By Leo Adam Biga

In their profession as local business coaches, BC Clark and Deborah Dogba often see themselves in the clients they serve: Women of color brimming with ideas and hungry to maximize their potential. Clark and Dogba each offer a suite of services that aids clients with everything from the ins-and-outs of forming a startup to scaling an existing business.

BC Clark

Metro Omaha Women’s Business Center

Clark, a Baton Rouge, La. native, came to coaching near the end of a 27-year technical support manager career with Conagra. She studied Management Information Systems at Metropolitan Community College before earning a bachelor’s in MIS at Bellevue University,

Women, let alone a Black woman, in corporate IT was rare at the time (1990s-2000s). Her situation, she said, was one which “brought many challenges and, of course, opportunities to succeed or fail – it was up to me to decide which one, and I chose to succeed, have a voice and stand.”

BC stands for “beautiful and courageous,” said Clark, who is divorced and the mother of three adult children.

She was still with Conagra when she started Leading Edge Consulting (now Leading Edge Group) in 2005 as a platform for providing clients marketing tips. Since 2014 she’s hosted The Business Connection talk show on public television station KPAO.

Around the time she left Conagra she brought her years of experience to SCORE, a partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Its volunteer corps of retired business professionals provide free mentoring and education to small business owners. Early on in her role as a SCORE counselor and mentor she noted a gap between what women needed and available resources.

“Men who came in had a whole network of people behind them. With women, there would be such a disconnect in bringing them from A to B and B to C with the resources they needed,” she said. “I thought there’s got to be a better way. I felt a really strong gut thing about doing something with women. My friends got tired of me complaining and said, ‘Do something about it,’ so I did.”

Seeing a need for a women’s focused support hub, she formed Metro Omaha Women’s Business Center (MOWBC) in 2007. The always strategic Clark further leveraged her work uplifting entrepreneurs in the community by becoming director of training and client development for the Nebraska Enterprise Fund.

More recently, she’s become a GROW Nebraska advisory board member, She works closely with Candice Price, director of GROW Nebraska’s new Women’s Business Center in North Omaha.

Clark believes in tapping women’s success stories, often in interview forums (in-person or remotely), to share ideas and lessons learned with various cohorts she leads or belongs to. “I’m a habitual networker. I network on Zoom and everywhere else,” she said.

Examples of her networking are her relationships with fellow Black women business owners Theresa Bradley (Lady Bradley’s Salon) and Jacque Brown (Beanstalk Childcare & Academy). They are among many entrepreneurs she’s coached and received encouragement from in return. “We just hit it off. I love their businesses, I love what they’re doing. These women have that don’t-let-nothing-get-in-my-way grit that I respect.

During Clark’s tenure in corporate America, even up to the time she became an entrepreneur, the climate for women in business seeking capital, especially as startup owners, was bleak.

“It was not pretty,” she said. “I don’t care what you had, if you owned a house or whatever, it was very hard to access capital if you needed more than two or three thousand dollars.”

The challenges were only compounded for Black women. That environment compelled women in business like herself to seek out peers in order to discuss experiences and challenges and to share success strategies and growth opportunities.

“We just kind of all relied on each other, we supported each other. We would research and find out information on different things. We didn’t have a (formal) support system,” said Clark. “That’s one reason why it was just so deep in me to start MOWBC. I felt it was something we needed to do to pull things together, and we did.

MOWBC, which has offices at 6012 North 102nd Street, holds a monthly business forum as well as webinars, workshops, trade shows to educate, inspire and encourage entrepreneurs.

Clark’s self-imposed mandate to manifest what she finds lacking recently led her to pilot a new program focused on adolescent females of color from the inner city. “I’ve put together a year-long program for students from seventh grade up to 19 years old called YEG - Young Entrepreneur Girls.”

YEG’s progressive curriculum is divided into quarterly units. Clark said, focused on personal development, followed by professional development, then internships – “girls working in different industries with women mentors to let them see there’s nothing they can’t do” – and, finally, writing business plans and doing pitches. “We want them to become successful women.”

Due to the pandemic’s resurgence, the pilot was limited this summer to six weeks and 12 girls, who completed the personal development phase. She hopes conditions permit fuller activation and participation in the fall., including financial literacy.

