(bright upbeat music) - [Presenter 1] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) - [Presenter 2] It's Your Business, with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE, PBS and the Center for Rural Innovation.

With funding provided by, the Economic Development Administration through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Stability Act.

This series was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech University Center for rural innovation through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Stability Act.

- Welcome to "It's your business."

I'm your host, Michael Aikens.

February is black history month and in honor of this, we've decided to shine the light on a few black entrepreneurs and business owners making history right here in the Upper Cumberland.

On today's episode, we'll be highlighting two black owned businesses and hearing their stories.

While both businesses are unique in their own way, both have chosen to actively foster and encourage a culture of diversity in their fields.

We've chosen to highlight black owned businesses in order to support them and encourage you, our viewers to support them as well.

Promoting diversity and inclusion in the Upper Cumberland small business world starts with every single one of us and by doing so, we ensure a more equal and just society moving forward.

So let's get started.

(bright upbeat music) Barber shops have always been a place where community comes together.

And Terrence Paige, owner of Cultured Image Grooming Studio has embraced that legacy while making his own along the way.

I sat down with Terrence in his shop and listened to his story.

We talked about the history of black owned businesses in Cookeville, representation in community leadership, the many roles of barbers and his ambitious visions of the future.

(bright upbeat music) Down here with Terrence Paige, Cultured Image Grooming Studio, owner and founder, Terrence, thank you so much for being on the show.

- Thank you, Michael, thank you.

- So tell me, who is Terrance and what is Cultured Image?

- Terrorist Paige at this particular point is a 35 year old growing man, evolving man, born and raised in Cookeville, Tennessee, single parent and I'm just coming into my... Coming into what the good Lord has blessed me to be and knew I had potential to be.

- What is Cultured Image?

Tell us about the business, but also why is it so unique?

- Cultured Image is a grooming studio, for those that don't know what agreement studio is, it's a barbershop.

We service... We're a diverse barbershop.

I think a lot of times people are thrown off by the word cultured, especially those that know Terrence.

They're thrown off by what a lot of society is putting out to today and that has nothing to do with what cultured image is.

The definition of cultured is, refined by good tastes, good manner and good education.

And so that's who Terrance is.

I'm refining myself, educating myself and learning how to rebrand and re-image myself to society.

- How do you think that that, how do you think that that transitions over to your customers?

- We're more than barbers.

Like I said, we just so happen to cut hair.

We're barbers, we're psychiatrists, were physicians, were mentors.

The history of a barber, the stripes have meaning, bloodletting, teeth pulling.

So we're more than barbers.

We do more than cut hair with these individuals that we see every day.

They become our family.

- Let me take you back to your childhood Terrence.

So here you are 35, Terence, you've got Cultured Image.

When you were a kid, did you know that this was what you wanted to do?

(laughter) - No, no.

I was a pretty good kid, until all of us, we hit our teenage years.

There was some things that happened in my childhood that I didn't understand how to process, what to deal with, which goes into cultured, being redefined.

You get to middle school, that's when life started presenting some things to me that I had no business being exposed to and coming from poverty, at that particular point a lot of people here didn't think poverty existed but, poverty is not just an economical standpoint.

Poverty is a mindset too and when you're in poverty in the mindset, it can be more impactful than being in poverty from an economical sense of things.

Because when you're in an economical sense of poverty you do what you have to do to survive which is why a lot of these cities have the crime rate, the violence, a lot of stuff that comes with that.

But when you're in a place like Cookeville and your in the mindset of poverty, you're stuck.

You don't have no dreams.

You don't have no visions.

You got to excuse me because-- - That's from the heart.

(sobbing silently) - I feel that's why this culture is like it is and that's why this world is like it is.

'Cause a lot of people don't understand that.

But a lot of people aren't open to the discussion to understand.

There's so many parts that have to be unfolded in that discussion.

For so many years, Michael the discussion has been swept under the rug.

