WAYNE WILLIAMSON : Selling to a Growing Market : Hispanic and Black Businessmen Target Orange County

After 5 sleepy years, the Black Business Alliance of Orange County has come alive, increasing membership from a stagnant 50 to nearly 225, and completing the county’s first private business incubator for black small business, the Center for Business Excellence in Santa Ana.

The center is a privately funded 2-story, 3,300-square-foot office complex in Santa Ana where small businesses can rent office space and share a central reception area, conference room, meeting room, kitchenette and off-street parking. Rents range from $195 to $525 monthly.

Wayne Williamson, a 45-year-old commercial real estate specialist, heads up the changing organization. While other minority business communities are able to grow as Orange County’s minority population grows, the black business community has no such luxury.

As Williamson points out, “There’s no real ‘black business’ to go after or target in Orange County.” His organization is dedicated to helping its members reach the mainstream, because they have no alternative if they are going to thrive here.

Williamson has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Southern California. He recently discussed small business and minority business trends with Times staff writer Maria L. La Ganga.

Q. The Black Business Alliance of Orange County has been around for about 5 years, but it has taken until 1989 for the group to really accomplish much. Why?

Williamson: It’s been, not really dormant, just service-oriented at a different level. Until now, it involved itself in different community activities, a lot of programs geared toward making it easier for a minority business person to get started. Workshops, seminars. We still do a lot of that.

Q. The organization just opened its Center for Business Excellence. What was the thinking behind that?

A. After a million workshops and seminars and meetings, I guess it was discovered that there were two basic things that interfered with a lot of minority businesses getting into the mainstream. One was housing. A lot of minority businesses had problems getting adequate housing for their businesses. I guess this is when this concept came together.

Q. When did you start raising money to open this center?

A. Probably back in September, through January. Surprisingly, we raised close to $250,000 from our membership solely. That’s an average of $1,000 apiece. We found out that there are a lot of black business people out here that are really doing very well and are just quietly hidden away in the woodwork all over the county.

Q. What are you offering in your new center that black businesses can’t get elsewhere?

A. A camaraderie that can’t be found somewhere else. Basically, the center is for those who are now working in their garages, out of post office boxes, out of their briefcases, out of cars. It’s a step up on the way to getting into a real professional office environment.

Q. The center has been around for about a month, but it’s only one-third full. Why have you filled only 10 of the 30 office spaces you have to offer?

A. For any small business person getting started, this is a big transition to step into an environment where you really need to make more of a commitment to being there, to paying rent. So we’re seeing some reluctance at first. For someone who’s working out of a briefcase and doing OK, it’s a great big step to go to your own office.

Q. What businesses have moved into the center so far?

A. Engineering firms, management consulting firms, a janitorial service, a ham operator’s school, we’ve got a secretarial service and the Tri-County Bulletin, which is the only black newspaper servicing the Orange County area. There are 10 who have signed leases and about 10 or 12 that have put down deposits. We should be filled up in about a month.

Q. One of the problems most small businesses have is financing at the beginning. What is your organization doing to address that issue?

A. That’s the second major problem we found, after getting adequate housing for a business. We are definitely going to provide funding and financing. We’ve been so successful with raising the funds for our facility here that right now it looks like we might be able to do (it) through the membership. Some of the businesses are a little bit more profitable. We’d try pooling funds.

Q. Like Korean kyes, the fund pools whereby all the members put in, say, $1,000 a month, and each member gets to take it out once and invest it in his business?

A. Well, not exactly that but something similar. Maybe not taking turns taking it out, probably just making it available to those who need it most. Those with ideas and business plans and desire but no ability to get the funds from a regular institution. There’s not enough money to go around. Qualifying is a problem for a lot of entrepreneurs.

Q. Is there a black owned-and-operated bank in Orange County?

A. No. There is no black bank here. There is in L.A. But there will be a black bank in Orange County. We’re working on it right now. We’re looking at sometime in 1990. But then, you don’t really have a black anything in Orange County. You don’t have a black residential neighborhood, a black business district, there’s no black anything.

Q. What is Orange County like for a minority business to do business in?

A. I don’t know about a minority business per se. Orange County is great for businesses in general and most of the businesses that are here are thriving and doing real well. I really haven’t found a great big difference between so-called minority business and any other small business. We just happen to be black, geared toward black minority businesses. I’m sure that the problems are the same with any minority business.

Q. Do minority businesses find that they do best when they operate in an area where there is a large foundation of the population or special interest group which they represent?

A. No, not necessarily. Not unless they cater to that group of people. With any business, you want to have your target market and you want to work it. And it may be the same ethnic group, or it may be a market that’s very, very different. In Orange County, it’s pretty hard to target a black group. Where are they? I haven’t found them.

Q. Orange County’s black population in recent years has been dropping. In 1980, it was 1.3% of the county. In 1985 it was down to 1%. Does that make it more difficult to do business here?

A. No, but it makes it different from the way other minority business communities do business. That 1% is pretty scattered. It’s not like the black community you’d find in other cities in the United States. You can’t be geared toward doing business with other blacks. You’ve got to deal with the open market. You have to be out there in the mainstream, which is pretty much what all small businesses are doing. You’ve got a large Hispanic population here, so I imagine that a lot of them are just working with Hispanics. With almost anybody else, especially in Santa Ana or anywhere near it, you have to deal with whoever is out there. And I guess that’s what’s going on with us.

Q. Is there any specific line of business that a majority of your members are in? Manufacturing, service industries?

A. No. We do whatever you could do to make money. We’ve got a lot of black entrepreneurs who transferred into Orange County with Xerox or Hughes or TRW and are setting up their own engineering and computer firms. A lot of that is going on right now. They’re in a market where they’ve always dealt with the mainstream in their corporate employment. Now they’re making a change. In the past, it was basically black-oriented businesses. There were a lot of barber shops, beauty salons, black restaurants. That’s gone. Now you’ve got professionals.

Q. Is that where most of the Black Business Alliance’s growth is coming from?

A. Yes. They transferred in and they like Orange County. They don’t like climbing the corporate ladder, and they want to do their own thing their own way. Santa Ana is really booming and really fruitful. This is a great place to get started with a new business.

Q. What’s the best thing about being a black business owner in Orange County?

A. There’s opportunity in Orange County that I don’t believe you’d find too many other places, just with the general economy doing as well as it is.