Entrepreneurship
(continued)
Building the Business
She took classes to learn ways to
ensure growth for her business and
increased her networking presence to
attract more clients. The turning point
came in 2010, when Berry signed a
contract with the “potential of a million dollars.” She had already opened
a satellite office in South Carolina in
2008 and another in Washington, D.C.,
to win more federal contracts, and hired
an assistant and an operations person
six years ago. “The operations person is
really my second hand. She does all the
behind-the-scenes work,” Berry says.
“Most of the business development is
still done by me, [but] this is working
until we grow to the next level.”
Berry’s staff also includes two fulltime employees and a team of diversity
consultants with specialized expertise
in fields including healthcare and human resources. Her consultants are
hand-picked and draw upon deep
industry knowledge to help ensure her
clients’ success. She also expanded her
company’s programs and services to
include human resources, consulting,
staffing, and online courses. “We had the
training aspect already and added work
placement and the business learning for
contracts we obtained with several uni-
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5/12
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May/June 2013
MBE
versities, which we still have as clients,”
Berry says.
Berry usually requires a retainer from
clients. “We have set fees for training,
which is based on the type of training we
are developing, and for job placement,
we get a set percentage of their salary.”
McPherson, Berry and Associates’
organizational structure consists of two
divisions: ONboard Talent and BLeU.
ONboard Talent offers the support
needed to bring the right talent to
administrative and human resources
positions, and BLeU i ́