A lot of people aren't willing to face that pain and so that's where my story got real man.

Like I said, it's so much, it's so much.

- So you've got this, you've got this experience, you've got this mindset clearly that's changed along the way.

You've learned things, you've grown.

Did you find mentors?

Did you find leaders?

How did you get to this point to where you're at now?

- I had some mentors locally.

Some well-known mentors, Mark Burnett thank God for Mark Burnett, the Burnett family and everything that comes with the Burnett family.

If it wasn't for the Burnett family, I don't know that you would see Cultured Image if it wasn't for the Burnett family.

Because the Burnett family exposed me to a lot that I knew I would never see.

Moore Serby, another very influential person from my community.

For this community.

So I had local mentors, but my real mentorship didn't come until I had to move away, to rebrand myself rehabilitate myself, reposition myself in life and that's where I came in to the barbering.

My first stop, was Blue Raider barbershop in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, that was owned by a pastor that had to reposition his life.

So that's where that side of the mentorship came.

My spiritual mother came from the same barbershop.

The story is funny because, I'm two weeks in and the phone rings and this woman's on the other end of the phone and she's, "I'm looking to speak to the owner."

Well, he's not here, he wasn't there.

Come to find out, she was a barber looking to employ herself and I'm like, I can't let her talk to him.

I'm just now getting my feet wet, there's no way.

So I tried to roadblock that.

Come to find out, that woman has been the most influential person in my life.

She's what's gotten me to where I'm at.

I was blessed to go to a predominantly Caucasian shop.

I learned a lot there.

And then he got me with some other individuals that were very very rooted in the native black culture.

So I had some great mentors along the way to get to where I'm at.

- So you've got your mentors, your down in Murfreesboro, you learning you've got your client base, you're building up but then you've come back here and started the barbershop.

Why Cookeville?

Why the Upper Cumberland - I didn't come back, God call me back.

- Okay.

- And if I'm just being honest, I did not wanna come back because I knew what I was coming back to 'cause I knew what I had left.

I reached out to some people that were already in the position and he said, "no, that's not it, I got your own vision."

Okay God, what is it?

"Here It is."

Okay God, what's the name?

Because I wanted to make sure I was moved and led to do everything.

And I said God, I need you to give me a name for my barbershop.

I'm days away from opening it and I don't have a name.

I'm days away from calling the state and I don't have a name.

"Cultured."

I type in Google the definition of cultured.

Refined by good tastes, good manner and good... Oh, that's it.

Got it.

Cultured what?

Cultured barbershop don't sound good.

Michael the whole way to Murfreesboro I kept saying, cultured image, cultured image, cultured image.

What does it look like to say cultured image, cultured image, cultured image.

Redefined by good tastes, good manner and good education, image.

That's it?

That's my story.

That's it?

That's where I'm at.

- So you're back home, you've got your name, you're excited, you're inspired, you've got this, you open up and then boom, pandemic hits.

(laughter) - Michael with all... God is so good because, I wasn't scared.

Was I comfortable?

No.

I hadn't envisioned this, moving from the location to here.

All that was God orchestrated.

I had one of my clients a couple of weeks ago.

He said man, he's good with numbers.

He asked me Terrence, so what are your numbers?

And I told him, he looked at me.

Do you understand what you just told me?

I was like, no, not really.

He was like man, you literally tripled during the pandemic.

I hate the pandemic happened, I hate the pandemic happened.

This has been one of the best years of my life.

And I think that God is, God is sprouting up His people right now.

He's sprouting up His people and a lot of people are going to see this and they're going to be like, how dare?

They don't know what God's doing in my life.

Who are we to judge?

- So you've mentioned many times about influence.

You talk about leadership.

I also wanna know, what does it mean to you from a perspective of minority ownership representation.

What does that mean to you?

- Growing up I didn't see minority owned businesses.

I didn't see black owned businesses.

The only black owned business I seen, You can see it in the shot here, you've seen it.