The program’s assets mirror the wealth of avenues now readily available to women searching for answers and assistance, including affinity groups like MOWBC.

“For women nowadays it’s easy to get connected and to be their own tribe. Back in the day we didn’t understand what a tribe was. There were just a few of us trying to make things happen, and we did, but that’s grown leaps and bounds and now we’re helping other people grow.”

Knowing the Ropes

Clark said even though many women enter business today with higher education, there’s still a gap between what’s taught in school and what they encounter as real-world entrepreneurs. “Even those who’ve gone to college don’t understand all the hats of a business person, so it’s a mindset change that has to happen,” she said.

As it did with so many things, the disruption to business caused by COVID-19 revealed weaknesses in systems, processes and practices.

“When the pandemic happened I started doing business resumption workshops,” Clark said, “because it was so obvious that a lot of small business owners did not understand their financials at all. You know, you can go to business school, but they don’t get into the business world the way they need to, so owners don’t understand an income statement, cash days on hand (cash reserves), et cetera. The financial piece is hard for some of them. It’s only because they haven’t really dug in to find out what they need to know.”

Filling knowledge and resource gaps for clients is a big part of what Clark does.

“Credit is a huge thing. Because it’s such a thing I got certified with CBA (Credit Builders Alliance) as a trainer to show people how to build credit as an asset. I have some credit one-on-ones to help people understand what things they can do to build better credit and how important credit is in trying to grow their business.”

If there’s a common trait she’s found among Black women entrepreneurs it’s their reliance on faith as an anchor and the experience of seeing the matriarchs in their families endure.

“What I’ve learned is that a lot of Black women have their faith and that faith is not shaken in any way. They believe. They tell you, ‘I know this is what I’m supposed to do.’ People with that attitude always do get there because that faith is going to take them. They have the faith to keep going. They have mamas and grandmas who showed them how to persevere, how to never give up.”

By contrast, said Clark, “It’s the ones who are not sure and who are afraid to try,” who falter or surrender. In helping women achieve the best version of themselves and their businesses, Clark variously serves as counselor, confidante, mentor and motivator. Helping clients move past fear to action is a point of emphasis.

“Fear is huge in a lot of people’s lives and especially in women,” she said. “A lot of times they spend time taking care of somebody else and that’s where they stay, but the moment they want to get out and do something for themselves they’re afraid to believe they can do it. They’re afraid of failure, they’re afraid of success, they’re afraid of what somebody might say.”

In exercises she leads women through, she said there’s often an a-ha moment when they “recognize what’s holding them back is fear.” Guided self-discovery, she said, energizes women to take control of their own destiny.

“When you find out who you are as a person and what your purpose is, confidence becomes part of your whole being and existence,” she said. “It’s not often people are given that opportunity to just be free, especially women, because we hold everything on the inside. That’s why women stay in abusive relationships. They think they can’t move. They can’t get to that place.

“I talk to a lot of young women entrepreneurs. The first thing I tell them is, ‘Let’s take all the things you are afraid of and put them on the side of the street – and talk to me about what you desire to do.’ All of a sudden you see them sitting up straight, realizing they don’t have to be pitiful.”

Finding Your Best Self

Clark can speak from personal experience about struggling to overcome self-doubt. “When I was young I walked with my head down. I wasn’t used to looking people in the eye.” Things began to change when a woman she didn’t know told her, “If you could only see what I see.” That affirmation planted the seeds of a journey to self-love.

“It didn’t happen overnight. It took years. A lot of wisdom has come from mistakes I've made, I only finally came to know myself at 45. I was able to hold my head up. Along the way there would be an accolade here, an accolade there and I started gaining confidence and believing in myself. And then one day it was just there. Whatever I wanted to do, I would do it. There wasn’t anything I didn’t think I could do.”

She advocates having someone who’s been-there, done-that to walk with you at the start of that journey. “I think that’s so important. You can’t help somebody if you haven’t been there yourself. I don’t care what the struggle is, what the mountain is, the only way to get on the other side of it is to go through it, period. There’s things you just don’t know until you run into them, but if you have somebody that can be walking alongside you, there is power there.”

