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Dr. Cameka Smith is a leader, a teacher, an ordained minister, and a certified BOSS. And she believes that it’s time for more Black women to step into their era of success, connect with each other, and start businesses of their own.
“I had always been an entrepreneur. Since high school, [I was] selling candy, doing hair and nails when I was in college, anything I could to make extra money. I was always very entrepreneurial,” Smith tells ELV8. “I was so good at bringing people together naturally, I saw myself as a successful woman and I wanted to build a community of women to support me so that we can learn together and build together.”
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The Chicago native began her career in education and event planning and that’s where she thought she’d retire. Then, in 2009, like so many other professionals during the Great Recession, she was laid off. But instead of panicking, Smith decided to pivot.
“When I got laid off it was a wake up call,” she recalls. “Whoa! I paid all this money to go to college and this is the outcome? This isn’t what I signed up for! I had two degrees and I always thought I was going to build my events company on the side and I’ll still have my career, I’d just do both. But God had other plans. I never went back to work.”
Smith started putting together events for Black women to network and collaborate. Thus, the BOSS Network was born. Standing for Bringing Out Successful Sisters, The BOSS Network is an online community of professional and entrepreneurial women who support each other through digital content, programs, and event-based networking. What started out as a series of networking events has grown into an online community withs over 200,000 female members, has trained over 50,000 women in the last 15 years, has coached and mentored 10,000 women and invested in 100 Black female founders. Boasting high profile members as well as beginner business owners, the BOSS Network is for Black women who are ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship.
“The BOSS Network is for everybody,” Smith says. “I encourage women to find your tribe and they can find that in The Boss Network. There’s no other community that has done what we’ve done. When [Black women] come together there’s nothing that we can’t do.”
Tips to Become a Successful Business Owner
Combining her faith in her business with her faith in God, Smith was able to reach entrepreneurial success and she’s bringing other Black women up with her. Take it from a boss, Dr. Cameka Smith has all the know-how and advice Black women need to jumpstart your business journey and take the first step toward becoming your own boss.
Step 1: Build You Business By Building Confidence
To start any good business, you have to, well… start! But that can sometimes be the hardest part. Dr. Smith advises all future bosses to overcome their fear of not being enough and do the thing that fires them up, even if that means doing it scared.
“Fake it til you make it doesn’t mean you’re fake. You have to see yourself as yourself before yourself,” she says. “Those that show up go up and when you show up, you will start to feel like you belong because God isn’t going to put you somewhere you don’t belong. You’re in the room because God put you in the room”
Comparison is the easiest way to diminish your confidence but Smith reminds us to stay on the path and listen to your gut.
“People will try to tell you what you gotta do, even people that you respect but you’ve got to trust your vision,” she says. “Knowing yourself is so important, it takes off so much pressure. You gotta do a deep dive into self. Once you know who you are and whose you are, you can have peace.”
Step 2: Believe Like A BOSS
For Cameka Smith, entrepreneurship and faith go hand-in-hand. You have to have faith in yourself and in your higher power.
“We built this amazing community over the years and my faith has always been at the head of it,” Smith explains. “God gave me the vision, and then I used that to manifest this brand that now reaches over 20,000 women. God would not birth anything inside of you that he did not give you the tools to deliver. That is my belief.”
Every good business starts with a good business idea and Cameka Smith knows that can come from God, too. She suggests taking the time to get clear on your desires and listen to how God answers your prayers.
“You have to recognize did [your idea] come from you or did it come from God? You need to have an opportunity to sit in quiet and get that vision, to get those downloads. You have to unplug, you have to get off social media, you gotta get off the phone. when you’re in that space and you’re able to reflect. you know that it’s been with you all along. When you dream about it, you can’t stop thinking about it, that’s how you know it’s from God. And when you have that, you cannot fail.”
Step 3: Take A Break!
Smith has three “R’s” for business success: Relationships, Research, and Revenue. But… there’s a secret fourth “R” that may make the difference between success and failure.
“Rest. You can get burned out so easily, you can stop loving what you thought you loved so quickly when you’re tired and you’re restless, stress is the number one killer in this country,” Smith reminds us. “I’ve seen a lot of my peers die from sickness or commit suicide building these brands, Black women! And I know from my own personal experience a lot of that is pressure from the world and wanting to seem so successful and comparing yourself to others. You have to know when you need to be in a season of rest and when you need to hustle.”
Step 4: Learn to Be a Student
Nobody is an entrepreneur as an expert. Even Dr. Smith had to learn along the way. After half a decade as a teacher, she was more than willing to be a student and learn how to grow her business.
“I went on this journey to learn about being successful in small business. Talking to different entrepreneurs that I met through family and friends and I was very intrigued,” Smith says. “I just learned from scratch. I had to go through all the challenges and the failures so I can share with others and inspire them.”
Now she is taking all the knowledge she’s gained over the last 15 years and passing it on to future Black women business owners.
“We launched the BOSS Network University which is our curriculum, instructional university to teach women how to have successful businesses which can scale. Then we launched the BOSS Impact Fund in 2021 because we knew the number one reason why Black women’s businesses were failing was [lack of] funding. We raised two million dollars with the fund in one year and we invested in 100 black women owned businesses.”
Step 5: Plan for the Future
The BOSS Network is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year and Smith is already planning for the next 15 years.
“We’re celebrating our anniversary and we’ll have a virtual conference to end it on Novemeber 16, our Ladies That Lead conference,” she shares. “My goal and vision for the future is to train a hundred thousand women within the next five years with boss biz university and still using our impact fund but more in a pitch competition way.”
No matter where the future leads The BOSS Network, the impact is already being felt worldwide. Dr. Cameka Smith is just getting started building the confidence and business of Black women all over the globe and doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
“I started BOSS because I wanted to empower women to believe in themselves. It’s just a wonderful thing to get a vision and then be able to see it through,” she says. “This is my calling, this is what I do, I want to help women feel their best. I feel so blessed and honored to be the leader of this community.”
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