That's why it's by my station because that's why that place means so much to me.

That's a tri-fold question because I get excited when I see it, I get angered when I see it but I also get moved and motivated when I see it.

To be a minority owned black owned business here in Cookeville, Tennessee, being able to serve the Upper Cumberland, minority owned business in Upper Cumberland means a lot.

But to me it's more than the Upper Cumberland.

Again, like I said, I'm just the piece.

I'm the piece.

It's not about me.

It just involves me.

I'm the piece, I've always said, Cookeville is a place that can change the world.

We have to change the people of Cookeville in the Upper Cumberland first, but we can change the world right here.

These people are great people.

Such loving people come from here.

We gotta change their mindset, open their eyes and change their mindset.

- Terrence, this is clearly more than just your business.

I wanna thank you so much for being on the show.

I've learned a lot today, I hope the viewers have too.

(bright upbeat music) Thrive Family Fun Center, located in Cookeville, is the spot for family oriented entertainment.

With indoor trampoline rooms, arcade games, private party rooms, ball pits and a rock climbing wall.

There's something for everyone.

Business partners Daisy and Maurice realized the vision for an all in one family entertainment center and brought their business to Cookeville last year.

I spoke with them at their business and asked them about their entrepreneurial journey.

(bright upbeat music) I'm here at Thrive Family Fun Center with Daisy and Maurice.

Thank you all so much for being on the show.

- [Both Respond] Thanks for having us.

- So tell us more about your all's business.

- Thrive Family Fun Center is basically a fun place for the whole family to go.

We have something for every age from zero to 80.

We have trampolines, arcade, we have jelly ball, we have Nerf Wars and we have a climbing wall.

- What's really important right now is keeping the family healthy and safe, but also active.

What is your all's role in the community to keeping families active?

- A lot of kids being inside and just only going to school and coming home is still a challenge just basically on the social aspect of things and just being able to get out and still have fun and do those things with your family, I think is important.

'Cause sitting at home even though you're playing board games, you're not getting the exercise that you need and I think it can definitely stress some parents out also.

- So you are in Cookeville but I understand that's not where you all started out.

Can you tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey?

- We started with just a thought.

It was like, "hey, we should do something for our kids" and we traveled around and we went from trampoline park, to trampoline park and when given an opportunity to own one in Nashville, the light bulb popped, like hey, we can go there, learn the business and then move the business to create that niche in this area.

So that's something that I felt like we needed here.

The kids don't have anything or didn't have anything to really do.

- So you come to the Upper Cumberland, you saw the niche opportunity.

What's been the reaction so far?

- So far it's been pretty good.

Prior to COVID was very well and now that COVID has not necessarily died down, but at least the people in the community feel more comfortable, they're able to come out more and people booking birthday parties now.

We still have customers that come in and wear masks and that's perfectly fine but with us fogging and sanitizing throughout I really feel like the community is gonna help support us and keep us open.

- Now, you all had a really interesting experience with COVID.

You all started I believe, during the pandemic what was that experience like?

- We actually started at about three weeks before the pandemic hit and it went from amazing, the flood Gates opened, there was so many people here to just everywhere was closed down and it hit everybody, mostly the the entertainment business, it wasn't safe to be out and what we've tried to do now is just create a safe environment and that's what she mentioned about fogging, we have our employees wear masks and things like that just to keep our families safe.

- So you're following those safety protocols, from an entrepreneurial's perspective, what do you all think you learned throughout the pandemic?

- We definitely depend on our community to keep us going.

It doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank to run a business, if the community doesn't come, it's not going to make a difference.

A lot of trampoline parks have went out of business.

We was originally Sky High Sports.

So now there's only one store standing in the franchise, which is no longer a franchise, mainly because all the stores closed, the corporate office closed.

Now we know it doesn't matter really about how much you build it up.

If you can't keep customers safe, our business can go tomorrow.

