance to do what you said, recharge, and allows me to be that much more effective when I clock back in and try to live into to what we’re trying to do here at Business Radio. It’s important for entrepreneurs to, to to make time and energy to do that, isn’t it?
Dr. Velma Trayham: Yeah it is. It really is. Because here’s the thing. Your health is your wealth. And if you’re not taking care of your physical body and your.
Speaker4: Mind.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Then you’re gonna you’re gonna burn out. And, you know, it’s really nothing you could do when you burn out. And you can’t pour from an empty cup. You cannot help anyone if you yourself is not at a capacity level, um, to where you can actually, um, thrive in the area or the lane that you are in. I was asked a question a couple of days ago, um, about work life balance. How do you balance it? How do you do this? We see that you’re a mom. We see that you own multiple companies. We see that you’re the president of the Black Chamber. How do you balance? And my question and my response to them was I personally, in my humble opinion, do not believe in work life balance. I believe in work life integration. So integrating my life, my personal life into my business and integrating a little bit of my business into my personal life, and so I take time when time is needed. I meditate every day, um, and I rest. I get at least eight hours of sleep every night. Um, and so that is truly, I think, the importance of unplugging so that you can show up in excellence and so that you can show up as the very best version of yourself at all times.
Stone Payton: Well, I love the way that you’ve reframed that or reframed it for me anyway, from balance to integration, that sounds like a much more sustainable, productive way to lens to to view it through. All right, before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners, if we could, with a couple of actionable pro tips. And look, guys, the number one pro tip here is reach out, have a conversation with Doctor Velma or somebody on her team. Tap into her work, and we’re going to make sure you have some coordinates to do that in just a moment. But let’s leave them with a with a couple pro tips. If we could.
Dr. Velma Trayham: A couple of pro tips.
Speaker4: Um.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Pro tip number one. Become the light. Become the light because only light drives out darkness. The world does not need any more pessimistic, angry, hostile, uh, people that are, uh, filled and flamed up with anger, hate and all of the other stuff. So become the light because you are everywhere that you will go. Um, and so the only thing that drives out darkness is light. And so if you want happiness and you want peace in your life, you need to become the light from the inside out. Change some things about you at your core. Maybe some things that you learned when you were a kid. Maybe some things you learned from a culture that you need to release yourself of. You need to become more cognizant of what you’re putting out and also what you are allowing in, because whatever you allow in is going to come out in some way. So work on you. The second thing I would say is, um, the second thing I would say is build a community of destiny helpers. You need people that are that’s going to pour into you and then you pour into them. You need mutual beneficial relationships and partnerships. And this leads me to my last thing is you can’t do everything alone. You need a team. You need allies. Um, and you need strategy. And collaboration is very important. So those are the things that I would leave.
Stone Payton: Thank you. All right. Best way for us to tap into your work. Maybe have a more substantive conversation with you or someone on your team. Let’s leave them with some coordinates to do that.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Yes. Um, so I am on LinkedIn. My personal LinkedIn is Doctor Velma Trahan, t r a y.
Speaker4: H a.
Dr. Velma Trayham: M. I’m also on Instagram. Velma Graham I am on Facebook as well. Velma Graham um, I you can keep up with the work that I’m doing nationally on my personal platforms, but if it’s market related, we have the Arizona Black Chamber. Um, which black chamber of Arizona? I’m sorry, across all platforms. Um, and then if you want to connect through some of our programs in Atlanta, Houston and some of these other markets, connect through our nonprofit organization called Millionaire Mastermind Academy, and the mission to millions of Millionaire Mastermind Academy is to end poverty through entrepreneurship. And so Millionaire Mastermind Academy is also on, um, across all social media. So join the mailing list, stay connected to us and show up. I believe that 98% of success is showing up.
Stone Payton: Well, Doctor Velma, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast today. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm and quite sincerely, this has been an inspiring, invigorating conversation for me. I know it has been for our listeners. You are doing such important work and we sure appreciate you.
Dr. Velma Trayham: Thank you very much, Don. I appreciate you too, for having me and the great work that you’re doing with High Velocity Radio Show. So thank you.
Stone Payton: My pleasure. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Doctor Velma Trahan with Think Zilla Consulting Group and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.