She actively seeks out examples of women, past and present, who inspire her. Among local women leaders she admires are Ambassador Worship Center Pastor Lynnell Williams, North End Teleservices CEO Carmen Tapio and Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services CEO Dannette Smith. She also draws inspiration from the story of Bridgett ‘Biddy’ Mason, a former slave who won her freedom and used savings from midwife and nursing work to become a wealthy landowner and philanthropist in Los Angeles.

In the past it was hard finding public portrayals of Black women achievers due to scant media coverage and opportunities. They are more visible today.

“Black women in leadership can be seen,” Clark said. “We have a Black woman vice president in Kamala Harris. We had Black women running for mayor in Omaha in Kimara Snipes and Jasmine Harris. We have Black business owners like Carmen Tapio, who’s growing her business North End Teleservices by leaps and bounds.”

Clark didn’t include herself and fellow business coach Deborah Dogba among local Black women leaders, but she could have. Several women featured in NOISE’s Black Women Business Owners series mentioned Clark as a player in the local business development scene. Dogba, who has been mentored by Clark, is following her lead.

Deborah Dogba

Business Seals Consulting

Dogba’s path to coaching and entrepreneurship is distinct from Clark’s in that she’s a native of Togo, Africa. After coming to America in 2004 she, too, followed the corporate path, working for PayPal, Yahoo and T-Mobile. She earned a business degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In 2011 she returned to Africa to work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and eventually in her homeland of Togo.

Much of her work overseas centered around business development. She often covered the basics of startups with young entrepreneurs. She found teaching and coaching so gratifying that she said, “when I came back to America I didn’t want to be in corporate America anymore.” She reoriented herself to help underserved communities by working for the State of Nebraska’s Children and Family Services division. On the side, she launched her Business Seals Consulting Firm LLC in 2018.

In order to increase the value she brings clients she took leadership training to become a certified John Maxwell coach, teacher, speaker and trainer. She sees her job as leading entrepreneurs, especially women who look like her, on the path to actualizing their personal lives and realizing their professional goals. Some of her clients include fellow African emigres.

“I listen to clients to understand their vision, their ideas, and pull together a business plan for them. I also do their financial projections. If they need a loan or if they need to apply for a grant, I help with that. I help them establish their business from finding the name and logo to when they’re ready to go public. I manage their social media platforms,” she says.

Through most of 2020 Dogba did all of that and more in addition to her full-time job with the state.

“I was so overwhelmed. In December, I decided to end that 9-to-5 and go full-time as an entrepreneur. And I won’t go back. I enjoy doing this too much.”

Business Seals Consulting, at 7200 South 84th Street, is now the fulcrum of her entrepreneurial life. She likes nothing more than connecting people with resources. “I connect clients to banks for loans or to the SBA for grants.” She also refers clients to the Nebraska Enterprise Fund.

Dogba concurs with Clark that resources for aspiring and emerging women entrepreneurs are much more plentiful today than they used to be. Dogba points out that free business counseling services, training workshops and mentors are available, for example, through SCORE.

“They’ll hold your hand and walk you through everything you need to understand when it comes to financial statements and how to shift into an entrepreneur mindset.”

Mind Over Matter

Adopting that positive mindset that Dogba and Clark both talk about is, as they see it, a necessary transformation any new business owner must make.

“It’s very important,” Dogba said, “because it all starts from there. You cannot think like you used to think. You have to be ready, you have to be aware of who you are, you have to know your strengths and your flaws, you have to know what emotional intelligence is in order to deal with customers and vendors.”

It’s all about helping clients grow into effective entrepreneurs.

“As they grow, it’s easier to grow and build up their business,” she said. “They’re ready for any challenges out there because as an entrepreneur you face challenges. You have to put yourself out there. If you’re weak in some area, then you have to hire your weaknesses. In order to hire your weakness, you need funding, and most startup entrepreneurs don’t have that funding. So you do the job yourself. That’s where mindset is very important. You have to overcome your fears and reach out to people.”

Dogba knows the drill having willed herself to leave her comfort zone in search of advice. She’s learned to ask questions, seek connections, apply for funds. That networking has paid dividends in terms of new resources and opportunities. “Now I just do it as a rule. I put myself out there.”