So providing them that safety is really what's gonna be what makes or breaks us.

- Well, you mentioned challenges earlier, with the pandemic of course but also entrepreneurship has inherent challenges with it, it has inherent risks.

How are you all balancing all this between your personal and your business lives?

- I would say prayer.

(laughter) - That's a hard question, yeah, yeah prayer.

Prayer is powerful.

You have your sanity point and the point in which you try to bring both of those things together and sometimes business kind of...

It oversteps it's boundaries with the family life and you just got to... You have to step back and you have to depend on Him, you have to pray.

- So let's talk a little bit more about community.

Obviously, you said earlier that the community has really helped support you all and I know that you all are a family oriented place.

You've got things for all people, all families here.

How do you think that the importance of diversity and inclusion play a role in your all's business?

- It's very important that we stay diverse throughout our staff.

We try to give everybody a chance.

We do have a few employees that have tried getting jobs but they weren't given a chance.

It was you work here you clean, or you don't work here.

Just because it's important to know that, it's a challenge already being minorities and if you look at our staff, we are majority of minorities.

When I say minorities, that's women, Latino, given those that normally don't get that chance right off the bat to be able to step into a role that they can fulfill and grow in.

- In the Upper Cumberland typically, we don't have a lot of diversity here.

What recommendations would you give to other business owners to help minorities and African-Americans get those opportunities just like you all have given your employees?

- I would say accept the challenge.

It's gonna be challenges, you just have to learn to accept them and learn to jump over the hurdle.

It took us having to go to Nashville, that was the biggest hurdle was, we can't do it 'cause we didn't have the experience and the knowledge and the management, although we have the schooling and management from other places.

So it took us going to Nashville to purchase a business to learn how to run it, to bring it all the way back to Cookeville and we learned a lot.

Yes, we were upset, like we don't get it.

It's the same amount of money, whether we're here or there but we accepted the challenge and we went for it.

- I like to say there's no one mind or one mindset.

So being diverse just allows you to be...

It allows you as a person to be diverse.

It allows you to think outside the box.

You may be making it now, but imagine what you could be doing or how you could be doing if you thought this way or that way and not just had a one track mind and you had multiple minds thinking the same thing but different ways.

- One thing that a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize is you've got to have a solid business plan.

Can you tell me a little bit more about maybe how you developed it and what iterations that went through?

- It took a lot of paper.

- Oh yeah.

- A lot of paper.

- A lot of drafts.

- There's a lot of drawing board.

There's a lot of cut, edit, no, not going to work.

Looks good on paper, is it feasible?

Ball it up, start it over.

We did that for years.

- We started our business plan writing it in 2015.

And we even went over to the SBDC over at tech and they were like, this is a great idea but what are you gonna do?

What are you offering?

And then even after a drawing our draft and showing it to them, they were like, we don't really know what it is so I don't know how we can help.

So it just took us to a lot of revisions, going to different banks, them telling us no and us saying, okay, what is it that you don't like and then they, a lot of them say, we don't know.

But after we started looking at some banks in California that does nothing but family entertainment loans, it took going to them with a business plan and them saying, hey, this is a great plan.

We don't know about your area and we got turned down from that.

That's what brought us back to okay, a local bank.

- What does the future hold for you all's business?

- We're gonna route in, keep prospering and keep thriving.

Come in to our family fun center, www.thrivecookeville.com.

We're open seven days a week.

Come see us.

- Thank you all so much for being on the show and I got to ask you one last thing.

Can I jump on the trampoline?

- Yes.

(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - Impact is the hub of diversity in the area.

It is a diversity and inclusion organization, where we focus on helping the minorities in the area whether it be black, Asian, Indian that's the goal, is that we allow them and give them access through education, empowerment, and equity.

Impact over the past few years, we have really changed the way we do things.

Our first 10 years was really focused on the black African-American man, having a small group of... A safe place to talk.

