SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ENTERPRISE : Getting Up to Date With a Black Entrepreneur : Small business: A calendar honors CW Leasing’s Cynthia Walker and 11 other African American business people.
Even in the relentlessly upbeat world of professional salesmanship, Cynthia Walker is a happy person. She has a quick laugh and energetic manner that have served her well, along with large dollops of tenacity and resourcefulness.
In little more than a decade, Walker has jettisoned the corporate world and built an equipment leasing company with revenue that bounces between $1 million and $2 million each year. She helped to found a Los Angeles-based business group called the Assn. of Black Women Entrepreneurs. Along the way she has struggled through prejudice, inexperience, intense industry competition, grinding recession and--18 months ago--a devastating traffic accident.
On Wednesday, Walker’s CW Leasing will be honored at the Library of Congress with 11 other black-owned businesses that were featured in a calendar celebrating the achievements of African Americans, produced each year by Aetna Life & Casualty.
Also in the 1995 calendar, which this year focused on black entrepreneurship, are Food From The ‘Hood, the oft-publicized salad dressing company owned by students from Crenshaw High School, and Terry Smith Creations of Santa Clara, which designs and merchandises sports art work, including the logo and uniform of the San Jose Sharks.
“Out of the many African Americans who have taken their business dream and made it reality, we’ve selected a dozen who not only have attained personal success but have shown a willingness to share their knowledge and dreams with other minority entrepreneurs,” said Carolyn Harris-Burney, director of consumer issues for Aetna.
Walker’s dream in 1984 was to leave corporate America. As a sales executive for Johnson & Johnson’s health care division, Walker said she was well paid and well traveled. But at every corporation she found there were unseen limits placed on women and minorities, Walker said.
“I saw that there was a ceiling in corporate life,” Walker said. “I could see that this was not a place that was real secure to me, and I had two kids in college at the time.”
Walker knew she wanted her own business but had no idea what kind of business it should be. So she spent weeks at the library, researching growth potential start-up costs in various industries. Anything unconventional appealed to her, Walker said.
Finally, Walker decided on the leasing business. To gain experience, she offered her services as an independent salesperson to a local leasing operation specializing in cars.
“They said, ‘This is not a female industry. We have only men in this company,’ ” Walker recalled. “I made a bet with the sales manager that I could outsell his best salesmen. I did it in three months. I said, ‘I can only learn from this.’ ”
During two years of car leasing, Walker noticed that the firm was missing opportunities to lease other types of equipment, she said. Such leases were arranged only for big clients who requested them. Walker said she knew she had found her niche and, in 1986, went out on her own.
“Sales is sales. I enjoy sales. It’s very easy for me to sell something as long as I believe in it,” she said.
The leasing industry began to boom, led by the growth in car leasing. CW Leasing works primarily with equipment manufacturers and distributors, providing a way for clients to stretch out payments rather than come up with the cash immediately to buy the equipment. The customer also can write off the transaction sooner and doesn’t have to worry about getting stuck with obsolete equipment.
Walker has filled this middleman role dealing in all kinds of equipment, from mundane office products to computers to high-tech timing calipers. She has completely outfitted a dentist’s office and supplied a huge steel oven that churns out hundreds of sweet potato pies weekly for a local bakery.
“It’s a financial transaction,” Walker said. “But I love equipment. Whenever I see a new machine I have to know what it is.”
CW is a tiny part of the $126-billion leasing industry, where the really big players have names like AT&T; and GTE Capital. Walker said she has found her corner by offering competitive prices coupled with good service.
Walker operates the Marina del Rey company with three commissioned sales agents; the sales force once was larger, but the recession and Walker’s dismay over high turnover caused her to pull back. Walker said she also didn’t like the ethical problems that seemed to multiply in the increasingly competitive industry.
“I shrank the business to maintain the business,” she said. “I found the clients ultimately wanted to talk to me anyway.”
Walker gained Thomas Nix Distributor Inc. as a client when the Carson-based company, which has 58 check-cashing outlets, branched out into security equipment. It was having trouble getting leases approved for franchisees and independent check-cashing outlets.
“One independent told me about Cynthia and how easy she was to work with and how she was able to get equipment approved overnight, and we were waiting for weeks for approval,” said Orville R. Edwards, sales manager for Nix’s security products division. “Within a day, we got an answer from her.”
During her entrepreneurial search in 1984, Walker joined several other women to form the Assn. of Black Women Entrepreneurs. The organization of networking, seminars and scholarships has since grown to more than 400 members nationwide, and Walker is still on the board, said president Dolores Ratcliffe.
Walker’s work ethic is such that most of her clients were not aware she was in a serious car accident in August, 1993. It sent her through the windshield of her Jeep and into a hospital bed. She was out nearly six months, but continued to run the business with the help of her son, Kyle.
“I had just turned 50,” Walker said. “I woke up in the hospital and said, ‘Well, this is dramatic, but I’m still here.’ ”