She believes in taking the initiative, not taking no for an answer and not asking permission. She uses LinkedIn as a platform for making direct contact with stakeholders. “I don’t like gatekeepers. I’d rather talk to decision-makers to get what I want.”

Assertiveness is an asset. “What I tell myself and what I tell my sister entrepreneurs is don’t let challenges block you from moving to the next step. Challenges are there for us to overcome.”

Dogba’s its-all-in-the-way-you-look-at-things playbook is filled with her own experiences. She often uses herself as an example of how to turn adversity into opportunity.

“I love crises. I love challenges because they help me grow. They help me get closer to my objectives. They help lead me to new knowledge, wisdom, success, money. Again, it’s all about mindset, and the highest form of leadership is being able to lead yourself.”

She partners with Operation Hope, which offers financial wellness programs, financial literacy training and incubator grants, to give clients whatever boost they need to jumpstart or improve their business.

“These are essential things we women need. Once we have those tools, once we have those fundamentals, we are set for success.”

Mentors

Working in Children and Family Services gave her a new perspective on women who have their kids taken away by the state, often due to complex circumstances beyond their control. Instead of discarding or dismissing them as throwaway women, as society often does, she sees their value and potential. Some are her clients.

“I came to realize these women have skills, passion, talent. They just need somebody to be there like a coach to get them access to resources and help them with whatever challenges are going on in their life. Then they can become successful. They just need a mentor to be there to hold their hand and set them up for success.”

Dogba knows from first-hand experience the power of having a mentor in her life. BC Clark has served that role for her. “She put me on the right path. When I started three years ago she was there. She helped me get my first small business loan of $5,000. She incorporated my LLC.” Dogba also gets pointers from her business coach, Tim Clark, a local serial entrepreneur.

Now that Dogba has blossomed as an entrepreneur, she’s no longer holding herself back. She recently received a $10,000 small business grant from the Verizon-sponsored Local Initiatives Support Corporation. She’s applied for another grant through Visa.

She promotes grant, workshop and coaching opportunities through her YouTube podcast, Meet An Entrepreneur where she interviews local entrepreneurs such as Martine Quartey about their success stories.

She remains close to her heritage through various activities. She served as operations director for the Leadership Africa Summit. She owns Talents of Africa in the Midwest, which promotes art and crafts by African women. Her Business Seals Consulting was recently inducted into the Midlands African Chamber.

Dogba notes growing recognition for the capabilities of women to lead and to succeed in business. As women are getting more opportunities to show what they can do as executives and entrepreneurs, she said, more doors and resources are opening up.

“Women tend to excel in certain positions in corporate America,” she said. “Their leadership and success in these roles is encouraging nonprofits and lenders to invest in them. It’s very motivating when you see other women succeeding. At some point you have no other option, you have no other choice than just taking that leap of faith.”

Rather than waiting to be invited or asked to assume leadership positions, she said women are often best served by openly pursuing such roles. By showing themselves strong and capable enough to lead, women give hiring committees, boards or investors little choice but to see their value. But to get to that place, women must overcome doubts and put themselves out there.

Echoing Clark, she believes fear can paralyze someone from ever making the leap, whether internally within a company and organization or flying solo with her own business venture. Once you come to terms with the fact that failure is part of the process, she said, then you are set free.

“I failed so many times, but one thing about me is that I’m a learner,” Dogba said. “I don’t look at my failures strictly as failures but as learning opportunities to learn new tools, new resources. It’s a toolbox for me. When I fail in some area, then I go for the education, for the knowledge, and once I have it that’s another tool I’m adding to the toolbox. As I’m getting more experience and gaining access to more resources, I can share it with others.”

No one hits the ground running as a full-fledged entrepreneur, she said. Instead, it’s a process. Finding allies to network with as part of your personal-professional support system can ease the bumps in the roads that come with it.

“Women see your struggles in an area and they offer a helping hand and I see other women’s struggles and I’m able to coach them or refer them to someone else who can help. We are all together. It’s a sisterhood. We are using one another’s services. We are keeping the wealth circulating among ourselves. It’s a beautiful thing to support each other as women, and that’s very powerful. We empower one another that way.”