We started doing things like, Juneteenth, having the events, like the Impact Honors Banquet, but over the last two years, the one thing that we really noticed was we have to start developing these relationships in the community.

We can start gaining access to things.

We immediately jumped on the education route and we have a mentorship program.

We realized there's a need for help in the black business community and the one thing that Impact has is that, we're the hub for diversity.

That's what we do.

So we do have the access because we're having these conversations on a regular basis.

We do have a list of black owned businesses on our website but the main thing that we're gonna be doing is promotion.

Promoting, promoting, promoting.

How do we drive traffic to these black owned businesses?

So we can start seeing if it's been quantifiable data that what we're doing is the right thing to do.

I really, really believe that learning is in by the practice.

When you're doing the work, you're learning the most and you can expand, you can grow.

So promotion for Impact is what we're gonna focus on the most.

We are working with the Chamber of Commerce because they are the center of commerce for our area.

It's a great group of people but we're gonna try to see if we can highlight black owned and other minority businesses in there as well with the Chamber of Commerce.

We always wanna say a diverse community will perform better and you're gonna get some new products and services that would not be around if there wasn't a diverse person doing it.

I think it strengthens the community.

It creates this area where you can go spend money and share experiences.

It's just a place where you can learn about what drives other cultures.

And part of the other part of that is, access.

You have to be able to form relationships and partnerships within this community.

Business is like the hub.

That's the place you go to meet people, you do business deals, you do business relationships.

The black businesses not only is a good place for for monetary gain or wealth generation but it's real place or a comfort.

We can go and get things done by people who understand your physical needs and even your emotional needs.

Another part of that is servitude.

Now we've got to develop a culture of business and financial acumen and we can't do that unless we're in front of someone who has the business that we can relate to.

I think the issue is for us a lot of African-Americans or a lot of other minorities too is just that we don't have the experience with our other families, we don't see other businesses like us that are doing it well.

So for one person to leave this area of being comfortable, it's extremely risky and scary to jump into this world of I wanna be a business owner and be an entrepreneur.

I think the opportunity is there.

I know for sure, in this area in Putnam County, in middle Tennessee that there's a lot of people out there who wanna help us.

For instance, this group right here is letting us talk about the businesses but the inside piece of what we got to fix.

The confidence and the know how and the experience.

I do feel like we have a challenge in networking.

We tend to do business with people that are like us.

And really in this area the minority population is so small which is also a fear.

If I create a black owned business, if I have enough of the people in the community that's gonna support me, that's gonna come in and be part of my culture for a little bit.

The networking piece is important where you have to build these relationships that we've talked about earlier, the resources.

I think a lot of people think it takes a lot of money to become a business owner.

That's not necessarily true.

It's a myth.

But when you don't see other people like you doing it, it's scary.

It's daunting.

I don't think it's the opportunity, I think it's knowing where the access is.

We have a very limited scope of what we think business is.

So we have the barber shops, we have the restaurants, we have some businesses that are entertainment but how many black doctors do you see?

How many black real estate agents do you see?

How many black dentists you see?

How many black construction companies do you see?

How many black CEOs do you see?

How many black banks do you see?

The conversation that I think is gonna start to inspire people, that they can think beyond the small business group, to start thinking about corporations, that kind of mentality.

Impactcookeville.com is our website.

There's a link on there for if you want to drop off notes, you can send us an email, you can call us, but listen, we live in a small town.

Everybody knows everybody.

You just make an effort to reach out to us and you can get connected pretty easily.

- Thanks for tuning in to "It's Your Business."

For more information on today's topics small business resources and extended interviews, please visit the WCTE website.

Until next time, I'm Michael Aikens.

(bright upbeat music) (soft music) - [Presenter 2] It's Your Business, with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE, PBS and the Center for Rural Innovation.

With funding provided by the Economic Development Administration through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Stability Act.

This series was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech University Center for rural innovation through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Stability Act.

(bright upbeat music) - [Presenter 1] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.